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 Nordic museum in seattle and generally, whats the history of the nordic people in the us . So fascinating question. I often wonder myself sometimes about the location of the museum i certainly wondered when i first took the position 15 years ago, but theres a huge you start with the 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 was a major emigration from the Nordic Region, and 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 were pulling them and pushing them. The homestead act was offering free, free land in the middle of the. So a lot of folks once they arrived in the east coast, moved their way to the midwest after it, generation or a half a generation. And in the midwest, a lot of them realized that there were occupations that were very similar to the occupations in scandinavia, in the Nordic Region, fishing, logging in the Pacific Northwest. So there was a secondary migration to the Pacific Northwest and now seattles population and about 12 claim to have Nordic Heritage is your ancestry. And its interesting. Its a little different in the Pacific Northwest than it is in places like minnesota the dakotas, because theres continued to be migration and immigration from the Nordic Region into that part of the world. If norwegian fishing families were moving in, in the fifties and sixties, then we had saab engineer coming to work at boeing. Now we have a huge wave of people working in the tech sector coming with nokia or minecraft, but lots and lots of immigrants that are kind of refreshing. The idea of what it means to be nordic in the concept of a u. S. Immigration story. But i guess thats a quick answer to. Well, i want to go back to the 30 of the population of scandinavian area came to the United States. What was going on in scandinavia at the time . There was a number of a number of factors. I mean, there were there were issues with. Denmark at war in germany and there was also issues around famine. And one of the big drivers was interesting was actually vaccinations that decreased the infant mortality rate and created much larger families. And youve been to norway. I mean, its hard soil and hardscrabble farming. So when you had one one son to him, the property down to it was. All right. But if you had eight or ten children surviving, then all of a sudden that form very, very, very small, very quickly. So a lot of second, third or fourth children ended up, making the jump to north america because canada also received a lot of a lot of immigrants from the scandinavian and Nordic Regions. Garrison keillor to joke that they went to minnesota because it was just as cold and the ground was just as awful as it was back in norway. But you mentioned the homestead act. Yeah. Again, i think you know, one of the there was a great deal of marketing a scandinavian ship lines trying to get people to come to the states as well. Again, part of that paul factor and again were attracted to the idea again of being able to farm land and their own farmstead. I and my my fathers family immigrated ended up in kansas and you know, after spending some time on the Great Northern railroad and getting a homestead in, staying there for a generation or two before they dispersed into other parts of the country, but its a its a very common narrative that that first generation ended up in the middle part of the country with, the farm, and then brought other family members over them who were following them. And then theres another story thats really fascinating. And thats the that came from the Nordic Region, stayed for ten or 20 years. You know, filled their pockets with american money and went back and and were seen as celebrities. The interesting thing, too, is, i mean, i find this fascinating because my familys last name wasnt nelson and they changed it when they came. But when these immigrants returned, oftentimes to sweden and norway and denmark, they kept their americanized names them. And you go to graveyards and churchyards and you see american flags with american nice spelling of these scandinavian names. So theres this kind of reverse migration thing that happened as well. And i think the interchange and exchange between the Nordic Region and the us, its been a two way street for many, many years and a lot of Technology Innovation has come to the us from, the Nordic Region and a lot of us thoughts and ideas returned with a lot of these immigrants that came back to scandinavia. So eric nelson, what was the role of the Lutheran Church in the scandinavian . You know, it was a, you know, in the in scandinavia countries from the time of the reformation and the Lutheran Church was the state church. And all in all five countries still is, correct . Yeah, but theres been a major move to secularize and now people have an option of where their tax dollars go to religion. So you dont have to invest your tax dollars in the Lutheran Church and. Many of the state in many of the countries, but in its interesting when the immigrants came to the us many of stayed devoted members of the Lutheran Church. Others formed, you know, different denominations. So there was this great Swedish Baptist Church and theres a lot of them joined other protestant denominations, sometimes with a norwegian or a swedish or a danish focus sometime times they just became acculturated into the communities and became or presbyterians. But the Lutheran Church during the immigration period was really a point of gathering and it was a community center. Thats where people gathered not just on sundays, but throughout week for fellowship as well as for worship. You describe the museum as being established with nordic values. What does that mean . Its interesting. You know, the museum was originally founded in the late seventies and opened up to the public in 1980. And it really a Community Group that pulled together a Community Group of nordics and, you know, americans of nordic descent. Its always been supported by the honorary councils from the region. And theres always been this idea that the museum is more than a museum. Its a community gathering. So weddings and funerals is and every time theres a dignitary of any kind of significance, these all tended to come to the museum. But it was very inward looking and it was very community based. So its kind of seen sometimes as a bit of a clubhouse for the Nordic Community in the region. And it was very regionally focused when, you know, about 2000 the museum decided that it was time to build a purpose built facility, it was in a surplus house for them from 79 until just 2008 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 this project. And there wasnt going to be state support like there is in the Nordic Region. We realized that relevance was super important and. A lot of these groups and