Sons of Norway

Sons of Norway (Sønner av Norge), founded in 1895 as the Independent Order of the Sons of Norway, is a fraternal organization principally representing people of Norwegian heritage in the United States and Canada. The organization includes in its mission the promotion and preservation of the heritage and culture of Norway and provision of quality insurance and financial products to its members.

The organization was merged with a parallel women's organization, Daughters of Norway, in 1950.

Currently, the Sons of Norway has nearly 400 lodges in the United States, Canada and Norway. With over 57,000 members, the Sons of Norway is the largest Norwegian organization outside of Norway.

The Sons of Norway was founded as the Independent Order of the Sons of Norway. The organization was founded by 18 members on January 16, 1895, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to insure each other when they were unable to secure life insurance on their own. Membership was originally open to males of Norwegian descent between the ages of 20 and 50 who were capable of giving proof of being morally upright, in good health, and capable of supporting a family.

A second lodge was established in South Minneapolis in 1899 and a third was founded in the northeastern section of the city in 1900. The Minneapolis model quickly spread and by the end of 1900 some 12 lodges of the organization had been established in cities and towns with substantial Norwegian-American populations across the American Upper Midwest.

From its origins in Minnesota the organization spread to both coasts. A lodge of the order was established as far away as the then American territory of Alaska.

In 1903 a group in Seattle asked the Midwestern group for a charter, however they did not wish to have compulsory insurance for the members, which was anathema to the parent order. The Seattle group organized as Leif Erikson Lodge No. 1 in spite of the Midwest lodges and with other West Coast lodges set up the Grand Lodge of the Sons of Norway of the Pacific Coast. The two orders quarreled until they held a convention in Superior, Wisconsin in June 1909, merging the next year.

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