by DOROTHY BURTON SKARDAL 2 The Scandinavian Immigrant Writer in America We can call these works and poems provincial or emigrant literature, but then we give the child a wrong name. For they are not that: they are American literature in the Norwegian language. - OLE E. R0LVAAG To novels the of general Norwegian American immigrant public, life O. seem E. an R0lvaag's isolated novels of Norwegian immigrant life seem an isolated phenomenon, a flash of genius without forerunner or fellowship . Persons of Scandinavian background may have heard the names of a handful of other immigrant authors: Waldemar Ager, Johannes B. Wist, Simon Johnson among the Norwegians ; Adam Dan, Carl Hansen, Kristián 0stergaard among the Danes; Vilhelm Berger, Ernst Skarstedt, Johan Person, Anna Olsson among the Swedes. Yet few readers in any of the three national groups are aware of even the leading figures in the others, and no one has attempted so much as an outline of the broad field of Scandinavian- American creative writing. There are many hundreds of volumes and pamphlets of short stories and novels, poems and plays, reminiscences, autobiographies , essays, travel sketches, and historical accounts gathering dust in the collections of Luther College at Decorah, Iowa, St. Olaf College at Northfield, Augustana College at Rock Island, Illinois, and Grand View College at Des Moines, Iowa, and in various state historical society libraries throughout the Middle West. The achievement of O. E. R0lvaag 14 THE IMMIGRANT WRITER stands not alone but as the climax of a literary tradition that began in the 1870's and is not yet dead.1 Certainly the definitive appraisal of these writings must wait until a number of specialized studies have clarified their content and worth; but meanwhile there are intriguing questions about how and why such a large, rich, and varied literature could develop among a transplanted people, written for a public severely limited both in number and in cultural interests , and coming to full flower after its language had begun to die out. The following introduction to this body of material, including here reference only to poetry and fiction, will attempt to define the immigrant publishing markets and reading public, the types of authors, and the motives and special problems attendant on creating a distinctive branch of American literature expressed largely in a foreign tongue. Undoubtedly the early development of foreign-language newspapers provided the first stimulus for immigrant authors. The first-known Scandinavian-language newspaper in the United States, Skandinavia, founded in New York City in 1847, appealed to Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians not only by printing news from all three native countries but also by using both Dano-Norwegian and Swedish. At least one poem published at this early date was written by Christian Hansen, the Danish editor, himself.2 The rapidly multiplying newspapers that were published for all groups continued to reprint poetry and, later, tales and serialized novels, by authors in the old country, as well as verse and prose writings by their own staffs; but before long they were also accepting contributions from readers. Letters to the editor often appeared in news columns; 1 This article is adapted from one chapter of a doctoral dissertation to be submitted at Radcliffe College. For the quotation from R0lvaag, see his Omkring fsedrearven, 60 (Northfield, 1922). 2 Danish and Norwegian, in written form, were then practically identical. For a discussion of Skandinavia , see Theodore C. Biegen, Norwegian Migration to America: The American Transition , 287, 288 (Northfield, 1940); A. N. Rygg, Norwegians in New York , 10 (Brooklyn, [1941?]); "The Danish-American Press/' in Enok Mortensen and Johannes Knudsen, The Danish- American Immigrant j 35-37 ( Des Moines, Iowa, 1950 ) . The Library of Congress has a partial file of Skandinavia. 15 Dorothy Burton Skârdal but what became the particular plague of the Norwegian or Swedish newspaper was the persistent stream of amateur verse sent in by subscribers. Most of this was very bad poetry indeed, and some of the most amusing accounts of immigrant journalistic life describe the moral struggle of editors torn between their outraged artistic judgment and their fear of insulting contributors if they neglected to print their efforts. But by no means all the...