BROOKLYN 'KOLONI'

In 1900, Greater New York counted about 11,000 Norwegians, a number which rose quickly to 63,000 in 1930. The majority of them-23,000-lived in Brooklyn, the borough directly across the East River from Manhattan. The metropolis quickly became the most urban center of Norwegians outside Norway. The colony came to be affectionately called mysostkolonien, after the Norwegian cheese mysost.

Following the crest of a new wave of immigration in the early 1900s, Nordisk Tidende was well on its way to being "America's leading Norwegian newspaper." There were plenty of potential readers, and the paper grew quickly. By 1910 its circulation was as high as 8,000. Being based in a city, about half of that was single-copy sales. Throughout America, the Norwegian language press generally was expanding its readership, and would continue to do so for another 15 years.
Like all immigrant newspapers of the time, it was a vital tool for newcomers. Besides serving as a guide to American life, opening windows to new experiences and hopes, it also kept alive the Norwegian connection, assuring contact between the old country and the new, and thereby lessening the immigrants' sense of dislocation. On a grass roots level, it promoted Norwegian cultural expression, helped foster the growth and activities of groups and organizations, and gave everybody something to talk about over kaffee. Sometimes that talk might grow quite heated, for the community was regularly involved in cultural schisms on issues ranging from politics to religion to alcohol. Nordisk Tidende reflected and sometimes even helped generate the heat in its columns.

It also was a helping hand. Throughout all those early years, its pages provided many practical services, such as printing lists of boarding houses offering cheap room and board for newcomers. It fostered causes, it filled meeting halls, and it furthered literature, publishing poetry and works by new writers. Its church page carried inspirational messages, as it still does, and its ads were eagerly scanned for information vital to a new life, from the mundane to the crucial. In its pages were recorded the milestones of human life, from arrivals to departures, from births to deaths.

From its offices and printing plant in a Brooklyn storefront, it quickly became a vital part of the community. When Norway won its independence in 1905, the celebrations in Little Norway and the banner headlines in Nordisk Tidende proclaimed with joy the dawn of a new day. It publicized and covered the activities of organizations and causes, including the women's movement from the beginning of the Norwegian-American Suffrage League in 1902. In return for the generous coverage, the Suffrage League supported the social benevolence projects of editor Andreas N. Rygg, such as the new Norwegian Children's Home. Rygg was editor and part owner for 18 years, and he was followed by Hans Olav Tønnesen.

Probably the most influential editor of Nordisk Tidende over the years was Carl Søyland, who came to America in 1920 to study music, but who said he found the life of a "tramp-journalist" more interesting. After traveling the world and writing for several newspapers, he joined the staff of Nordisk Tidende in 1926, and served as chief editor from 1940 to 1962. Søyland also became a leader in the cultural and intellectual life of the Norwegian colony and Brooklyn. He was decorated by King Haakon VII of Norway in 1945, and later made a Knight and a Commander of the Order of St. Olaf.

Another major figure in the paper's history was Sigurd J. Arnesen, who had come from Norway as a 17-year-old emigrant along with his family in 1904, and who ran the business side of the newspaper from 1911 until 1958, keeping it afloat during many uncertain years. The life of the immigrant press was a stormy and often very brief one, with many not surviving more than one year.

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