The Norwegian Heritage in Urban America: Conflict and Cooperation in a Norwegian Immigrant Community

Abstract

3 The Norwegian Heritage in Urban America: Conflict and Cooperation in a Norwegian Immigrant Community by Christen T. Jonassen Did you, I wonder, Know the land came with you? Did you sense Norway's irrevocable immanence In bone and blood and mind? Did you perceive that more than you had spanned Ocean and continent - 1 Ted Olsen The cultural heritage that the immigrant brings is intangible and invisible, yet pervasive and real, and often produces dramatically visible cultural products and behavior. It is neatly packaged in a marvel of miniaturization in the brain and expressed in the personality of the immigrant. It is evident in many ways and is far too complex in all its ramifications to be adequately described in this brief article. The author has developed elsewhere the proposition that the principal components of the Norwegian cultural heritage are the Viking, Christian, and scientific-humanistic value systems.2 The Norwegian value system is thus seen as a special synthesis of these three world views as they are modified by the collective historical experience of the Norwegian people within a unique physical environment. If an examination can be 73 74 Christen T. Jonassen limited in time and space to some crucial aspect of a community 's life, much can be learned about how the Norwegian heritage was influential in shaping that community's social structure and processes. This essay will therefore focus on conflict and cooperation in a Norwegian immigrant community as a way of ascertaining the operation of some important aspects of the Norwegian heritage in a large American city. It cannot be claimed that all Norwegian immigrant communities , or all urban ones, or even the same community, will exhibit the same characteristics at all times, but this study is presented as a record and illustration of how the Norwegian heritage fared and was reflected in one NorwegianAmerican urban community at one time and in one place. Those who are familiar with the Norwegian heritage in Norwegian communities in Europe and America will recognize similar elements of it operating in different settings. In 1946-1947 the Brooklyn Norwegian immigrant community had probably reached its maximum development . It was a unique historical era; World War II had just ended victoriously and Norwegian consciousness had been raised to a fever pitch of awareness by the German occupation of the homeland and the struggle to free it from the Nazi yoke. What was true of the community then does not necessarily describe present conditions, but that moment in history presents a unique opportunity to observe certain aspects of the Norwegian heritage in an urban American environment. In 1940 New York City had the largest urban population of Norwegian stock in the United States, 54,530. The next largest was Minneapolis with 42,557. New York City Norwegians were then concentrated in Brooklyn, where the United States Census counted 20,714 persons born in Norway and 14,700 born in the United States to Norwegian parents . Stranded Norwegian sailors and refugees not counted by the 1940 census swelled the population of the Norwegian colony. The distinguished historian Theodore Biegen noted long ago that "one of the principal Norwegian-American economic , professional, and cultural centers is to be found in Norwegians in Brooklyn 75 Brooklyn. The eastern city ... is a lively center of Norwegian institutional and social activity ... it represents fresher contacts with Norway than do the settlements of the Middle West."3 Yet this group has received comparatively little attention in the general histories of Norwegian settlement . One work, by A. H. Rygg, however, deals exclusively with Norwegians in New York and is a valuable source of historical data.4 A comprehensive sociological study of the community in 1947 by the author of the present essay attempted to ascertain the reciprocal effect of the Norwegian heritage and the American urban environment on the nature of the colony and the behavior of its citizens.5 Much of the material presented in this article is drawn from that study. As compared to the settlements in the Midwest, the Brooklyn community was unquestionably more oriented to the sea and seafaring. Perhaps it was also more Norwegian, since its population was constantly renewed by immigrants and...