The Slooper Story with Dale Goodman
In the period beginning in 1825 and for about 100 years following, nearly 40% of the population of Norway – more than 800,000 Norwegians – immigrated to the United States.
Most of those immigrants came for “economic opportunity,” but the first immigrants – known as the Sloopers of 1825 – came for religious freedom.
The voyage was three years in the planning by an alliance of Quakers and Haugean Lutherans. On July 4, 1825, a 54-foot sloop named Restaurasjonen (Restauration) set sail with 52 passengers for a 98-day journey from Stavanger, Norway, to New York City.
In these three videos, Dale Goodman, who is a Vesterheim volunteer, previous trustee, and Slooper descendant, tells the story from its beginning in the Napoleonic Wars, through the voyage itself, and finally to the first Norwegian settlement in the United States in Kendall, New York.
Learn how Vesterheim is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Norwegian emigration.