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get informed, straight from the source on c-span. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the nation's capital to wherever you are. it is the opinion that matters the most, is your on. this is your democracy powered by cable. and now on american h, we want to introduce you to eric nelson. easy executive director and ceo of the national nordic museum. mr. nelson, why is there a national on american history tv, we want to introduce you to eric nelson, executive director and ceo of the national nordic museum. mr. nelson, why is there a national nordic museum in seattle, and generally, what is the history of the nordic people in the u.s.? >> that is a fascinating question. i often wondered myself sometimes about the location of the museum. it is certainly when i took the position years ago, but there's a huge tommy start with the history of the nordic people, which is for the most part, due

to a number of factors, push and pull, there is a major immigration from the nordic region, particularly in norway, sweden, denmark, also inland and iceland are included. but about 30% of the population of those countries left between 1865 and 1910 and again, a number of reasons were pushing them, offering free land in the middle of the country, so a lot of folks, once they arrived in the east coast moved to the midwest. after a generation or half a generation into the midwest, a lot of them realized there were occupations that were similar to occupations in scandinavia and the nordic region, fishing and logging. so there is a secondary migration to the pacific northwest and now, with seattle's population, 12% with nordic heritage and ancestry, does interesting, in the pacific northwest that places

like dakota's, because there continues to be migration and immigration from the nordic region into that part of the world. norwegian fishing families were living in the '50s and '60s and we had engineers coming to work at boeing and now we have a huge wave of people working in the tech sector with no kia or -- lots and lots of immigrants, refreshing the idea of what it means to be nordic in the concept -- context of the u.s. immigration story. >> go back to the 30% of the population being of the scandinavian area, who came to the united states. what was going on in scandinavia at the time? >> there was a number of factors. there were issues with denmark at war with germany and there was also issues around famine. one of the big drivers was interesting, was actually the decrease of the mortality rate

and creating much larger families. and you've been to norway, i mean it is hard soil and hard farming. you have -- you had eight or 10 children surviving, then all of a sudden it got very small, very quickly. a lot of second and third children, making a jump to north america. canada also received a lot of immigrants from scandinavia and nordic regions. >> garrison keillor likes to joke they went to minnesota because it was just as cold and the ground was just as awful as norway. but you mentioned the homestead act. >> yeah, again, there was a great deal of marketing, as scandinavian ship lines try to get people to come to the states as well. the -- people were attracted to the idea, again, of being able to farm land and have their own farms. my father's family immigrated

and ended up in kansas. and after spending some time at the great northern railroad and getting homestead, staying there for a generation or two before they disperse to other parts of the country, it is a common area, that that first- generation ended up in the middle part of the country, with a farm. and other family members were brought over, following them. and another story that is fascinating. that is the immigrants from nordic regions stayed for 20 years, you know fell to their pockets, with american money and went back and were seen as celebrities. it is interesting, i find it fascinating because families with the last name of nelson and changed it when they came in. but when the immigrants returned to sweden, norway and denmark, they kept americanized names. and you go to graveyards and

church arts and see the american flags with american spellings of scandinavian names. so there is this reverse migration that happens as well and i think the interchange and exchange between the nordic region and the u.s., it's been a two-way street for many, many years. with a lot of second generations coming to the u.s. from the nordic region and a lot of u.s. ideas return with a lot of these immigrants who came back to scandinavia. >> eric nelson, what was the world of the lutheran church in the scandinavian countries? >> you know, in scandinavian countries, from the time of reformation, lutheran church was the church in all five countries. there's been a major move to secularize, and now people have an option of where their tax dollars go toward. so you don't have to invest your tax dollars into the lutheran church in many of the countries.

and it is interesting, when immigrants came to the u.s., many of them stayed, many numbers of the lutheran church. others formed, you know, different denominations. there is a great swedish baptist church and there's a lot of them that joined protestant denominations. sometimes with a norwegian or swedish or danish focus, sometimes they just became acculturated into the communities and became episcopalians are presbyterians. but the lutheran church, during immigration was a point of gathering. it with the community center where people gathered, not just on sundays, but throughout the week for fellowship as well as worship. >> you described the museum as being established with nordic values. what does that mean? >> it is interesting, you know, the museum was founded in the late '70s and opened in 1980.

and it was a community group that pulled it together. a community group of nordics and you know, americans of nordic dissent. and it's always been supported by the honorary council from the region. and there's also been the idea that the museum is more than a museum, is a community gathering place. so weddings and funerals and every time there is a dignitary of any kind of significance, the museum is very and weird -looking. it was very community-based. so it's kind of seen sometimes, as a bit of a clubhouse, for the community in the region. and it was recently focused. about 2000, the museum decided it was time to build a purpose built facility. it was a surplus schoolhouse from 1979 until just 2018 when we built the new facility. when we were going through the process of understanding that we needed to raise upwards of

