Norwegian Immigration To America In The Late 1800s
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Norwegian Immigration to America
America was viewed as the land of freedom and opportunities during the 1800s for many immigrants who were escaping their home countries. Many immigrants came with little money and possessions unfortunately for them most of them worked low-paying jobs, and lived in cramp quarters. One of the major immigrants were from Norway. Norwegians were escaping mainly from environmental, religion, political, and economic strife in their country. The first significant immigration started in 1925 after a small group of about 50 Quakers sailed across the Atlantic to escape religious persecution. The majority of the immigrants settled in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, North and South Dakota. Norwegian immigrants were the most…show more content… In the 1880s 174,586 immigrated and the peak was in the 1900s with 190,505 coming to America and steadily fell after World War I in 1914. For the early immigrants, they were escaping from Norway's main religion the Lutherans who persecuted the people who did not adhere to their worship. In the following waves of immigration the Norwegians got hit by economic, and environmental disaster. Unrest began after the crop failure in mid 1840s and the potato blight also affecting Norway, which caused hunger, disease, poverty, and 50,000 deaths. During the 1800s Norway faced a industrial shutdown and made it harder for the younger generation to find jobs.
The First wave of immigrants between 1866-1873 kick started after the famine between 1866-1868 hits Norway and create much hardship for the people. America was seen as a place with abundance of fertile land and place to escape hunger to the people of Norway. Many immigrants came as indentured servants signing 5-7 years contract to secure a way into America. Most of the immigrants settled in Wisconsin, Minnesota, parts of the Dakota Territories, and northern Iowa. After America went into the Long Depression in 1873 most of the immigrants from Norway