just told the store about four prisoners and all of their houses are still standing. >> cheers to that. >> it's almost like we have a very robust community of preservation organizations here in loudon county. >> it's bananas. any other questions or comments? >> before we go, before we go i would like to thank all of you for coming and one more thank you to alex and annie for letting us use the historic harrison hall to hold this event. >> cheers. if you are enjoying american history to be sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive weekly schedules 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 c- span.org/history.

a healthy democracy doesn't look like this, it looks like this. americans can see democracy at work when citizens are truly informed, a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the nations capital to wherever you are. the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. now in american history tv we want to introduce you to eric nelson. he is the 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.? >> fascinating question. i often wonder myself sometimes

about the location of the museum. i certainly wondered what i took that position 15 years ago but there is a huge history of the nordic people, which is a little diverse but for the most part due to a number of factors push and pull, there is a major immigration from the nordic region particularly norway, sweden, denmark also finland and iceland are included, but about 30% of the population left those countries between 1865 and 1910 and again, a number of reasons for pulling and pushing, the homestead act was offering free land so a lot of folks, once they arrived in the east coast moved their way to the midwest. after a generation or a half of a generation, a lot of them realized there were occupations that were very similar to the occupations in scandinavia and

the nordic regions. there was a secondary migration to the pacific northwest and now seattle's population, about 12% claim to have nordic heritage or ancestry. it's a little different in the pacific northwest than it is in places like minnesota, the dakotas because there is continued migration and immigration from the nordic region into that part of the world. if norwegian fishing families were moving in the 50s and 60s and then we had sob engineers coming to work at boeing. now we have a huge way of people coming into the tech sector. a lot of immigrants that are refreshing the idea of what it means to be nordic in the context of the u.s. immigration story. i guess that is a quick answer. >> i want to go to that 30% of the population of the scandinavian area 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 and germany and that issues around famine and one of the big drivers was interesting like vaccination. it decreased the infancy mortality rate and crated much larger families. you have been to norway. it's hard soil and hard farming. when you have one sent to had the property down to its all right but if he had eight or 10 children surviving, then all of a sudden that farm got very small very quickly. a lot of second, third, fourth children ended up making the jump to north america. canada also received a lot of immigrants from the scandinavian 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 but you mentioned the homestead act. >> yeah, i think one of the -- there was a great deal of marketing as scandinavian ship

lines try to get people to come to the states as well. out of that doctor and again people were attracted to the idea of being able to farm land and have their own farmstead. my father's family immigrated and ended up in kansas. after spending some time on the great northern railroad and getting a homestead and staying there for a generation or two before they dispersed into other parts of the country. it's a very common narrative that first-generation ended up in the middle part of the country with a farm and then brought other family members over with them or following them . then there is another story that is fascinating. the immigrants that came from the nordic region stayed for 10 or 20 years, filled their pockets with american money and went back and were seen as celebrities. an interesting thing, i find this fascinating because my

families lesson it wasn't nelson. they changed it when they came in. when these immigrants returned often times to sweden or norway and denmark, they kept their americanized names with them. you see american flags with americanized spellings of scandinavian names. this reverse migration thing that happened. i think the exchange between the nordic region and the u.s. has been a two-way street for many years making a lot of technology innovations come to the u.s. from the nordic region and a lot of u.s. thoughts and ideas returned with a lot of these immigrants that came back to scandinavia. >> what was the role of the lutheran church in the scandinavian countries? >> in scandinavian countries from that time of the reformation the lutheran church with a state church and all five countries.

. there has been a major move to secularize and now people have an option of where their tax dollars ago to religion. you don't have to invest your tax dollars in the lutheran church. is interesting, when the immigrants came to the u.s., many of them stayed devoted numbers of the lutheran church. others formed different denominations. there was this great swedish baptist church and a lot of them joined other protestant denominations, sometimes with a norwegian or swedish or danish focus. sometimes they just became acculturated into the communities and became episcopalians or presbyterians for the lutheran church during the immigration period was really a point of gathering. it was community center, that's where people gathered, not just on sundays but throughout the week for fellowship as well as for worship. >> you described the museum as

being established with nordic values. what does that mean? >> is interesting. the museum was originally founded in the late 70s and opened up to the public in 1980. it was really a community group that pulled it together. a community group of nordics and you know americans of nordic dissent. it has always been supported by the honorary councils from the region. there has always been this idea that museum is more than a museum. it's a community gathering place. weddings and funerals and every time there is a dignitary of significance, they all tend to come to the museum but it was very inward looking. it was very community-based. kind of seen sometimes as a clubhouse or the nordic community in the region and it was very regionally focused. about 2000, the museum decided