$50 million for the project, and there wasn't going to be state-supported like there is in the nordic region, you realize relevance is certainly important and a lot of the grid some clouds that had come together in the sons of norway lodges, where the vassal lodges or the icelandic clubs, restarting to weather. the memberships had been dropping from thousands to hundreds, to dozens and there was a lot of worry that there was going to need investment in the museum that we would make sure the museum's stories and programs were relevant. not just to the scandinavian and nordic community, but to the broader community. so we went through the whole process of thinking about

nordic culture in the terms of what the people in the general population find relevant and what is interesting. and again, it's been a wonderful time to be involved in the nordic museum because we have fantastic music and contemporary film. you know, nordic -- the genre that is fascinating. there's just been a popular -- popularization of nordics. and again, we were going to that, we were just doing focus groups. bringing all sorts of people to try to figure it out. and he had this wonderful opportunity to work with ralph associates with the design team. they recently opened the african american institute on the mall and the holocaust museum and they had a good reputation of working with specific communities and groups. and we were talking a lot about how we can forge 12,000 years of history, into a gallery and make that relevant and interesting, not just for us he may have scandinavian heritage, but for everybody. and we started boiling it down and it was at the same time,

nordic council of ministers, a group of ministers from the five nordic countries, getting together to talk about what the nordic brand was and how the nordic region can work as a group. so they were defining a brand for the nordic region, through values. and started to identify half a dozen or a dozen, everything from social justice, sustainability, openness and transparency, innovation and subcategories under all of those things. working with the folks who said, we can take the values and look at 12,000 years of history to ideas of innovation, social justice, openness and transparency. and it all dates back to the nordic region, is a very fragile and harsh environment. and 10,000 years of human habitation and 12,000 years of

human habitation has led to certain characteristics and values. if you are a harsh environment you have to take care of the environment. you have to be a good neighbor. you have to be open and transparent because you're never going to know when you need help. so these values are also incredibly common in the u.s. and pacific northwest. we decided that the relevance and story related to these core values of the nordic region. and how those values have been carried along with them, have come to the united states and marked and changed. being able to study that in the context of scandinavia and nordic region, and looking at the length of nordic america and what the contributions of nordic people have made to the u.s. and how you tell that story is going to be interesting. and an interest to people who may not share that background. >> mr. nelson, another nordic

trait is frugality. how did you raise $50 million? >> there's absolutely no question, one of the values we are taught is how to make sure that we are not wasting our hard-earned anger and it definitely was a challenge. the community, the scandinavian community, the nordic community in the pacific northwest was divided into many subsections, subgroups. and we've got our danes and swedes and norwegians and people who have been in the states for four or five generations and ex-pats that have just come. the ex-pats are very, very difficult to raise money from, all are very supportive and many have given millions of dollars to the project. but in the nordic region, the

state pays for culture and there's not an expectation that you would pay for anything out of your pocket. that is why tax rates are high and you trust everyone to support important things in your life. the church, museums, libraries or symphonies our bellies. is not a consciousness and not part of the mind-set. but again, a lot of folks who have achieved a lot and well- heeled folks that have made a lot of money. a variety of career development, fishing, maritime, and a lot of folks have a bit of a -- you refer to it as farmer's mentality. crops need to be put away for a rainy day. i think there's also a trust issue, making sure that, you know, we invest money. making sure we invest money that we trust will happen. so it was interesting and one

of the reasons i took the job, is there was expectation that this building was going to be built in five years and $50 million was going to walk in. night been working in the museum in california and had come up to seattle for the job. and i was a little uncomfortable with the task at hand. but i sat down at the interview table and it was almost like i was sitting at my grandparents kitchen. i kind of understood what these people are thinking. what answer is that they were expecting. but i took that familiarity with the culture and people. even the very diverse and very different. and was able to convey the ideas of what we wanted to do, and how we were going to do it. and money followed. the commitments followed. we were fortunate enough to get a large grant from denmark, from a family foundation, several norwegian families from

norway, contributed millions of dollars to the campaign. and we were also fortunate enough to get some capital funding support from the county and state and city, all combined, i think we ended up with eight or $9 million from nordic region, six or $7 million from the local and state government. but the lion share came from individuals that had commitments to their heritage. and even though our goal was to make the story line relevant to people from all backgrounds, the people that stepped up and supported, were people that were excited about celebrating their family's history and wanted to give something back. not in their name, but the name of their grandparents or parents. it was a museum being built, really to honor the previous generation. but also, saving the stories for the next. it was kind of interesting period, where we were in a financial support and the stories of wonderful things for my grandparents' generation,

interpreting it for our children and grandchildren. and it was marvelous, the story line that loosened people's wallets and made them feel comfortable in investing into the project. >> what is on display there and is it a research center? but yes, yes. in fact, we have a very active oral history project collected over 1000 oral histories of immigrants and continuing to do research. we are affiliated with one of the few scandinavian departments, the university of washington in seattle has many, many academic that are working with museum staff. and partnering with the university, quite often. a lot of research and publications on a regular basis. everything from family historians who want to do jian it -- gn -- genealogy workshops, to students working on immigration stories as well. we do quite a bit of research and have a nice, small and effective community that help out with that capacity.

