Gold miner
The USA
- 1 Welcome to America
- 2 Living the dream
- 3 A melting pot or a salad bowl?
- 4 The Heartland
- 5 The sound of America
- 6 You can really be someone
- 7 If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?
- 8 Over easy and hash browns on the side
- 9 Super-sized or super hungry?
- 10 On the move
Living the dream
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Norwegian settlers, ca 1895
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Norwegian footprints in modern-day America
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“Uffda” – brought to America by Norwegian immigrants
Living the dream
Before you read
Two of the pictures above show immigrants to the USA. What was their life like? What were they hoping for? Write down some ideas before you read “Living the dream”.
Some call the USA an unfinished country, because it’s being built and then rebuilt as new people from all over the world come and make their mark. In the past most immigrants came from Europe, including many from Scandinavia. Now they mostly come from South America, Asia and Africa.
Did you know that about a third of the Norwegian population emigrated to the USA between 1825 and 1925? Most were economic migrants who were hoping for a better life. Just imagine you’re a farm worker somewhere in Norway. Sometimes there’s no work. Sometimes you and your family go hungry. You can’t see things getting any better. In fact, you don’t have much of a future to look forward to. One day you hear that you can get land, your own land, at no cost in the USA. Wouldn’t you be tempted to leave Norway?
The promise of free land was not just a dream. The American Homestead Acts were laws that said that adult immigrants to the northern states could have 160 acres of land to farm. This applied to both men and women, but they had to be the head of a household and over the age of 21. They also had to promise to build a home and live on the land for at least five years.
The population in Norway was growing fast, and life in Norway was really hard for thousands of farmers and ordinary workers. So many saved up or borrowed money to pay for the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Norwegian immigrants who did well wrote home saying how good life was in the USA and encouraged family and friends to follow in their footsteps. Slowly they built their own communities in the USA where they spoke Norwegian, and started their own businesses, churches and schools. They worked hard and gradually became integrated into American society. You can find out more about this in Learning for life in Mini movies.
But what about the immigrants who were not a success? You don’t hear much about them in the history books, do you? There were many immigrants whose hopes and dreams did not come true. Haakon was one of them – listen to his story.
Your turn to talk
Norwegians still emigrate. Where do they go for work and education these days? Work with a partner. Choose one country where there are Norwegians, or people of Norwegian origin, and find out what they are doing there. Find information online. Present what you find out in a short talk to the rest of the class.