Gulbrand Hagen

Gulbrand Torsteinson Hagen (1864 to 1919) was a newspaper editor and writer in Minnesota and North Dakota at the end of 19th Century and beginning of the 20th. He edited and published the Norwegian-language "Vesterheimen" ("The Western Home") newspaper from 1894 to 1914 and wrote and published the novella "Per Kjolseth" in 1903. The Vesterheimen was one of over 500 Norwegian language papers in America circa 1900.

"Kjolseth" was a comic sequel to Allan Saetre's popular Norwegian-American novella "Marit in Chicago" (published originally 1882). In both books, Marit's husband Per was represented as a striver, eager (perhaps too eager) to be Americanized. The “Vesterheimen” was a reform-friendly weekly with most of the subscribers in northwestern in Minnesota. Hagen ceased writing and editing the Vesterheimen in 1914 when the English Only movement and the coming war created a chill on German and Scandinavian language use. Hagen died from complications following flu after the influenza pandemic of 1918.

Hagen’s daughter Ida Hagen Kirn worked for the famous Norwegian-American novelist Ole Edvart Rolvaag ("Giants in the Earth") while attending St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in the early part of the 20th century and maintained a correspondence with Rolvaag until his death in 1931.

Works

 * Vesterheimen. Hagen, Gulbrand.  (Publisher and Editor), 1895 to 1914.


 * 1898. Bruden fra fjeldet. Mayville, North Dakota: Vesterheimen. 47p. (N)


 * 1898. ed. Fra Snelandets Hytter. Fortællinger og gamle Sagn fra Norge. Mayville: Vesterheimen. 104p. (Folklore.)


 * 1903. Per Kjolseth, eller "Manden til Marit." Crookston, Minnesota: Vesterheimen. 179p.