Blacksmith Shop

Mikkel and Hage Sennes emigrated from Norway to the U.S. with a range of practical skills and settled on a farm in Houston County, Minnesota, in 1853, where Mikkel built a blacksmith shop based on a nearly identical building on his family farm in Norway. Distinctly Norwegian in form but built with a distinctly American log-construction technique, the small structure reflected acculturation as Mikkel adapted old patterns to new conditions. For about a year, it served as both a working blacksmith shop, complete with forge, and the couple’s living quarters, where they lived, cooked, worked, and slept, with Mikkel and Hage sleeping in a small loft under the roof. Mikkel had grown up on a farm in Norway and brought skills in blacksmithing, farming, carpentry, leatherworking, and shoemaking, abilities associated with the subsistence farming practiced by many nineteenth-century Norwegian farmers. According to the family, Hage complained about the smoke that filled the room from both cooking and blacksmithing. The couple remained on their farm until their deaths in 1904 and 1905, and their experience illustrates the hardships of immigration, the effort to make a livelihood, and the selective adoption of aspects of a new culture.

Decorah, Iowa · United States