clubs that had come together in the sons of norway lodges were the the vassal lodges or the finlandia lodges or the icelandic were starting to wither. The memberships had been dropping from thousands to hundreds to dozens. And theres a lot of worry that if there was going to be an investment, a new museum, that would make sure that the Museum Stories and programs were relevant, not to the state navy and the Nordic Community, to the broader community. So we through a whole process of thinking nordic culture in the terms of what do people in the general population find relevant, whats exciting, whats interesting and again, i mean, this has been a wonderful time to be involved in the Nordic Museum because we have fantastic music, contemporary film, you know, nordic glories, a whole genre thats fascinating and taken off crime fiction. So theres just been a popularization of of nordics. And again, weve kind of as we were going through that, we were just, you know, doing focus groups and bringing in all sorts of people trying to figure it out and. We had this wonderful opportunity work with Ralph Applebaum associates as our Exhibit Design Team that we were working with, and they recently opened the africanamerican museum on the mall, and theyd done the Holocaust Museum and the really good reputation working with specific communities and groups and were talking a lot about how we kind of forge 12,000 years of history into a into a gallery and make that relevant and interesting, not just for us who may have scandinavia heritage, but for everybody and we started boiling it down and it was the same time Nordic Council of ministers which is a group of ministers, the five nordic countries were getting together and talking about what the nordic was and how the Nordic Region can work as group. And they were defining a brand for the Nordic Region through values in the it started to identify a half a dozen, a dozen or two values, everything from, you know, social justice, environmental sustainability, openness and transparency, innovation and then subcategories under all of those and working apple bombs folks really said, we can take these values and use those as a lens to look at 12,000 years of history through this of innovation, social justice, openness and transparency and and it all relates back to the Nordic Region is a very fragile and very environment. And 10,000 years of human habitation or 12,000 years of human habitation has led to certain characteristics. And values. If youre in a harsh and fragile 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 never know when youre going to need help. So again, these values are also incredibly common in the u. S. And in the pacific. So we decided that the relevance story really related to these core values of the Nordic Region and how those values have been kind of along with immigrants come have to the United States and theyve morphed changed and being able to kind of study that in the context of scandinavia and the Nordic Region and looking at that through the lens of nordic america. And what are the contributions these nordic people and these immigrants have made to the us. And then how do you tell that story thats going to be interested in an interest to people who may not share that that background in that. Well mr. Nelson another nordic trait is frugality how did you raise 50 million . Yeah. Yeah, there is absolutely no question that one of the values that were taught is how to make sure we are not not wasting our hard earned anger and it definitely is. It was a it was a different challenge. The the community, the scandinavian Nordic Community in the Pacific Northwest is kind of divided into. Many subsections, some subgroups. And weve got our weve got our danes and our swedes and our friends and our norwegians, and weve got people whove been in the states four or five generations. And then weve got expats that have just come. The expats are very, very difficult to raise money from, although theyre very supportive. And many them have given millions of dollars to the project. But in the Nordic Region, the state pays for culture and theres not an expectation that you would pay anything out of your pocket because thats way tax rates are high and you trust the government to support the important things in your life if thats church if thats museums or libraries or symphony or ballet. So theres just not a consciousness and theres not a its not part the mindset, especially with recent immigrants. Again, i think there are a lot of folks who have achieved a lot and have kind of wellheeled folks that have made a lot of money and in a variety of careers, development, fishing maritime and a lot of folks have a bit of a of a kind of refer to it as a farmers mentality. The crops might we need to put something away for a rainy day. I think theres also trust issue in making sure that, you know, if were going to invest the money, we want to make sure that were investing money in something that we trust will happen. So it was an interesting process. And i think one of the reasons i took the job is there was an expectation that this new building was going to be built in five years. And the 50 million was going to wash in and i had a i had been working in the museum down in california, and id come up to seattle for, the job. And i was a little uncomfortable with with the task at hand. But i sat down at the interview table and was almost like i was sitting at my grandpas kitchen table. I kind of understood what these people were thinking, what they were going to ask, what answers they were expecting. So i kind of took that familiarity with culture and the people, even the very diverse, very different and and was able to convey the ideas of what we wanted to do in the museum and how we were going to do it. And you know. Sure enough, money followed commitments followed. We were fortunate enough to get a large grant from denmark, from a family foundation, several, several norwegian families from norway contributed millions of dollars to the campaign. And then we were also fortunate to get some Capital Funding support from the county in 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 lions share came from individuals that, had a commitment to their heritage and even though our goal was to make the storyline relevant to the peoples of all backgrounds, the people that really stepped up and supported that were people that were excited about celebrating their families history, wanted to give something back, not in their name, the name of their grandparents or the name of their parents. Those a museum that was being built really to the previous generation, but also kind of saving the stories. The next was this kind of interesting period where were getting Financial Support and stories and wonderful things from our grandparents