Useful and Sweet Educating Young Norwegian-American Women
By L. DeAne Lagerquist
Useful and Sweet (Utile Dulci), the name of a literary society for female students in St. Olaf’s academy division in the late 1880s, also summarizes a Lutheran view of education. By the early 1900s, Norwegian-American Lutherans provided girls and young women with a variety of educational opportunities informed by Lutheran teaching, built upon Scandinavian practices, and responsive to American circumstances. As in Norway, family and congregation fostered girls’ faith, in addition to insuring a basic level of literacy and theological knowledge.
Academies, normal schools, colleges, and nursing schools offered adolescents and young women a range of possibilities for further study. Some graduates would return to their alma mater to teach other students; some were equipped for service through church agencies or missions; many employed their education in local congregations and in their homes. All this was in keeping with Martin Luther’s notion that education should cultivate believers’ faith and prepare them to contribute to the well-being of their communities.
The usefulness of the latter purpose is obvious. The sweetness of education is multivalent. The Psalmist praised the sweetness of God’s word as like honey (Ps. 119: 03); Luther noted the “pure pleasure” that comes from reading a book; and, in the late nineteenth century American girls were often expected to conform to an ideal of feminine sweetness. All three aspects of sweetness are evident in the education available to Norwegian-American girls. Luther also advocated education to train men for the pastoral office. Because the Lutheran churches prohibited women from that calling, female students
were excluded from schools with a pretheological program until expanded mission, revised curriculum, and financial pressures opened those doors to them.
In nineteenth-century Norway, the church both provided resources for education and held together the various parties within it. In the United States, those parties organized themselves into independent churches and founded their own schools. Despite the synods’ distinctive pieties and theological emphases, they shared a common Reformation agenda that linked religious instruction with basic literacy. When Martin Luther learned how little German Christians knew about what the church taught, what they professed to believe, he wrote his Small Catechism (1529). Based upon his sermons on the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, the little book offered simple instruction in basic doctrines and was suitable for use by pastors or parents. Luther urged the civil authorities to establish schools where both girls and boys would be taught to read, so that they could encounter God’s Word in the Bible themselves. This education was not, however, for the students’ spiritual benefit alone; its second purpose was to fit them for service to their neighbors. Luther argued,
. . . in order to maintain its temporal estate outwardly the world must have good and capable men and women, men able to rule well over land and people, and women able to manage the household and train children and servants aright. Now such men must come from our boys, and such women from our girls. Therefore, it is matter of properly educating and training our boys and girls.1
Erik Pontoppidan’s explanation of Luther’s small catechism was widely distributed in Norway and editions of it were often among the possessions brought by Norwegian immigrants to America. Forklaring by Erik Pontoppidan. Christiania, 1798. Vesterheim Rare Book Collection.
He and his colleague Philip Melanchthon set about the task of setting up such schools as well as training pastors who could instruct the children of their parishes.
Danish royal initiative established a similar program in Norway by the mid-sixteenth century. Education for piety was carried out both in the home and in the congregation. Confirmation instruction was mandated by law. The Bible and the Catechism were first translated into Danish and later into Norwegian. These two books formed the core of a curriculum preparing young students to publicly affirm their faith.
The confirmation rite also marked their passage out of childhood. In the eighteenth century Truth Unto Godliness, an expansion of Luther’s catechism by Danish Bishop Erik Pontoppidan, was widely distributed throughout Norway. Remarkably, the publisher was obligated to donate copies to those who could not afford to purchase them. Although intended to promote greater uniformity of instruction, the book also encouraged personal trusting-faith and an ethos of living religion within the church. Many emigrants carried it, as well as their Bible and hymnal, among the few possessions in their trans-Atlantic luggage. The original and later editions
and translations of Pontoppidan’s book were widely used in Norwegian-American congregations, which continued the practice of confirmation instruction. Along with these books and the faith nurtured by them, the immigrants also brought a notably high level of literacy that surely contributed to their eagerness for education in their new homeland as well as to their founding of many schools.
