Topic: Scandinavians
Ted Peterson interviewed his mother Ruth Peterson (b. ca. 1908) on June 21, 2000, for the Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Oral History Project. Ruth is of Swedish heritage and recounts her...
Sissel Peterson (b. 1922) left Norway at age three, traveling with her mother and siblings to meet up with her father who had come to America looking for work. She vividly evokes the journey and her a...
On May 5, 2018, the Nordic Museum opened its doors to the public in its new building on NW Market Street in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. The event marked the culmination of a 15-year process t...
Norway's Crown Prince Olav (1903-1991), later King Olav V, and his wife Princess Martha (1901-1954) excited the Northwest's Norwegian community and local skiers when they went skiing at Mount Rainier ...
By the 1880s, Norwegians were arriving in the Pacific Northwest in noticeable numbers. By 1910, more than 7,000 Norwegians lived and worked in the region. They lived all over King County but especiall...
John H. Reid came to the United States as a 4-year-old, was orphaned twice, and overcame a harsh, lonely boyhood to create a full, rich life as a Seattle newspaper publisher, civic activist, and pater...
This People's History tells the story of August (1859-1928) and Carolina (d. 1930) Holmquist, a couple who, perhaps more than any others, had an impact on the community of Monroe (Snohomish County) in...
This is the story of the brothers Harald Blekum (1865-1950) and Einar Blekum (1864-1910) and their assimilation to life in Seattle, 1891 to 1950. It is based on research, documents, and images submitt...
Prior to the great fire of June 6, 1889, Seattle's Swedish population was small, as it was in the rest of the northwest region. The census of 1880 counted only 190 people of Scandinavian heritage in a...
Alfred Schillestad, son of Seattle pioneer Ole Schillestad, left a unique visual record of early life along the shores of Salmon Bay in the sketchbooks he created as young man. Two of Alfred Schillest...
Born and raised in Norway, August Werner moved to Brooklyn, New York, as a young man and made a name for himself as a singer in both the Norwegian American and wider musical communities. By 1931, havi...