Fields of Fortune

A gripping history of one Norwegian immigrant family’s experience in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to World War II. In the spring of 1853, a family of eight drove their wagon to the wharf in Bergen, Norway. They unloaded their belongings alongside the other stacks labeled, AMERICA, MINNESOTA, ILLINOIS, MICHIGAN, NEW YORK CITY, CHICAGO and boarded the crowded ship. Hopeful, nervous Norwegians—giving up everything for a place they knew of only through second-hand tales of freed