Blacksmith Shop

Blacksmith Shop. Heritage Park, Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. , Overview , Mikkel and Hage Sennes emigrated from Norway with a variety of skills that helped them eventually thrive in America. They also learned new skills once they settled in the U.S. They built this blacksmith shop on their farm in Minnesota in 1853. For a year, it also served as their home, where they lived, cooked, worked, and slept.

. The Mikkelson-Skree Blacksmith Shop is distinctly Norwegian, but the construction technique is distinctly American. , . Mikkel and Hage slept in the small loft under the roof. , . 1971.052.083 , Gift of Darrell Skree

, Many immigrants arrive with belongings, keepsakes, and an array of skills and life experiences that can help them thrive in a new country. Mikkel Sennes grew up on a farm in Norway and immigrated with blacksmithing, farming, carpentry, leatherworking, and shoemaking skills. Nineteenth-century Norwegian farmers primarily grew food to feed themselves instead of growing food to sell at a profit. This is called subsistence farming, and the farmers who practiced it were often skilled in a number of different trades. He based this building on a nearly identical one on his family farm in Norway. , Mikkel and his wife, Hage, moved to Houston County, Minnesota in 1853. They lived on the farm where they settled until their deaths in 1904 and 1905. When building this structure, Mikkel used a log-construction technique that is distinctly American, an adaptation that exemplifies acculturation. This small building served for about a year as both a working blacksmith shop, complete with forge, and living quarters for Mikkel and Hage. According to the family, Hage complained of the smoke that hung in the room, both from cooking and from Mikkel's work. , Their story is an example of hardships that immigrants, then and now, can endure in making a new life: the ability to make a livelihood is often prioritized over comfort; newcomers may share a home with established immigrants until they can be more independent; and not all immigrants can apply the skills they bring with them, and must take the work that is available. Immigration and acculturation are experiences lived by individuals, and each has a unique story. , Immigration scholars use the terms assimilation and acculturation to describe how a person or a group of people adapt to a new culture. If the person or group begins to follow the new culture completely, it's called assimilation. If the person or group picks and chooses which aspects of the new culture to adopt, it's called acculturation. Acculturation is often a two-way process and the new culture picks up traits from the people that join in.