Consistent with Reformation principles, the NorwegianAmerican household was a center of spiritual life, where habits of devotion were formed by family prayers and by reading the Bible and printed collections of sermons. Even before the Lutheran churches established schools or public schools were available, children were taught at home. The legacy of Norwegian custom was parents who could supervise elementary lessons: reading, Bible, Catechism, and the like. Girls as well as boys were set to this work in log cabins and sod houses. Novelist O.E. Rolvaag provided a vivid description of Beret setting her sons to their lessons.
She had to repeat the order several times more before they finally submitted and began to hunt for their books.
At last Ole snatched up the ‘Epitome,’ his brother the ‘Bible History.’ They sat down to read by the table in the window, in a state of mutinous rebellion.2
The unruly boys finally came to blows and provoked their mother to thrash them. If the circumstances in the scene were extreme, the general situation was not. On another day their sister, And-Ongen, would certainly have sat down to study with them in their home, as she did when the pioneer families held an informal school during the winter months.
While most mothers were equipped to instruct their children in these basic matters, wives of pastors reported on their own reading of theological books. Linka Preus noted in her diary that she read Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love and her son recalled that, on Sunday, when Pastor Preus was away, she would read Luther’s sermons aloud to the family and any guests.
Occasionally I sensed that she chose the longer sermon because it developed more fully some problem or question she had been discussing with this or that less orthodox individual, temporarily staying with us.3
One of Diderikke Otteson Brandt’s daughters recalled that her mother, who had a “thorough knowledge of Norwegian, German, French, and English,” combined parsonage tasks such as laundering pastoral ruffs and making communion wafers with teaching her children. “She was very fond of poetry and could give many psalms and hymns and great portions of the Bible. She used to teach me many hymns and poems when she was cutting communion wafers.”4
When children were sent to stay at the parsonages while receiving catechetical instruction, the pastor’s wife certainly contributed to the enterprise. Pastors’ wives also took the lead in organizing women’s societies, whose activities were both educational and practical. Bible study and attention to the churches’ missions continued the learning begun in confirmation instruction and congregational summer schools and drew upon the learning some members received in one or the other of the churches’ many educational institutions.
As communities grew, congregations matured, and public schools were founded, the educational partnership of home and church expanded to include the local schools. Despite objections raised by some clergy, most Norwegian Americans took full advantage of the free common schools. Their enthusiasm was not merely a matter of the parents’ thriftiness. They also recognized the pragmatic advantages of learning English and American social customs. At least some advocates argued that civic provision of education was consistent with Luther’s position and praised the schools’ democratic values.5 They also recognized that “the enlightened citizen is generally the best church member and so they defend[ed] the public school as one of the best supporters of the church.”6 At the same time, religious education was understood to promote good citizenship.
Family and congregation continued to take responsibility for developing children’s piety and fostering religious knowledge. Confirmation instruction was a serious matter as evidenced by records of students’ performance. Girls were expected to learn the same material as their brothers did and their marks indicate that they learned it at least as well. By the late 1800s, many congregations held several weeks of summer school devoted to religious education conducted in Norwegian. Seminarians sometimes conducted these schools, but as the century drew to a close, an increasing number were teachers, both women and men, specially trained for this work at Lutheran normal schools.
Well into the first quarter of the twentieth century, when a Norwegian-American girl was confirmed at about age 14, she had probably exhausted her local opportunities for formal education. Public high schools were few, especially in the rural Midwest. An alternative was a boarding academy that offered the next level of work. To qualify for admission, she would have had to meet these standards:
At least fourteen years of age, be able to read Norwegian readily, write moderately well, and with some experience
in handwriting, be able to cipher to the scale of four and possess about as much Christian experience as a well prepared confirmant. It is additionally desirable that they know some English. Their pastors must give assurances that they have moderate gifts for learning and have both a good record morally as well as promise of progress in an institution where Christian discipline is practiced.7
More than 75 academies were founded by NorwegianAmerican Lutherans and operated for longer or shorter periods. All operated on meager financial resources. When public school districts opened, high schools and academy enrollments declined, few were able to survive. The legacy of a few academies continues in colleges. Most academies were coeducational. Oak Grove in Fargo, North Dakota, and the Lutheran Ladies' Seminary in Red Wing, Minneosta, were exceptional. The Red Wing Seminary (1894-1920) aspired to college level work and offered course work in classical, practical, and domestic topics. Oak Grove is the only former academy that continues a high school program; in fact it now offers K-12 to both boys and girls.