the museum hosts three to four rotating temporary exhibitions annually, as well as our core exhibition, titled journeys. it really does look at the journey of people into the nordic region. their long history and the impact that they had. in the u.s. and in canada. the two expert -- temporary exhibitions focus on the core values that we talk about but we do everything from contemporary art to we just had a wonderful exhibition that closed that was on loan from the national museum in stockholm. we had danish, swedish and norwegian artists, carl larson and anderson, down --, fantastic art collections. earlier, one of our opening exhibitions in 2019 came from the university of uppsala and

it was the very beginnings of the viking period. wonderful, great finds of swords and shields and helmets. and wonderful stories about the viking period. again, we try to hold -- cover the whole gamut as we are doing these exhibitions. we really want to focus on the period of transformation and we focus on innovation and social, kind of social justice issues. and the orientation toward openness. it seems to be working well. >> how do you address the lafe erickson story? >> it is always interesting, especially when i have the opportunity to tell colleagues about leif erickson. all groups claim has norwegian and icelandic friends claim him as icelandic. but greenland also claims him

as theirs. so again, to be clear, erik the red -- the leader in greenland and draining into north america and settlements. in nova scotia, the fact they found the viking age remnants and foundations, and that part of north america, is a clear indication that there are settlements there as early as 1000. and again, it is where the story ends. minnesota and other things, i leave that to the academics, to argue about. but again, the story about the nordic arriving in north america, 500 years prior to christopher columbus is something we are all excited for you. >> eric nelson, what was the role of congress in establishing the nordic museum? but that is really interesting.

one of the facts, that had come up in conversations with the focus groups and with our design teens and architects and other academics, what sets the museum apart, we are the only, the largest anyway, nordic museum in the u.s. and this wonderful swedish museums up in minnesota and chicago and philadelphia, wonderful -- in iowa and a great danish museum. but we are the only nordic focus museum. and we wanted to set that up as our brand. and i think we have been working with a delegation from washington, about if there is some way of a national recognition for the museum. since it is the only one. and it is the u.s. relationship

to the nordic region, is important, everything from arctic issues to social justice now, especially with finland and sweden entering nato, there spoke a farm the nordic region. we weren't making much headway getting financial support from the federal government. but we did have a wonderful senator cantwell, who was a big supporter of the museum and she asked if there was something she could do from her position and mentioned the fact that talking about national designation, she and senator murkowski were working on a bilateral -- a major bill, in 2019, looking at a number of different topics. primarily, related to interior issues and low and behold, they moved the designation to the national nordic museum.

president trump signed the document and all of a sudden we have become a national museum. and that has created interesting dynamics, too. because again, we were very focused on the region, given this national designation has put us in a person -- interesting position. from the time i started 15 years ago, the focus and mission and goals have been around building a world-class venue to celebrate nordic heritage and having a platform for the public diplomacy. and so, it was finished. and it was time to come up with an updated three plan, as we were given the national designation and the mission was how we would raise our profile to be nationally significant. and that has been the focus of a lot of our effort. how we digitize our collection and collection -- collector programs and how we bring in people who have a focus on getting our stories out into

the wider country. instead of just that and put it region of the pacific northwest. >> how did you get into that type of work? but that is a wonderful question. i come from a family of educators, and my father was a school administered her and had master. my grandparents were teachers. at least my grandmothers were teachers. i thought it would be a great allocation of profession for me. and after i got my degree in history, i taught school for a year and a half, two years and decided i was not cut out to be a junior high school teacher. so i went back to graduate school and completed a graduate degree and ended up getting a position at a small regional museum. that led to the -- directorship and that led to another directorship. and after being in museums for about 20 years, the offer to come up to seattle and build

this nordic museum was presented to me. so again, i'm not sure i know much other than running museums now. it has been a great journey. >> eric nelson, the executive director and ceo of the national arctic museum, which is in seattle. he has been knighted by the king of sweden, and honored by the president of finland, and he was the 2019 swedish american of the year, congratulations on that, mr. nelson. we appreciate your time on american history tv. >> thanks for having me. >> if you are enjoying american history tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of programs like lectures in history, the presidency and more. sign up for the american history tv newsletter today and be sure to watch american history tv every saturday or anytime online at cspan.org/history.

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