by Concordia College students in History 112HU, Fall 2016
Olsen Family House, New Sweden, Minnesota
During the nineteenth century America witnessed fundamental changes. Industrialization, consumerism, technological achievements, mass immigration but also slavery and the Civil War were only some of the major events that shaped the country. Society and culture shifted from agricultural and rural, to industrialized and urbanized. The constant mass of immigrants arriving on the shores day to day were a huge influence, not only socially, but also culturally, politically and economically. Due to either devastating and desperate conditions caused by population growth, depressions, famines, revolution and religious persecution, or the desire of adventure and exploration, many Europeans, mainly Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians, left their home in the hope of a better future. Immigration from Europe to the United States continuously increased in the nineteenth century. Many people from Scandinavian countries left their homes behind to start a new life in America, a place about which many only had a vague idea of what to expect. In the 1860s over 71,000 Norwegians left their home country, and in the 1870s, over 95,000. The number of Norwegian immigrants continued to increase until the early twentieth century.[1]
This was also the case for Mathias Olson who came with his family from Norway to the New World in 1865. Unable to find work in Lillehammer, he decided to make a start in America. Thirty years later, Carl Olson, Mathias’ son, bought land in rural Minnesota, which was originally made available through the Homestead Act in 1862. There he built a home for his family. Since then four generations of his family have lived in the house, each leaving their footprint on it by slightly or greatly changing the house’s look.
Norwegian Immigration
Norwegians were the second biggest group after the Irish, who immigrated to the United States. The first ship that brought immigrants from Norway to America set off to the New World in July 1825.[2] Although, for those who stayed in Europe, “many things in America seemed bizarre,”[3] letters and recollections from early immigrants raving to their families back at home about their new lives, often changed Europeans’ views of America. This was the case for Andreas Ueland, a young boy who did not have many prospects in Norway after his father’s death, and who decided to go to America after being infected with the “American fever.” In his recollections, he remembered:
A common observation that can be made with the Norwegian settlers is that they often stayed together in a community and new Norwegian immigrants tended to join them.[5] The major reason for that was most likely the language. In a new country with an unfamiliar language, after an oftentimes difficult sea journey, it was very nice to be surrounded and welcomed by people who understood you and your background.A farmer from Houston County, Minnesota, returned on a visit the winter of ’70-’71. He infected half the population in that district with what was called the American fever, and I who was then the most susceptible caught the fever in its most virulent form. No more amusement of any kind, only brooding on how to get away to America.[4]
This effect was not restricted to Norwegian immigrants. It can also be seen with immigrants from other countries, such as Germany, the Netherlands, or Sweden, whose dominance in some areas can still be seen today. It was not as much the case with Irish immigrants, as they did not struggle with the language barrier. Therefore, farming was a good start as many immigrants already had the skills. Furthermore, farming only necessitated limited communication in English and provided them with a basic living standard. In a study of frontier farming, geographer John Rice points out: “Almost all had been farmers before they came, and each settler brought a set of values, attitudes and habits from his European homeland.”[6]
Another important factor was the Homestead Act of 1862 which it provided people who were willing to migrate westwards 160 acres of public land for free.[7] Many settlers made use of the Act thus “virtually all of the land taken by settlers in the late 1860s was claimed under this act”[8].
The Olsen family
One of the many people who left their home country to seek a better future for himself and his family was Mathias Olsen from Lillehammer, Norway. He had been trained and worked as a painter but due to unemployment and economic struggles[9] and having heard and read about the endless possibilities America offered to immigrants, he decided to leave the country. The family, his wife Martha and six children at that time, arrived in the New World in 1865 where they directly travelled to and settled in St. Peter, Minnesota. Why they chose to go there is unknown, however, it stands to reason that they heard from earlier Norwegian settlers who had settled in this area. Mathias Olsen continued to work as a painter in St. Peter for six years before the family bought land in Lake Prairie, Nicollet county, where they built a house and started to farm the land.[10]
The agricultural passion was shared by their son Carl, who was born in Norway and came with his parents to America while still an infant. In 1896, thirty years after his arrival, he acquired land close to his parents’ home which originally had become available through the Homestead Act of 1862. Building a house in the prairie at a that time, before automobiles were available for the masses and especially rural people were dependent on animal power, was a complicated process. For example the wood had to be shipped from far away, because there was no useable wood in the prairie.[11] The fact that the house was never rebuilt but only added onto and remodeled in over a hundred years speaks for the decent and thoroughly thought through work in the original building of the house at the end of the 19th century. It is a modest wooden house without much ornamentation, but perfectly fit to cater to the needs of a farm house in the prairie facing hot summers and cold winters.