In contrast to today, a century ago, high school and college programs were less sharply distinguished. Many colleges also operated an academy program, as did normal schools. Nursing schools at the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Hospitals in New York, Minneapolis, and Chicago expected candidates to arrive with at least high school preparation and perhaps a year of college. Colleges often offered a teacher-training course and later added nursing programs. Consequently, it was not atypical for a student to move between schools, nor was it unusual to find relatively older, recently arrived immigrant women among the student body. Tilda Jorstad (Mrs. I. A. Tasa) traced her own path in the 1890s:
The nearest church school was St. Olaf College where I attended its academy in the school year 1891-92. Then my father thought it was best for me not to finish
a college course, but rather attend a small school such as the St. Ansgar Academy which was located in St. Ansgar, Iowa. So, I went there for a few terms. There I could get the necessary education for teaching in rural and parochial schools in less time. . . . I decided to transfer my school credits [to the newly built Lutheran Normal School in Madison, Minnesota] and enrolled there, arriving in Madison on January 1, 1895. I had enough credits from St. Olaf and St. Ansgar to allow me to register for study in the senior class. . .8
Jorstad was the sole student graduate that June. Her graduate essay title alluded to the sweetness of education: “The Pleasures of Knowledge.”
Like the public normal schools, schools associated with Norwegian-American Lutherans had preparation of teachers as their primary mission; however, the Lutheran teachers were prepared to teach either in public common schools or in parochial summer schools. After discontinuing the normal program at the men-only Luther College, in 1889 the Norwegian Synod founded its coeducational Normal School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Following the 1917 merger constituting the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA), this school was joined to Augustana College. At its founding convention in 1890, the United Norwegian Lutheran Church authorized its own school that operated in Madison, Minnesota, until 1932. Pastor H.A. Preus’s address at the dedication of the Synod school would have been as appropriate in Madison as it was in Sioux Falls:
And so this institution, which we are met here today to dedicate, was built. Its one and only aim, to train sincere, Christian men and women for the difficult and responsible task of teaching in elementary public schools, and, our parochial schools, to teach little children the way to salvation.9
Consistent with this aim, the schools’ curriculum included courses offered in secular programs, such as
American history, botany, elocution, mathematics, music, and penmanship, and other courses specific to the students’ religious and ethnic communities, such as Norwegian history, Bible exegesis, and catechetics. The latter used Pontoppidan’s book as its text. Model schools, organized in response to state standards, helped potential teachers cultivate their pedagogical skills. Formal student activities included musical ensembles, literary societies, mission groups, and public lectures. Informal socializing was equally important.
Recollections from the Madison school suggest that the schools’ contributions to their communities were not limited to preparing students for teaching or other occupations.
There was a family-like mingling of the boys and girls during meal hours, choir practice, and short free period on the campus after supper. . . . Many of these coeducational friendships developed into courtships and marriages. The homes thus established have been happy and stable because of the compatibility and similar cultural background of husband and wife.10
In addition to teaching, female graduates from the normal schools entered a variety of religious and secular fields, including foreign mission and nursing. Matilda Agneberg, from Whitehall, Wisconsin, followed a typical pattern. After graduating from public high school, she taught in her hometown common school for four years and then entered the Madison Normal School in 1899. Following graduation, she taught in both public and parochial schools in Wisconsin and Minnesota before marrying Iver Johnson at age 28.11 A smaller number of women continued their education and taught at the college level. Julia J. Langness finished at the Synod Normal School in 1896, earned degrees from Carlton College (B.S.) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.), and taught chemistry at Dakota Wesleyan College and Mount Holyoke College. Ragnhild Moan’s career was more unusual. In addition to teaching, she was elected as County
Superintendent in Deuel County, South Dakota, only a few years after graduation.12
Six of the colleges and universities associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2010 were founded by Norwegian-American Lutherans in the late 1800s. Two of these, Luther College (1861) in Decorah, Iowa, and Augsburg College (1869) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were begun as theological schools to prepare young men for pastoral ministry and did not enroll women until the second quarter of the twentieth century.
Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had its beginning in an educational enterprise launched by a coalition of Norwegian and Swedish Lutherans in Illinois in the 1860s. Several changes in location and organizational transformations, including a split from the Swedes, took place before the school settled in Canton, South Dakota, in 1884. Although its original mission was preministerial, by the 1890s Augustana’s aims had expanded and women were enrolled. The catalog for 1917-18 stated those aims and suggested that the school was called a college as an aspiration more than as a factual claim.
Augustana College believes only in a thoroughly Christian education, and as a school of the Lutheran Church, its aim is to be of the greatest possible service to our many young men and women who are eagerly seeking a preparatory education for some vocation in life or for further study in higher institutions of learning.13
The following year the College was consolidated with the Lutheran Normal School and moved to Sioux Falls. Coeducational academies provided the kernel for the other three schools: St. Olaf College (1874) in Northfield, Minnesota; Pacific Lutheran University (1890) in Tacoma, Washington; and Concordia College (1891) in Moorhead, Minnesota. Each at its own pace, the institutions dropped their pre-college level programs and gained accreditation. In doing so, each school
developed distinct curricular foci that combined a liberal arts program with a characteristically Lutheran concern to prepare “young men and women” for “some vocation in life.”
Beneath local variations, the schools’ academic programs and ethos fell into similar patterns that supported their common goals: to provide solid academic training, to foster Christian faith, and to ease students’ entry into American society while also cultivating their connections with family and community. In the earliest years, enrollment was small, usually there were dozens of students rather than hundreds. Course offerings were heavy on humanities and languages, including Norwegian, German, and Latin. Religion was both a subject of study and a matter of daily practice. Classroom attention to the Bible, church history, and Lutheran doctrine was matched by worship on campus or at a neighboring congregation. The campus community was knitted together by a common ethnic heritage, association with one of the several branches of NorwegianAmerican Lutheranism, and family ties. Alumni reminiscences attest that the guidance provided to female students by adult women—teachers, staff, and faculty wives alike—was not confined to formal academic work. Helga Fjelstad, known as “Mother” Fjelstad, was college matron at Concordia for 33 years. Historian Erling Nicolai Rolfsrud reported:
With a cup of coffee and cookies fresh from the oven, she rescued many a girl from the dire calamities of homesickness. The disconsolate and lovelorn she frequently comforted with kind and understanding counsel as well as treats from the kitchen.14
Contact between the male and female students was regulated, no doubt in an effort to reduce opportunities for lovelorn-ness. Ideally they were lodged in separate buildings. Some extracurricular activities were segregated by sex. Utile Dulci, the girls’ literary society that gives this article its title, raised funds for the new women’s dormitory, made donations toward furnishing the men’s residence, and gave a tea to pay for an American flag. At their Saturday meetings “instead of the more masculine accomplishments of debating and impromptu speaking, essay-writing, sketches and music [were] given more prominence.”15
Expectations for more feminine accomplishment were articulated in defenses of coeducation where it was already
practiced (e.g. at St. Olaf), in debates about introducing it where it was not (i.e. Luther and Augsburg), and in the program at the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary (LLS) in Red Wing. Thorbjorn N. Mohn, the first president of St. Olaf, responded to critics by comparing the conditions coeducation created on campus to those in a family.16 At both St. Olaf and the Ladies’ Seminary, students made a similar defense for their education by highlighting the ways it would fit them for domestic roles as wives and mothers. St. Olaf graduate O. M. Norlie agreed that “if you educate a woman right away you educate a whole family,” but he argued that doing so at a coeducational college would compromise woman’s “natural calling,” since the curriculum there was not suitable for female students.17
Others advocated wider horizons for women, by their words and their examples. Josephine Riveland, (LLS class of 1911) predicted that, in five years time, her classmates would have launched careers as concert musicians, social workers, journalists, teachers, aviatrices, and advocates of “Equality of the Sexes.”18 In fact, having tasted the sweetness of learning, female graduates of the Seminary, as well as the colleges, followed vocational callings into fields such as medicine, education, foreign missions, and business. In early twentiethcentury America, these schools equipped Norwegian-American women to be useful in the public arena as well as the domestic sphere assigned them by Martin Luther.
