Campaigns on the Home Front: Norwegian-American Farmers and Workers Mobilized for War

Abstract

52 Campaigns on the Home Front N O RW EG I AN -­AMERICA N FA RMERS A ND WO R K ER S MOB ILIZED FOR WA R Ann Marie Legreid “ But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States, every man, woman, and child . . . is in action. That front is right here at home.”1 —­ president franklin d. roosevelt, 1942 Norwegians and Norwegian Americans were united as never before by the ideals of liberty in the wake of the Nazi invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940. The free world and its basic human freedoms were at stake. The citizens of Stoughton, Wisconsin, were “outraged” at the “ruthless invasion of Norway” which had “all the earmarks of piracy.”2 Sunday, April 21, 1940, was declared a day of prayer for the people of Norway and their royal family by Norwegian Lutheran congregations across America. Norwegian Americans incorporated American Relief for Norway within ten days of the Nazi invasion. The Nazi occupation (1940–­ 1945) generated 53 campaigns on the home front both sympathy and support for the Norwegian people among Norwegian Americans . Norwegian Americans were intimately and passionately involved in wartime efforts on the home front and on the frontlines, revealing strong and enduring ties to a beloved motherland. From confusion and despair, a united and determined people emerged with the common cause of liberty. King Haakon, speaking to the Norwegian people in 1940 via radio from Northern Norway on the Norwegian national holiday, the Seventeenth of May, said: “For more than a hundred years this day has united the people of Norway in the idea of liberty and the work of liberty accomplished at Eidsvold, where we all promised one another to defend this country.” The King’s monogram H7 became the symbol of liberty. C. J. Hambro, president of the Norwegian parliament , wrote in the wake of the invasion: “And so the Government urges the whole nation to safeguard the inheritance of freedom, faithful to the great ideas which have carried Norway through the centuries. Long live the fatherland! Long live a free Norway!”3 In 1940 Norwegians in America were heavily concentrated in urban areas and farming communities in the Upper Midwest. Minneapolis and Chicago were the undisputed centers for Norwegian-­ American organizational life. The earliest settlements were planted in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin in the mid-­ nineteenth century. Eventually, colonies emerged across the United States and Canada, in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, the Dakotas , the Canadian prairies, Texas, Washington, California, Vancouver, and New York. The great transatlantic migrations brought more than 900,000 Norwegians to the United States from 1825 to the present day, with 87 percent of them migrating between 1865 and 1930. Thus, connections to the motherland were vibrant and meaningful when war came to Norway in 1940.4 Wartime stresses and strains brought solidarity to Norwegian Americans from all walks of life, heightened their patriotic spirit as Americans, and provided new opportunities for them in areas such as business, industry, and agricultural production. Home-­front campaigns were organized across America by innumerable ethnic, charitable, and community groups. Norwegian Americans, like their ethnic neighbors, joined the home-­ front campaigns in very personal and generous ways. 54 articles Norwegian Americans served alongside their fellow Americans on the battlefield as well. In doing so, they brought heightened visibility in the United States to the plight of the people in occupied Norway.5 In September 1942 President Roosevelt noted the resilience and resistance of the Norwegian people in his famous words to the free world delivered in Washington, D.C., from his open car, with Princess Märtha at his side, “Look to Norway!”6 Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech posited moral obligations that transcended national and ethnic boundaries : freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship. The Four Freedoms were the subject of iconic paintings by Norman Rockwell replicated on calendars and posters and displayed ubiquitously in homes and public places across America. Throughout the war these hung as important visual reminders of the basic freedoms at stake.7 Americans engaged in the war effort fought for the universal values of life, liberty, and...