Norwegian Emigrants with University Training 1830–1880

NORWEGIAN EMIGRANTS WITH UNIVERSITY TRAINING 1 830-1 8801 BY OYSTEIN ORE Among the hundreds of thousands of Norwegian emigrants to America in the nineteenth century there were extremely few who had the benefit of university training in their homeland . The most obvious reason is that university students constituted a very small percentage of the population. Moreover , with a few exceptions they came from families with long traditions of higher education and public service. They saw small chance of finding suitable openings in the New World. In addition, through most of this time the professional class was dominated by a strong feeling of patriotism which looked askance at emigration as akin to treason. Some came from the wealthier and more influential families in which there was no strong pressure to seek better economic conditions. But a few did come, and they were important because many of them became leaders in their American communities . With the rise of Norwegian pioneer communities in the West, the need for trained professional men became urgent; specifically, there was an immediate demand for ministers and medical men who could speak to the immigrants in their own tongue. Some settlements succeeded by direct approach in inducing a number of graduates in theology and medicine from the Royal Fredrik University at Christiania to come to the assistance of their troubled countrymen. Many of these men came solely from a strong sense of duty; others were influenced by the lack of suitable openings in Norway during certain periods, by hopes for richer rewards in a new country, 1The author wishes to express his thanks to Professors Clarence A. Clausen and Karen Larsen of the history department at St. Olaf College and to the late Alf Houkom, librarian at St. Olaf College, for their assistance in connection with the preparation of this article. 160 UNIVERSITY-TRAINED EMIGRANTS 161 or simply by a spirit of adventure. Undoubtedly there were also a few who were failures or misfits and sought refuge far away from the mother country. It might be of interest to enumerate this special little group of Norwegian emigrants, up to and including those who took the entrance examination for the university in 1880. Available as source material are the extensive published lists of Norwegian students; for example, P. BottenHansen , Norske studenter der hor absolvert examen artium ved Christiania Universitet eller de artiums-berettigede skoler (Norwegian Students Who Have Passed the Artium Examinations at the University in Christiania or at Other Schools Authorized to Give Artium - Christiania, 1898). Much more detailed are the yearbooks published for each graduating class at its twenty-fifth or fiftieth reunion, but unfortunately they do not cover the first half century of the existence of the Royal Fredrik University. For obvious reasons these yearbooks do not always furnish the year of the graduate's death; thus on this point our information is often deficient. The choice of the year 1880 as a terminating point for this list is purely arbitrary; it could easily have been continued to the present time through a study of the later yearbooks . The names in the list that follows are arranged according to the year in which the eksamen artium, or simply artium, was taken. This degree was and still is the entrance requirement to the university. Since the university has somewhat more of the character of a graduate school than has an American college, the artium degree lies on a fairly high level, corresponding roughly to a junior college certificate. So far as it is available in our sources, the following information about each candidate will be furnished: Name, dates of birth and death, location of the gymnasium from which he came, highest university degree obtained, and the year in which it was granted. Most of the degrees were taken in theology, medicine, and law, with a few instances, among 162 OYSTEIN ORE the later candidates, of science and philology. Many proceeded no farther than the eksamen phüosophicum or aunen eksamen , the second examination, a more general introductory degree for which the requirements could be satisfied in a year, or, at most, two. In each instance this degree has been indicated by the figure 2. Incidentally, it...