Kenneth O. Bjork

Kenneth O. Bjork (19 July 1909 – 11 August 1991) was an American professor, historian and author. He served as managing editor for publications at the Norwegian-American Historical Association over a twenty-year period.

Kenneth O. Bjork was born in Enderlin, North Dakota. His parents were Theodore C. Bjork (1875–1944) and Martha Arneson (1883–1977). Both his parents had been the children of Norwegian immigrants. His father's family had immigrated from Kaupanger in Sogn and his mother’s family from Grue in Solør. Kenneth O. Bjork grew up in Enderlin, a small town where his father ran the hardware store. At home, he learned to speak Bokmål, the more common of the two principal Norwegian language dialects.

Bjork graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1930, with history majors. He continued his studies at University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. His took study tours in Europe from 1934 to 1935. In 1935 he obtained his PhD degree on a thesis on Anglo-German diplomatic relations in the Bismarck era.

From 1935-37, he was a professor of history at the University of Montana in Havre, Montana. In 1937 he was employed at St. Olaf College, where he became professor in 1944 and taught European history until his retirement in 1974. During a two-year sabbatical from 1965 to 1967 he went to Kenya as the Senior Representative for the Rockefeller Foundation. His mission there was to help the University College, Nairobi, establish its Humanities Division. He planned and supervised the efforts of a staff of ten (teachers and administrators from the U.S.) and taught as a professor at the University of East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. During this period he also steeped himself in African history, qualifying his ability to teach it upon his return to St. Olaf, establishing a precedent in the department that he also chaired for 25 years.

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