Everyday life
BACKGROUND
The project
Emigration
Memories
IN AMERICA
The
emigrants
Their
destination
Work
Daily
life
Returning home
IN NORWAY
House
and home
Recipes
Words and
phrases
OTHER INFO
Funding
Archive
Links
BACK
Daily life and leisure
Life in America was characterized by heavy work and long days. However, it is often the other aspect of existence "over there" that Norwegian Americans remember best. Even though most of them never took long holidays, they still feel that their leisure time was of great importance. It was then they would fulfil their dreams – the dreams that had been the motivation for coming – whether it was shopping in the large department stores or driving around in flashy American cars.
In Brooklyn many were in contact with the Sons of Norway circles, the Leikarring dance club and Gjøa sports club. In the latter half of the 1950s, Sons of Norway acquired their own dancing premises on 8th Avenue. This soon became the main in-place after "Finnehålen" closed. Visiting the Leikarring dance club’s cabin near Lake Telemark was a popular weekend excursion, as was the Coney Island leisure park. But first and foremost it was at church that the Norwegians gathered. There were several churches in Brooklyn, including the 59th Street Church and the 66th Street Church. It was not necessary to be an active Christian in order to attend the services – the church was just as much for social activities. In addition to the services, coffee parties were arranged on Sunday afternoons, and it was here that boys and girls met and that newly-arrived immigrants met their fellow countrymen.
Choir in the 59th Street Church in Brooklyn
Leisure time ...
A summer day on Coney Island in the 1920s
Around the coffee table
Party in Bay Ridge