Ole Amundsen Buslett was a Norwegian born, American author, newspaperman, and politician.

Background

Ole Amundsen Buslett was born in Gausdal

Gausdal

Gausdal is a municipality in Oppland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Segalstad bru...

, Oppland

Oppland

is a county in Norway, bordering Sør-Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Akershus, Oslo and Hedmark. The county administration is in Lillehammer. Oppland is, together with Hedmark, one of the only two landlocked counties of Norway....

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. Buslett was the oldest of eight children born to Amund Halvorsen Buslett and Netta (Kalstad) Ringsrud. He migrated to the United States with his family in 1868 and settled in the town of Iola

Iola (town), Wisconsin

Iola is a town in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 818 at the 2000 census. The Village of Iola is located partially within the town.-Geography:...

, in Waupaca County, Wisconsin

Waupaca County, Wisconsin

-Demographics: As of the census of 2000, there were 51,731 people, 19,863 households, and 13,884 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 22,508 housing units at an average density of...

.

Career

In 1888, Buslett opened a country store and post office in Northland, Wisconsin

Northland, Waupaca County, Wisconsin

Northfield is an unincorporated community located in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, USA, within the town of Harrison....

. He served as postmaster, justice of the peace, and town clerk. In 1893, he became editor and part owner of Varden then later served as editor of Folkevennen. Both publications were Norwegian language newspapers published in La Crosse, Wisconsin

La Crosse, Wisconsin

La Crosse is a city in and the county seat of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, United States. The city lies alongside the Mississippi River.The 2011 Census Bureau estimates the city had a population of 52,485...

. In August, 1894, he became editor of Normannen in Stoughton, Wisconsin

Stoughton, Wisconsin

Stoughton is a city in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States and is a neighbor of Madison. It straddles the Yahara River about 20 miles southeast of the capital, Madison. Stoughton is part of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. In March, 1896, the publication was sold to Chicago-based Amerika. He held political offices in Waupaca County and was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly

Wisconsin State Assembly

The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin....

 from 1909 until 1910.

Buslett wrote in the Norwegian language

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

. His writings included novels, stories, poems, and plays. His works primarily portrayed the lives of Norwegian immigrants in Wisconsin. He also wrote a history of the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment

15th Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment

The 15th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, more popularly known as the "Scandinavian Regiment", was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.-Service:...

. Det Femtende Regiment Wisconsin Frivillige was published in 1894. It was translated into English and published as The Fifteenth Wisconsin during 1999.

Selected works

• Fram (1882)
• Leilighets digte (1882)
• Skaars skjæbne (1882)
• Øistein og Nora (1884)
• De to veivisere, et dramatisk digt i seks handlinger (1885)
• Snip-Snap-Snude (1889)
• Et dødens døgn, sørgespill (1890)
• Rolf Hagen ( 1893)
• Torstein i nybygden (1897)
• Sagastolen, fortælling fra det norske Amerika (1908)
• I Parnassets lunde (1911)
• Amerika-Paul (1913)
• Veien til Golden Gate (1915)
• Benediktus og Jacobus (1920)

Primary sources

• Øverland, Orm The Western Home : A Literary History of Norwegian America (Chapter 10, Ole Amundsen Buslett, Romantic Idealist. Norwegian American Historic Association. 1996)
• Hustvedt, Lloyd
  Lloyd Hustvedt
  Lloyd Hustvedt was an American professor and scholar of Norwegian-American history.-Background:Lloyd Hustvedt was born and raised in the Sogn Valley in Goodhue County, Minnesota. Hustvedt finished his B.A. degree at St. Olaf College with a major in Norwegian. Hustvedt received his M.A. degree...
  
   Ole Amundsen Buslett, 1855-1924 (from “Makers of an American Immigrant Legacy: Essays in Honor of Kenneth O. Bjork
  Kenneth O. Bjork
  Kenneth O. Bjork was an American professor, historian and author. He served as managing editor for publications at the Norwegian-American Historical Association over a twenty year period.-Background:...
  
  ”, Odd S. Lovoll
  Odd S. Lovoll
  -Background:Odd Sverre Lovoll was born in Sande, in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. He immigrated to the United States in 1946 and is a naturalized United States citizen. Lovoll received his education both in Norway and in the United States, passing university exams at the University of Bergen in 1961 and...
  
  , editor, Norwegian-American Historical Association, 2001)

External links

• Portrait of Ole Amundsen Buslett
• The Road to the Golden Gate by Hustvedt, Lloyd
• Veien til Golden Gate Jul i Vesterheimen (Minneapolis, 1913) Norwegian
• Wikipedia Norge Norwegian