Icelandic Americans

Iceland is a Nordic European island between the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans that was settled in 874 by Nordic explorers. From the 14th century until the end of World War I, it was controlled by Denmark, becoming independent in 1918. The formation of modern Icelandic national identity began in the 19th century in the lead-up to independence, with a resurgence of interest in native Icelandic culture and language. The first Icelanders in North America founded Vinland, a Norse colony in northern Newfoundland, around 1000 c.e. They were led by Leif Ericson and departed from the Norse colonies on Greenland, which had been founded by Leif's father, Erik the Red. Vinland is attested in the Norse sagas but was not independently confirmed until the 1960s, when the ruins of a Norse settlement were found in rural Newfoundland.

Today there are 42,000 Icelandic Americans, according to the most recently available census information, though the Icelandic Embassy claims the figure is more than twice that high. Some Icelandic immigrants undoubtedly arrived in the early 19th century, or even earlier, in the Revolutionary or colonial periods, and in some cases may have been recorded as Danish immigrants by officials. The first known groups of Icelandic settlers came to the United States in 1854 as part of a small wave of Icelandic immigrants who had converted to the Church of Latter-Day Saints. From the 1850s until the depression of the 1870s, the Icelandic community in Utah grew bit by bit, consisting mainly of skilled workers and farmers.

In the latter third of the 19th century, about 75,000 Icelanders immigrated to North America, but only 15,000 came to the United States; the rest settled in the New Iceland region in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Some of these Icelandic Canadians later relocated to the United States because of internal disputes in New Iceland. Icelandic Americans established communities in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and continued to build up the Icelandic community in Utah. Plans for an Icelandic colony in Alaska, shortly after its acquisition from Russia, never came to fruition.

The Icelandic community in the Dakotas became the largest Icelandic presence in the United States, with a large number of German and Norwegian Americans as well. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, saw the largest growth of an Icelandic population in an urban area. The community in Washington Island, Wisconsin, was the first Icelandic community settled outside of Utah and today boasts one of the largest Icelandic populations outside Iceland. By 1910, there were at least 5,000 Icelandic Americans, but immigration had slowed nearly to a halt. Exact numbers and rates are unavailable, because the census continued to classify Icelanders as Danes until 1930—the figure of 5,000 is based on the number of Americans who reported growing up in a home where [Page 1132]Icelandic was spoken, but in all likelihood, the total must have been somewhat higher.

During World War II, a number of American soldiers were stationed in Iceland, and a small wave of Icelanders immigrated to the United States at the end of the war—local women the soldiers married.

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