First of a series
There is no better portrayal of the assimilation of early Houston County Norwegian emigrants into American culture and society than the brilliant, whimsical newspaper cartoon series of Peter Rosendahl of Spring Grove. The cartoon series was called “Han Ola og han Per,” which translates into English as “Him Ola and him Per,” or “He Ola and he Per” and beginning in 1918, appeared in the Decorah-Posten, a Norwegian language newspaper published in Decorah, Iowa. During 24 years, more than 700 of his comic strips fascinated readers of the newspaper, the only Norwegian cartoon published continually in the United States.
Rosendahl created characters who not only spoke different Norwegian dialects, but also exemplified varying stages of assimilating into American culture. His colorful characters left a record of Norse English spoken among early immigrant settlers around Spring Grove, a dialect that combined those from the various areas of Norway, from which they emigrated, along with English. The amount of English spoken depended on the length of time the immigrant had been in America. Some recent newcomers might have spoken no English. A dialect might also reflect social position in the old country. The language used in the unique comic strip has been the subject of several research papers. There was no profanity spoken by Rosendahl characters, but there were English-origin exclamations, such as “shucks” and “Good Graeshus.”
The comic strips depict not only a time when Norwegian was the most common language heard on the streets of Spring Grove but also captured an era when life moved at a slower pace and people enjoyed what today seem like simple things.
Most of the cartoons were set in rural America, including nearby Preston, Minn., and Decorah, Iowa, along with more distant St. Paul, Minn., and Fargo, N. Dak., as well as much farther away exotic locales, such as the North Pole and a tropical island.
Ola was a short, bare-headed fellow with overalls and a pitchfork who emigrated from Hallingdal, a rural highland area of Norway with conservative customs and speech. He was an easy-going helpful neighbor, who laughs, sings and whistles while frequently asking Per for advice.
Per (pronounced pair), a tall, bearded fellow with a Prince Albert waistcoat, a derby hat and a pipe wrench, was a lowlander from Hadeland, a more prosperous farming area in eastern Norway near Oslo.
Lars, Per’s brother with a stovepipe hat, spoke the dialect of Upper Aas. He was a new arrival whose advanced university education in Oslo and Berlin was of little value in an American farm setting. His career as a chiropractor, radio announcer, missionary and lecturer results in little financial success. He has little common sense, drinks heavily and borders on insanity.
There was also Per’s plump wife Polla from Fargo, N. Dak., and his mother in-law Vaermor, who ends up marrying Lars. Dada is the daughter of Per and Polla, who grows older as time goes by.
Peter Julius Rosendahl was born in 1878 in Houston County, Minnesota in the community of Spring Grove, the earliest Norwegian settlement in Minnesota. His native Norwegian father Paul emigrated to Spring Grove in the early 1850s to become a pioneer farmer before military service during the Civil War and later, election to the state legislature. Peter’s brother Carl was an author and professor of botany at the University of Minnesota. However, Peter spent a quiet lifetime on the family farm, who like many of the era, attended school only through the eighth grade. That might reflect the help needed by his mother on the farm after his father died when Peter was only two. And schooling was primarily a winter pursuit when there was no fieldwork on the farm.
Despite the lack of formal education, Peter possessed a passion for knowledge – purchasing many books, reading several scientific journals and enrolling in correspondence courses. He authored poetry and song lyrics as well as comic art. At age 33, he received a certificate in machine and electrical engineering. The same year, he pursued his love of art by enrolling in a correspondence course in Applied Art.
Rosendahl loved to draw, had a creative imagination and liked a good joke. Neighbors told of Peter drawing pictures in the dust on the threshing machine, many resembling the threshing workers. Rosendahl pursued his passion for art at the kitchen table or upstairs in his bedroom, working with pencil, crayon, ink and chalk. Some drawings were created primarily for their humor, others depicting the life of his family.
In 1918, the year he turned age 40, Rosendahl successfully found a home for his artwork when the February 19 edition of the Decorah-Posten newspaper included one of his cartoons, featuring two characters, Ola and Per along with Ola’s new car (a technological marvel of the era). Readers were captivated, and the newspaper asked for more. In that calendar year of 1918, the Posten published six Rosendahl cartoon strips and paid him $2.50 for each, approximately the value of $40 a century later. In 1919, encouraged by his success, Rosendahl enrolled in a correspondence course from the Federal School of Applied Cartooning.
During the 1920s, the circulation of the Decorah-Posten increased significantly to about 45,000 subscribers, partially due to the popularity of Rosendahl’s cartoon strip. A subscription advertisement in Sept. 1920 read: “P.J. Rosendahl’s funny drawings from Norwegian-American folklife are another valuable “Feature”. From now on you will find these laugh-out-loud pictures regularly in “Decorah-Posten”, the only Norwegian newspaper in America that has an independent cartoon.”
To be continued…
Sources: Giants of the Earth Heritage Center, Spring Grove; Ola and Per, Home to Stay (2002)
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