it was about to build a purpose built facility. it was in a surplus schoolhouse from 79 until just 2018 when we build a new facility. when we were going through the process of understanding that we needed to raise upwards of $50 million for this project and there wasn't going to be state support like there is in the nordic region, you realize that relevance was super important and a lot of these groups and clubs that had come together in the sons of norway lodges or the fossil lodges or the icelandic clubs were starting to whether. the memberships had been dropping from thousands to hundreds to dozens. there is a lot of worry that if there was going to be an investment in a new museum, we wanted to make sure that the museum stories and programs were relevant, not just to the scandinavian and nordic

community but broader community. we went to the whole process of thinking about nordic culture and the terms of, what do people in general population find relevant? again, this has been a wonderful time to be involved in the nordic museum because we have fantastic music and in temporary film. nordic genre that is so fascinating. there is a popular, popularization of nordics. as we were going through that, we were doing focus groups and bringing in all sorts of people trying to figure it out. we had this wonderful opportunity to work with our exhibit design team and they recently opened the african- american -- and they did the holocaust museum. really good reputation of working with specific communities and groups. we are 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 who may have scandinavian heritage but for everybody. it was at the same time, the nordic council administers, which is a group of ministers from the five nordic countries, they were getting together and talking about what the nordic brand was and how the nordic region can work as a group. they were defining a brand from the nordic region through values. they started to identify a dozen values, everything from social justice, environmental sustainability, openness and transparency, innovation, and then subcategories under all of those. working with applebaum's folks, we said, we can take these values and use those as a lens to look at 12,000 years of history through these ideas of

innovation, social justice, openness and transparency. it all relates back to the nordic region is a very fragile and very harsh environment. 10,000 years of human habitation has led to certain characteristics and values. if you are in a harsh and fragile environment, you have to take care of it. you have to be a good neighbor. you have to be open and transparent because you never know when you're going to need somebody's help. these values are also incredibly common in the u.s. and the pacific northwest. we decided the relevant story really related to these core values of the nordic region and how those values have been along with immigrants, have come to the united states and they have morphed and changed and be able to study the in the context of scandinavia in the nordic region and looking at that through the lens of nordic america and what are the

contributions of these nordic people and immigrants have made to the u.s. how do you tell that story that's going to be interesting and insist to people that may not share that background and heritage. >> mr. nelson, another nordic trait is frugality. how did you raise $50 million? >> there is absolutely no question that one of the values we are taught is how to make sure we are not wasting our hard-earned tender. it definitely was a different challenge. the community, the scandinavian community and nordic community and pacific northwest is divided into many subsections. we have our days and our suites and our finns and norwegians and we have people who have been in the states for 4 or

five generations and we have the ex-pats that have come and the ex-pats are very cold to raise money from although they are very supportive and many of them have given millions of dollars to the project, but in the nordic region, the state pays for culture and there is an expectation that you would pay for anything out of your pocket because that's why the tax rates are high and you trust the government to support the important things in your life, if that is church, museums or libraries, symphony or valley. there's not a consciousness and it's not part of the mind-set, especially with recent immigrants. again, i think there are a lot of folks who have achieved a lot and well-heeled folks that have made a lot of money in a variety of careers, development, business, fishing, maritime and a lot of folks have a bit of -- i refer to as a farmers mentality. crops might fail and you might to put something away for a

rainy day. there's also a trust issue, making sure that if we are going to invest money we want to make sure we are investing in something we trust will happen. it was an interesting process and i think one of the reasons i took the job, there was an expectation that this new thing was going to be built in five years and $50 million was going to wash and. i had been working in a museum in california and i come 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 table. i understood what these people were thinking and what they were going to ask, and what answers they were expecting. i took that familiarity with culture and the people, even the very diverse, and different. i was able to convey the ideas of what we wanted to do in the museum and how we were going to

do it. sure enough, money followed. commitments followed. we were fortunate enough to get a large grant from denmark, a family foundation, several norwegian families, norway contributed to the campaign and we were also fortunate enough to get some capital funding support from the county and the state and the city and all combined i think we ended up with eight or $9 million coming in from the nordic region, six or $7 million coming in from local and state government, but the lion's share came from individuals that had a commitment to their heritage. even though our goal was to make the story line relevant to peoples of all backgrounds, the people that really stepped up and supported it were people that were excited about celebrating their family's history and wanted to give something back but not in their name but in the name of their grandparents. a museum that was being built really to honor the previous

