Nicolai A. Grevstad

Nicolai A. Grevstad (2 June 1851 – 20 February 1940) was an American diplomat, politician and newspaper editor.

Nicolai Andreas Grevstad was born in Sunnmøre, the southernmost traditional district of the western Norwegian county of Møre og Romsdal. He graduated with a degree in law from the University of Christiania in 1878. In 1880 he became editor of Dagbladet, Norway's third largest newspaper. Founded in 1869, the newspaper was affiliated with the Liberal Party of Norway (Norwegian: Venstre). A split in the party caused the dismissal of Grevstad in 1883 because of his somewhat pronounced radical political positions.

Grevstad subsequently emigrated to the United States and soon became editor of Nordvesten, a Norwegian language newspaper published in St. Paul, Minnesota. Grevstad’s mastery of the English language was so excellent that he was a leading editorial writer on the Minneapolis Tribune for two years, and he later edited the Minneapolis Times. Grevstad also served as director of Scandinavian publicity for the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety .

In 1886, he returned to Norway at the request of the Liberal Party leader Johan Sverdrup, who served as prime minister after the introduction of the parliamentary system the prior year. Sverdrup served as Prime Minister of Norway from 1884 until 1889. Grevstad subsequently returned to the Minnesota and became an editorial writer for a number of English language newspapers in Minneapolis.

From 1892 to 1911, he was editor of Skandinaven, the largest Norwegian language newspaper in Chicago, Illinois. For a period he was a member of the Illinois General Assembly. In 1906, he was knighted into the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. In 1911, he became an Ambassador of the United States to Uruguay and Paraguay.

...
Wikipedia