Endnotes
1 Martin Luther, “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524,” vol. 45 of Luther’s Works, American Edition, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1965), 368.
2 O. E. Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth (Harper Perennial, 1991), 177.
3 Johan Carl Keyser Preus, Herman Amberg Preus: A Family History (n.p.: The Preus Family Book Club, 1966), 122.
4 Mrs. L. Larsen pamphlet (1927), in “Scrapbook,” WMF, ALC Archive and Mrs. Gisle Bothne in “Scrapbook,” WMF, ALC Archive. Quoted in L. DeAne Lagerquist, In America the Men Milk the Cows: Factors of Gender, Ethnicity and Religion in the Americanization of Norwegian-American Lutheran Women (New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1991), 86, 89.
5 James S. Hamre, “Norwegian Immigrants Respond to the Common School: A Case Study of American Values and Lutheran Tradition,” Church History 50, no. 3 (1981): 302-315. Hamre notes that Georg Sverdrup was an advocate of the common school whose argument in their favor included the absence of “distinction of rank” within them and their rule by the people (page 311).
6 Hamre, 310.
7 Kirkelig maanedstidende, 1 April 1869, cited in B. H. Narveson, “The Norwegian Lutheran Academies,” Norwegian American Studies and Records 14 (1944): 207.
8 Rev. H. O. Hendrikson, ed. In Retrospect: A History of the Lutheran Normal School, Madison, Minnesota (1892-1932) (Lake Mills, Iowa: Graphic Publishing, Inc., 1958), 205.
9 Quoted in Sivert A. Jordahl, Memorial History: Lutheran Normal School, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, (1889-1918) (np, 1954), p. 15.
10 Hendrikson, 46.
11 Olaf Morgan Norlie, compiler, School Calendar, 1824-1924: a Who’s Who Among Teachers in the Norwegian Lutheran Synods of America, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1924), 27.
12 Jordahl, 81-82.
13 Augustana College Catalog, 1917-18, 7-8. Quoted in Donald Sneen, Through Trials and Triumphs: A History of Augustana College (Sioux Falls: Center for Western Studies, 1985), 55.
14 Cobber Chronicle: An Informal History of Concordia College (Moorhead: Concordia College, 1966), 36.
15 Viking, 1904, 155.
16 Joseph Shaw, History of St. Olaf, 14.
17 Olaf Morgan Norlie, “Luther Ladies’ Seminary, Red Wing,” in Lutheran Herald, 1: 16 (1917), 260; and “Getting Married,” Lutheran Herald, 2: 1 (1918), 9-10, and 2:2 (1918), 20-21.
18 L. DeAne Lagerquist, “As Sister, Wife, and Mother: Education of Young Norwegian-American Lutheran Women,” NorwegianAmerican Studies 33 (1992): 116.
About the Author
L. DeAne Lagerquist is professor of religion at St. Olaf College and she teaches in its American Conversations program. Her publications include In America the Men Milk the Cows (1992) and From Our Mothers’ Arms (1988). Her research interests include Lutheran engagement in public life and in higher education.