Norwegian Americans

Although some Norwegians had settled in North America considerably earlier, especially in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, the era of Norwegian mass migration commenced in the 19th century. The arrival of religious dissenters on the sloop Restauration in 1825 serves as the symbolic starting point of this population movement, but larger numbers of Norwegians did not arrive until the 1840s and especially the end of the Civil War.

During the subsequent decades, emigration from the long-stretched country on Europe's northern periphery, whose agriculture was not overly favored by climatic and geological conditions, increased rapidly. Because of a shortage of tillable land, the continual population growth— swelling the country's population from 883,000 in 1801 to 1.7 million in 1865—could not be absorbed by a still largely preindustrial economy.

The number of arrivals from Norway to the United States peaked at 196,000 immigrants in the 1880s and over 182,000 between 1900 and 1909; but even so, the domestic population continued to expand to over 2.2 million in 1900. World War I and the subsequent U.S. immigration restrictions brought the period of Norwegian mass migration to a fairly abrupt end, however. Although the era's restrictionist movement was not directed primarily against Scandinavians, the National Origins Act in its final form allotted Norway a yearly immigrant quota of only 2,377.

Overall, 815,000 Norwegians were registered as immigrants to the United States in the period from 1820 to 1950. This number puts Norway among the larger countries of origins, which is noteworthy in view of its modest population base and draws attention to the remarkably high ratio of emigration. The relatively low rate of return migration among Norwegians as well as for other Scandinavians, estimated at approximately 15 percent during the early decades of the 20th century, further increased the impact of Norwegians on American society. Especially important to this impact was the regional concentration of the immigrants in select states. Whereas Norwegians only accounted for approximately 2 percent of the era's total immigration, they reached much larger percentages in their areas of concentration.

At its peak in 1910, the number of foreign-born Norwegian Americans reached 404,000, with another 609,000 belonging to the second generation. More than half of them established their residence in only three neighboring states, led by Minnesota with almost 280,000 and followed by Wisconsin and North Dakota with 158,000 and 123,000, respectively; outside the midwest, only the state of Washington approached these levels in relative terms. Because of its lower overall population, North Dakota formed—and forms—the state with the highest concentration of Norwegian Americans. As late as 2000, 30 percent of North Dakotans still reported Norwegian ancestry, followed by 17 percent of Minnesotans.

In this upper-midwestern heartland, Norwegian Americans created an impressive infrastructure of religious, cultural, and social institutions, including a vibrant press. Although some Norwegians belonged or converted to other denominations, the vast majority joined Lutheran congregations. Many of these congregations were established along ethnic lines and developed into larger Norwegian American religious bodies. These churches not only served as expressions of Norwegian cultural life in their own right but also founded a variety of additional institutions, especially in the educational sector. Well-known midwestern liberal arts colleges such as St. Olaf College in southern Minnesota and Luther College in northern Iowa trace their traditions to early Norwegian ecclesial bodies.

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