The University of Wisconsin’s Scandinavian [Nordic] Department, the Online Icelandic-English Dictionary, and the UW-Madison Thordarson Collection of Rare Books
- Gay Strandemo
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Gay Strandemo
Settling in the Wisconsin area, our Scandinavian ancestors left their mark. A strong sense of literacy and the preservation of historical records has offered enhanced understanding of their cultures, traditions, languages and more curated by the Department of Scandinavian Studies, which has a history unto itself.
Established in 1875, the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the oldest Scandinavian Studies department in the United States. From the beginning, the department has offered studies in literature, linguistics, language, culture, philology, and folklore within the Scandinavian/Nordic field.
The Scandinavian Studies program at UW-Madison was founded by Rasmus Bjorn Anderson (1846–1936), the first child born in the Norwegian immigrant Koshkonong Settlement in Dane County. His parents were among the first settlers of the Town of Christiana, in Eastern Dane County. Anderson’s colorful path to UW included being expelled from Luther College after leading a protest against students chopping wood for the teachers. He was fired from the faculty of the Albion Academy in the Town of Albion in Dane County when he plotted to take over as its president. In 1869, he was hired at UW as an instructor and was soon named professor of Scandinavian Studies in 1875, the same year the UW Scandinavian Department was founded.
Anderson was a tireless organizer of Scandinavian cultural and academic events during his 14 years at the UW-Madison campus. He arranged lecture tours and concerts featuring Nordic scholars. Musicians such as the violin virtuoso (and later close friend) Ole Bull gave a benefit concert on May 17 (Norwegian Independence Day) in 1872 that raised money to purchase 500 books for the department—the beginning of the Scandinavian collection at the library.
In 1885, Rasmus Anderson was appointed as the US minister to Denmark by President Grover Cleveland, ending his career at UW. During this time Copenhagen was at the height of the “Modern Breakthrough,” a movement that emphasized realism in the arts versus the Romantic period. Anderson hobnobbed with many cultural celebrities from literature, academia, and the arts. He frequented the same cafe as August Strindberg and said of him,
“His talents are everywhere recognized and it is plain that he is a towering
genius, but it would be difficult to determine from his strange conversation
whether he is sane or not…for he told everything about himself from his
childhood up. How he hates women! On that subject he certainly is insane.”
When Anderson returned to Wisconsin, his former post had been filled by his brother-in-law, Julius Olson, who held the position for 50 years. Anderson sold cod liver oil, became involved in local politics, and in 1898 became editor of Amerika, a Norwegian language journal, for 24 years.
The Department of Special Collections in Memorial Library, at the UW-Madison, houses the Chester H. Thordarson Collection, a private collection previously kept at Thordarson’s home on Rock Island in Lake Michigan. The University acquired the collection in 1946 after Thordarson’s death. The collection, which includes several Icelandic manuscripts, was preserved in the Wisconsin State Historical Society until 1953 when the Memorial Library opened — although Thordarson’s papers, including a childhood diary and correspondence in Icelandic are still kept in the nearby Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.
Chester Hjörtur Thordarson (I481526)* was a genius in electrical inventions, whose contribution to Wisconsin history was his home built on Rock Island in Door County.
Thordarson was born in Iceland in 1867. In 1873, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Milwaukee. His father died soon after arrival, and the family moved to Dane County, then Shawano, and eventually to the Red River Valley in North Dakota. Thordarson had received little formal education, but finished the fourth through seventh grades in two years once he had moved at age 18 to live with his sister in Chicago.
He was also an avid book collector, starting early in life. Working with dealers in London and Europe, he built a library of Scandinavian influences on science and culture. For example he acquired the notebooks of Carl Linneaus, the taxonomist, and copies of the Icelandic explorations by Henry Holland, who climbed Volcano Hekla in 1810 as a young medical student in the company of Sir George Mackenzie. This collection of rare books of science and literature formed the basis of the Rare Book collection in 1946 at the UW-Madison’s Memorial Library.
In 1929, the University of Wisconsin gave Thordarson an honorary master’s degree. He was later awarded an honorary doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Iceland.
The Nordic Studies program at UW-Madison has in 150 years expanded its offerings to include studies of Upper Midwestern Culture, Scan-Design Fellowships, and a Folklore Program, plus expanding the number of languages taught, including Old Norse.
Modern Icelandic is offered irregularly at the UW-Madison department and taught three times weekly over two semesters. The stated main goal of the course is to acquire the necessary Icelandic grammar and vocabulary to carry out basic conversations, express in writing, and to understand written texts in Icelandic.
Helpful with learning Icelandic is the Icelandic Online Dictionary, a digital collection developed by the UW-Madison to complement the University of Iceland’s internet course Icelandic Online. The Icelandic to English Dictionary is free to use and available online in conjunction with the course, which offers levels of proficiency from basic to higher ability.
Notes
* Watch for our "Interesting Icelander" article that will feature an expanded biography of Chester Thordarson in the next issue of Icelandic Roots.
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Sources
University of Wisconsin-Madison. "U-W Digital Collections" [website]. Retrieved from: https://search.library.wisc.edu/search/digital : 11 Mar 2026.
Wisconsin Historical Society. "About our [online] collections" [website]. Retrieved from: https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS15310 : 11 Mar 2026.
White, Harry K. “The Icelanders of Washington Island,” in The Library of Congress. Retrieved from: www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.7689c_0371_0377 : 11 Mar 2026.
Ruff, Allen & Tracy Will. Forward! A History of Dane: the Capital County. (1st ed). Woodhenge Press, Cambridge, Wis., 2000.
