Speech #900074513

The history of Iceland shows a vigor and independence which the citizens brought with them when they -immgrated to the United States. many of them to the northeastern part of North Dakota. While they found conditions of climate and soil. much different than in their native Iceland. their spirit permitted them to adapt their agricultural practices to the requirements of North Dakota. and they were successful in making the earth productive. Stefan Einarsson cites some of the accomplishments of Icelandic Americans in this country: It was more or less an accident that guided the steps of the first Icelandic immigrant. in 1856. to the valley of the Latterday Saints in Utah. A few others followed and the Icelanders founded a small settlement in Spanish Fork. while some went to Salt Lake City. where their descendants still live. Otherwise immigration to the United States can hardly be said to have begun until 1870. when some 200 Icelanders settled in the midwestern States. mostly in Wisconsin and North Dakota. The influx was strongest in the period 18801890. subsiding in the period 18901900. after which immigration practically ceased. In the whole period some 25.000 Icelanders. approximately 25 per cent. left their homeland for Canada or the United States. only about onethird settling on this side of the border. Later there have only been two periods of slight immigration. The Icelandic trawler fishermen in Gloucester. Massachusetts. came immediately after World War I. and several hundred wives of American soldiers came in during and after World War II. In 1874 the Icelanders at home celebrated the millenary of the colonization of their island. This was also occasion for festivities among the Icelandic immigrants in Milwaukee. who there founded a society to foster intellectual pursuits and discussed the church that later was to become a mainstay of their religious and national life. They wanted to find a place where they could all live in the same community and found a "New Iceland" in the free western world. A plan to settle them in Alaska found favor with the United States government. but came to naught.