Norwegians on the Prairie

In the mid-1800s, Norwegians constituted the most numerous foreign nationality in the frontier settlements of the United States of America. Norwegians came in large part from the Opdal Valley in Norway, traveling in family or groups, with the intension to stay. Most of them were modest peasants, farm owners who sold their homesteads in Norway before emigrating. They were among the first white settlers in South Dakota, many having sailed from Trondhjem, Norway, via Liverpool and Quebec, Ontario.

Norway was facing economic and political challenges during this period, and many Norwegians chose to emigrate to the United States in search of better opportunities. According to the United States Census Bureau, around 800,000 Norwegians emigrated to the United States between 1820 and 1920.

During their first years, Norwegian immigrants encountered severe poverty and deprivation, as droughts and locust destroyed their crops, prices of agricultural products were low and the cost of living, following the Civil War high. But Norwegian settlers were also motivated by an intense desire to own land, which had become scarce in mountainous Norway.

Their life as pioneers of the central states of the USA is well documented in local archives and books and the studio photos from several local photographers, such as those of John (Jno) Johnson, a studio photographer of Centerville in South Dakota in the late 1880s and early 1900.