Waldemar Ager

Waldemar Theodor Ager (March 23, 1869 – August 1, 1941) was a Norwegian-American newspaperman and author.

Early life Waldemar Theodor Ager was born at Fredrikstad, in Østfold, Norway. He grew up nearby in Gressvik, just across the Glomma River. He was the son of Martinius Mathisen Ager (1834–1894) and Marie Fredrikke Mathea Johnsdatter Stillaugsen (1835–1913). Today, the street he lived on in Gressvik is named Waldemar Agers Vei in honor and in memory of Ager. In 1883, Ager's father emigrated to America by himself to start a tailoring shop. In 1885, Waldemar Ager and his family went to join his father in Chicago.

Not long after his arrival in America, Ager and got his start in the newspaper business by becoming involved with Norden, Chicago's largest-circulation Norwegian-language newspaper. He never held any high position at that newspaper, but it got him his start in the business. When Ager first arrived in America, he encountered a vibrant, thriving Norwegian-American community. Use of the Norwegian language was widespread. Hundreds of small-circulation Norwegian-language newspapers and dozens of large circulation Norwegian-language newspapers were in operation from Michigan to the Dakotas and everywhere Norwegian immigrants were living. At the time, the Norwegian-American community was constantly being reinforced by new immigrants from Norway.

Norwegian-American cultural and linguistic retention were at their height from the 1890s-1910s. Over a million Americans spoke Norwegian as their primary language in those three decades. It is estimated that over 3,000 Lutheran churches in the Upper Midwest used Norwegian as their sole language of worship. It is to the retention of this Norwegian-American culture that Waldemar Ager dedicated much of the rest of his life. He also championed many liberal political causes including women's suffrage, various farmer and labor movements, and prohibition.

Prohibitionist Group portrait of members of the Norwegian American temperance movement, Minnesota. Ager is pictured in the bottom row, second from the left. Prohibition was very popular in the Norwegian-American community and Ager became one of the leaders of the movement.

Ager was also a popular orator, traveling the stump circuit for much of his career, speaking wherever Norwegian-Americans gathered. For Syttende Mai in 1916, Ager shared a platform with William Jennings Bryan. The city of Eau Claire meant more to Ager than just a career. It was here that Ager met a Norwegian immigrant girl from Tromsø, Norway, named Gurolle Blestren. Ager and Blestren married and raised nine children in a home that still stands near Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The house, now known as the Brady Anderson and Waldemar Ager House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated a Literary Landmark by the National Association of Friends of Public Libraries.

Selected bibliography Kristus for Pilatus. En Norsk-Amerikansk Fortælling (1910) (translation titled "Christ before Pilate: An American Story", published in 1924) Oberst Heg og hans Gutter (1916) (translation by Della Kittleson Catuna, Clarence A. Clausen titled "Colonel Heg and His Boys", published in 2000) Paa Veien til Smeltepotten (1917) (translation by Harry T. Cleven as "On the Way to the Melting Pot", published in 1995) Gamlelandets Sønner (1926) (translation by Trygve Ager as "Sons of the Old Country", published in 1983) Hundeøine (1929) (translation by Charles Wharton Stork as "I Sit Alone", published in 1931)