Aftenposten
- Museums and Museum Work in the 19th Century.
- Ulefos Ironworks
- The Committee Against Prohibition Must Be Retained.
This Aftenposten page of 30 October 1926 carried a signed column by Director H. Grosch on nineteenth-century museums. Grosch credited the Nordic countries with leading the folk-museum movement, set Hazelius's Nordiska Museet in Stockholm and Bernhard Olsen's Danish folk museum as the models, and praised Anders Sandvig and Hans Aall as Norway's pioneers. An advertisement for Ulefos Jernværk, founded 1657, promoted fuel-saving stoves and put its low prices down to its own mines and to smelting with electricity from its own waterfalls. A large item demanded that the committee against prohibition be kept, warning 'Ola Nordmann' not to fall asleep again.
Translation
Museums and Museum Work in the 19th Century.
For "Aftenposten" by Director H. Grosch.
The age of the folk museums had arrived, a field in which the North has led the way with remarkable strength and skill. Here, in Stockholm, there rises the mighty "Nordiska Museet" created by Dr. Hazelius; Denmark gets its "Dansk Folkemuseum" under the leadership of Bernhard Olsen; and finally the idea takes root in our country too, which proves to possess the right pioneers in Anders Sandvig and Hans Aall, both possessed of a rare energy and enterprise, borne by an even more valuable love for the task, with full understanding of the task's greatness and, one might almost say, unlimited scope.
Ulefos Ironworks
Ulefos Jernværk. Founded 1657. Norway's largest stove foundry. Stoves, kitchen ranges, fireplaces, etc. Handsome, solid and fuel-saving. Several new models. Since Ulefos Jernværk has its own mines and smelts its ore with electric power from its own waterfalls, it holds a special position with regard to raw material and can therefore sell at low prices.
The Committee Against Prohibition Must Be Retained.
Don't fall asleep again now, Ola Nordmann, for then the prohibition bug will come and sink its teeth in again!
Context
Hans Aall and the founding of Norsk Folkemuseum
Grosch's column names Hans Aall as one of the two men through whom the folk-museum idea took root in Norway. According to Norsk Folkemuseum's own history, Aall founded the museum in 1894, in a period the museum describes as marked by strong national fervour and a desire for a more independent position in the union with Sweden. The column's emphasis on Norway joining its Nordic neighbours in this field fits that climate of national assertion. After some years in central Kristiania the museum moved to Bygdøy in 1902. Aall, born in 1869, served as director for 52 years until his death in 1946, so when Grosch praised his 'rare energy' in 1926 he was writing about a living contemporary who was still running the institution.
Why Sandvig began collecting: the pull of Stockholm
Grosch puts Dr. Hazelius's Nordiska Museet in Stockholm first among the Nordic models and presents the Norwegian museums as the idea arriving 'finally' in Norway. Maihaugen's own account shows a less harmonious side to that relationship. Anders Sandvig, a dentist who came to Lillehammer in 1885, began collecting old objects two years later, and he was concerned that local cultural heritage might be taken out of the region, particularly to Nordiska Museet. The open-air museum that grew from his collecting opened on 2 July 1904 under the name Maihaugen – De Sandvigske Samlinger. Of the pioneers Grosch praises, Sandvig was thus collecting partly to keep objects from flowing to the very Swedish museum that Grosch holds up as the leading model.
Where prohibition stood in late October 1926
The anti-prohibition slogan came at the end of a long fight. The Storting passed a permanent prohibition law in autumn 1921 by a narrow majority. Through the 1920s, smuggled spirits, home distilling and inventive ways of getting round the ban grew as problems, and in summer 1924 Prime Minister Abraham Theodor Berge made repeal a matter of confidence but was voted down in the Storting in July. Store norske leksikon dates a new referendum to 18 October 1926, in which 531,084 voters (55.7 percent) opposed prohibition and 423,031 supported it; the ban was formally repealed in 1927. Aftenposten's appeal of 30 October therefore appeared after the referendum had gone the anti-prohibition side's way but before repeal took formal effect, which explains its warning to 'Ola Nordmann' not to fall asleep again.
Ulefos: own ore and electric smelting
Ulefos was founded in 1657 as an ironworks at Ulefossen in Holla, where the Eidselva flows into Norsjø, but by 1926 it had long been working mainly as a foundry. Its blast furnace was blown out in 1875, ending production of its own pig iron, and after 1877 it became a pure iron foundry using purchased pig and scrap iron, with wood stoves as its main product until the 1950s. In 1910 the management turned to refining its own ore from the Fen mines with electric power, and Store norske leksikon notes that Ulefos was the only one of the old Norwegian ironworks to manage that transition. The advertisement's claim of own mines and electric smelting reflects this venture begun in 1910; its description as Norway's largest stove foundry and its promise of low prices are the firm's own advertising claims.
Original
Museer og museumsarbeide i det 19de aarhundrede.
Folkemuseenes tid var inde, et omraade, hvor Norden er gaat i spissen med merkelig kraft og dyktighet. Her reiser sig i Stockholm det av dr. Hazelius skapte mæktige» Nordiska Museet «, Danmark faar sit» Dansk Folkemuseum «under Bernhard Olsens ledelse, og endelig slaar tanken ogsaa rot i vort land, som viser sig at eie de rette foregangsmænd i Anders Sandvig og Hans Aall, begge i besiddelse av en sjelden energi og foretagsomhet, baaret av en endnu værdifuldere kjærlighet til opgaven med fuld forstaaelse av opgavens storhet og, nær sagt, ubegrænsede omfang.
Ulefos Jernværk
Ulefos Jernværk Grundlagt 1657. Norges største ovnsstøperi Ovne, Komfurer, Kaminer m. m. Vakre, solide og brændselsbesparende. Flere nye typer. Da Ulefos Jernværk har egne gruber og smelter sin malm ved elektrisk kraft fra egne fosser, indtar det en særstilling med hensyn til raamateriale og kan derfor sælge til lave priser.
Komiteen mot forbud maa bibeholdes.
Sov nu ikke ind igjen, Ola Nordmand, for da kommer forbudskrypet og biter sig fast igjen!