When Carl and his wife Julianne got older, their son Christian took over the farm. Susan Rugh stresses in her entry about rural families in the Midwest that it was usual for the time that “children who inherited the family farm were obligated to care for their aging parents”[12] the Olsens faced the problem of lacking room. To create more space, they built an addition on the east side of the house in September 1929. Unfortunately, the investment was made one month before the American stock market crashed and engulfed the country in the Great Depression crisis. This also led to a long period of financial hardship for the Olsen family. Nevertheless, they were able to keep the farm running. Two factors might have contributed to that. First, with the Great Depression many people lost their jobs and were desperately looking for employment. This applied to urban workers as well as rural ones. During the time, many so-called itinerant laborers were wandering from town to town, trying to find some work in exchange for board and room. The Olsens hired a few itinerant workers during the depression time who also lived in the house, which meant that there were at least ten people sharing the space.
The outbreak of the second World War, ten years later, posed a problem for many farmers as they oftentimes faced serious shortage of especially male laborers. However, due to health issues or because they were too young or old, none of the Olsen family members went overseas but were able to continue their work on the farm and keep it running. By 1942 they farmed twenty crops.
Another investment in the future was the installment of electricity around 1940 which replaced the Petro light system they had before.[13] The Olsens were not the only ones to install electricity, due to the Rural Electrification Administration which was established in 1935 within the context of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program and resulted in the electrification of 95% of Midwest farms in 1954.[14] Today the house shows modern technology elements, such as satellite antenna and lightning rod on the roof.
The farm was a working dairy until 1971, when the then owner Julian Olsen was no longer able to manage the work of the crop farming and caring for the cattle after his own after his father, Christian, had a completely debilitating stroke the previous year[15]. A few animals are still living on the farm but more for family resource than profit. Nevertheless, due to various reasons the number of farms has not had dropped constantly since the 1940s.[16] From the aerial perspective, which you can see in the header, it is visible that many of the original farm buildings like stables and garages for agricultural equipment, which are no longer standing today. The land is still owned by the family, who rents it out to farmers. An additional house for the older generation was also built as the addition from 1929 is now used as an extended living room and more bedrooms.
Furthermore, the screen porch was transformed into a closed porch and the windows next to the porch were remodeled for practical reasons, namely having a door to the garden. Both changes were made by the present generation in the 2000s. Other smaller, recognizable changes are the chimney, which has been rebuilt, and the color of the exterior siding, which has been repainted from white to green.
Even though it is just a farm house, it does not only tell the story of a family but also the history of the country. The micro-historical perspective allows us to better understand how governmental, economic or cultural changes directly impacted people’s lives. Between the two photos, 92 years have passed during which many changes had occurred, but the spirit of the old days can still be seen and felt.
[1] Kaarin Lillehei-Bakhtiar, “Norwegians,” in American Immigrant Cultures. Builders of a Nation. Vol. 2. K-Z, ed. David Levinson and Melvin Ember (New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997), 657.
[2] Lillehei-Bakhtiar, Norwegians, 636.
[3] Andreas Ueland, Recollections of an Immigrant (New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1929; Library of Congress): 20, https://www.loc.gov/item/29001450/.
[4] Andreas Ueland, Recollections of an Immigrant, 22.
[5] Robert C. Ostergren, “Land and Family in Rural Immigrant Communities” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 71, no. 3 (1981): 400, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2562899.
[6] John G. Rice, “The role of culture and community in frontier prairie farming,” Journal of Historical Geography 3, no. 2 (1977): 155, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305748877902122.
[7] Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel, "The Homestead Act of 1862," Social Education 61, 6 (1997), https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act.
[8] Rice, Role of Culture, 158.
[9] Solveig Langr (great granddaughter of Carl Olsen who presently owns and lives in the house with her family), telephone interview by the author, October 29, 2016.
[10] William G. Gresham, History of Nicollet and LeSueur Counties, Minnesota: their people, industries, and institutions: with biographical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families (Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen, 1916), 48-50.
[11] Solveig Langr, telephone interview.
[12] Susan Session Rugh, "Family and Kinship," in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, and Andrew R. L. Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 1028.
[12] Susan Session Rugh, "Family and Kinship," in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, and Andrew R. L. Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 1028.
[13] Solveig Langr, telephone interview.
[14] Ronald Kline, “Rural Electrification,” in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, and Andrew R. L. Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 1014.
[15] Solveig Langr, telephone interview.
[16] "The Declining Number of Farms 1920-1997," in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, and Andrew R. L. Cayton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 997.