generation, interpreting it and giving it to our children and grandchildren. So it was just a marvelous storyline and i think that was what loosened peoples wallets and them feel comfortable investing in the project. So whats on display there and is it also a Research Center . Yes. Yes. In fact, weve got a very active oral history project collected over a thousand oral histories of immigrants. And we continue to do research in it. Affiliated with one of the few scandinavian department. Its at the university of washington in seattle and have many, many academics that are working closely with museum staff. And you seem staff partners with the university quite often so. A lot of research and publications on a regular basis everything from you know family that want to do a little genealogy genealogy workshops to graduate students that are working on immigration stories as well and so we do quite a bit of research and have a nice small but nice and effective to help out with with our capacity. The museum hosts 3 to 4 are rotating temporary exhibitions annually as well as our core exhibition or exhibitions entitled journeys. And it really does look at this kind of journey of people into the Nordic Region there, their long history and then the impact that theyve had. And in the us and canada, the temporary exhibitions focus primarily on those four values that we talk about, but again, we do everything from contemporary to just had a wonderful exhibition, clothes that was on loan. The National Museum in stockholm, we had danish, swedish and norwegian artists. Carl larsson and anders, so on and on their own early ring and hammer show. Just fantastic art collections earlier, one of our opening exhibitions in 2019 came from the university of uppsala, and it the very beginnings of the viking period and wonderful grave finds swords and shields and helmets and wonderful stories about the viking period. So again, we try to cover this whole gamut as we are doing these exhibitions. We really want to focus these periods of transformation and, really focus on innovation and social and kind of social justice issues and the orientation towards and transparency and it seems to be working well. How do you address the leif ericson story . You know, its always interesting, especially when i when have a wonderful opportunity to talk to two colleagues about ericson and and everybody wants to all my norwegian friends, him as norwegian and all my icelandic friends claim him as icelandic. But you know, the greenland ticks also claim him as theirs too. So again, i think its clear that leif ericson, his father, erik, the red legend theory at that period and certainly erik, the red settlement of in iceland and the leader in greenland and leif ericksons journey into north america and the settlements in in nova scotia. The area and the fact that theyve found viking age remnants and foundations in that part of north america clear indications that the settlements there and the early as the thousand and then again i think thats thats where the story ends i mean the ruins in minnesota and other things kind leave that to the academic to argue about but again the story about the nordics arriving in north america 500 years prior to columbus was one that i think were all excited about. Eric nelson what was the role congress in establishing the Nordic Museum . Thats really interesting. One of one of the thoughts that had come up in conversations with focus groups in and with our exhibition design teams and architect and other academics and museum professionals. Was that what sets the museum apart . And we are the only or the largest anyway. And Nordic Museum in the us theres wonderful swedish museums in minnesota and chicago and philadelphia, wonderful. Ambassador heim is a great Norwegian Museum in iowa and alcorn, iowa has a great danish museum, but we were the only nordic focused museum. I and we to kind of set that up as, as our, our brand. And again, i think wed been working with a delegation from washington about its there some way of a National Recognition for the museum. Its the only one. And as the us relationship to the Nordic Region is important, everything from the arctic issues to social justice now, especially with finland and sweden entering nato, theres been a lot of focus on the Nordic Region. We we werent making headway getting Financial Support from the federal government, but we did a wonderful senator cantwell who was a big supporter, is a big supporter of the museum. And she asked if there was something that she could do from her her position. And i mentioned fact that weve been talking about national designate ocean and she and senator was were working on a kind of bailout or a a major bill in 2019 that was looking at a number of different topics and primarily related to interior issues and loan. They included the designation of National Nordic museum in that legislation and it passed both houses and President Trump signed the document. All of a sudden weve become National Museum and thats created interesting dynamics too, because again, we were very focused on the region given this National Designations can put us in a interesting position in canada, a really brilliant time. Our from the time i started 15 years ago, the focus mission and goals had really been around building this world class venue to celebrate Nordic Heritage and having a platform for public diplomacy. So and, and it was finished. And its time then to come up with an updated strategic plan. And when we were given this national designation, it gave us a whole new mission. And that mission is going to how do we raise our profile to be nationally significant and. That has been the focus of lot of our efforts. How we how we digitize our collection and our programs and how do we bring in people who have a focus on getting our stories to the wider country instead of just to that important of the Pacific Northwest . How you get into this type of work, thats wonderful question i. Come from family of educators and my father was a School Administrator and a headmaster there. My grandparents were teachers. My, my, it was my grandmothers were teachers. I thought that would be a great avocation profession for me. So after i got my degree in history, i taught school for a year and a two years and decided that it 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 curatorial at a small Regional Museum and 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. So again, i am not sure that i know much other than running museums now. So its been a great journey. Well, eric nelson is the executive director and ceo of the National 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 of american of the year. Congratulations on that, nelson. We appreciate your time on
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