generation, but also saving the stories for the next. it was an interesting period where getting financial support and stories and wonderful things from our grandparents generation interpreting it and giving it to our children and grandchildren. just a marvelous story line and i think that was what loosened people's wallets and made them feel comfortable investing in the project. >> what is on display there? is also a research center? >> yes. we have a very active history project that we have collected over 1000 over oral histories and continue to do research. is at the university of washington in seattle and we have many academics that are working closely with museum staff. a lot of research and publications on a regular basis, everything from family

historians that want to do a little geology, genealogy workshops to graduate students that are working on immigration stories as well. we do quite a bit of research and have a nice, small, but nice and effective team that help out with the capacity. the museum hosts three to four rotating temporary exhibitions annually as well as our or exhibition which is entitled, journeys. it looks at this journey that people into the nordic peep region mother long history and the impact they have had in the u.s. and canada. the temporary exhibition focuses on those four values that we talk about, but again we do everything from contemporary art to we just had a wonderful exhibition close that was on the national museum and stockholm and we had danish , swedish and norwegian artists , carl larson and andrew sorin.

just a fantastic art collection. earlier one of our opening exhibitionists in 2019 came from the university of upsell and at the very beginnings of our period and wonderful finds. swords and shields and helmets and wonderful stories about the viking period. we try to cover this whole gamut that as we are doing these exhibitions, we want to focus on these periods of transformation and focus on innovation and social justice issues, orientation towards openness and transparency. it seems to be working well. >> how do you address the story? >> it's always interesting, especially when i have a wonderful opportunity to talk

to colleagues about leif erickson and everybody wants to -- all my norwegian friend claim him as a norwegian and all my icelandic friends claim him as icelandic but greenland takes also claim him as theirs. again, i think it's clear that leif erickson and his father eric the red were legendary at that period and certainly eric the red settled in iceland and later in greenland and leif erickson journeys into north america and the fact that they found viking age remanence and foundations in that part of north america is a clear indication there are settlements there as early as 1000. i think that's where the story ends. the runes in minnesota and other things leave that to the academics to argue about, but again, the story about the

nordics arriving in north america 500 years prior to columbus is one that i think we are all excited about. >> what was the role of congress in establishing the nordic museum? >> that's really interesting. one of the thoughts that had come up in conversations with focus groups and with our exhibition design teams and architects and other academics and museum professionals was what sets the museum apart? we are the only or the largest anyway, nordic museum and the u.s. is wonderful swedish museums in minnesota and chicago and philadelphia, wonderful norwegian museum in iowa. we are the only nordic focused museum. we wanted to set that up as our brand and i think we

have been working with a delegation from washington about , is there some way of a national recognition for the museum? it's the only one. as the u.s. relationship to the nordic region is important, everything from the arctic issues to social justice now, especially with finland and sweden entering nato, there has been a lot of focus on the nordic region. we weren't making much headway getting financial support from the federal government but we did have a wonderful senator who was a big supporter of the museum pick she asked if there was something she could do from her position and mentioned the fact that we have been talking about national designation. she and senator makowski were working on a major bill in 2019 that was looking at the number

of different topics and primarily related to interior issues. low and behold they included the designation of the national nordic museum in the legislation and president trump signed the document and all of a sudden we have become a national museum and it has created some interesting dynamics because we are focus on the region. given this national designation can put us in an interesting position. it came at a brilliant time. from the time i started 15 years ago, the focus and mission and goals have been around building this world- class venue to celebrate nordic heritage and having a platform for public diplomacy. and it was finish and it was time to come up with an updated plan and when we work given this national designation, it gave us a whole new mission. how do we raise our profile to be nationally significant?

that has been the focus of a lot of how we digitize our collection and digitize our programs and how do we bring in people who have a focus on getting our stories out into the wider country instead of that pacific northwest. >> how did you get into this type of work? >> that's a wonderful question. i come from a family of educators and my father was a school administrator and headmaster and my grandparents were teachers. my grandmothers were teachers. i thought that would be a great advocation and profession for me so after i got my degree in history, i taught school for a year and a half two years and decided that it was not cut out to be a junior high school teacher. i went back to graduate school and completed a graduate degree and ended up getting a

curatorial position at a museum and that led to a directorship and that led to another directorship and after being in museums for about 20 years, this offer to come up to seattle and build this nordic museum was presented to me. i'm not sure that i know much other than running museums now so it has been a great journey. >> derrick nelson is the executive director and ceo of the national nordic museum which is in seattle. he has been knighted by the king of sweden and honored by the president of finland. he was the 2019 swedish american of the year. congratulations on that mr. nelson. we appreciate your time in american history tv. >> transfer having me. >> if you are enjoying american history tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs like lectures

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