Marcus Thrane
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Marcus Møller Thrane (14 October 1817 – 30 April 1890) was a Norwegian author, journalist, and the leader of the first labour movement in
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
. It was later known as the Thrane movement (''Thranebevegelsen'').


Early life

Thrane was born in Christiania, now
Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
, in 1817. Shortly after his birth, his father, a merchant and managing director in '' Norges Rigsbank'', was arrested for involvement in corruption, which devastated the family's reputation. At only 15, Thrane was orphaned and had to move in with friends of the family. In 1837, Thrane left Norway and traveled to
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through
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and
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. Thrane stayed in
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for several months before returning to Norway in December 1837. After finishing the examen artium (university admission exam) in 1840 and a brief period as a student of
theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
, Thrane and his new wife, Maria Josephine Buch, moved to
Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the municip ...
in 1841, where they ran a private school. In 1846, Thrane moved his teaching to Åsgårdstrand. In March 1847, Thrane came to Åmot in
Modum Modum is a municipality in Buskerud in Viken county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Vikersund. The municipality of Modum was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The area has a long tr ...
, where he began work as a teacher for the workers' children at the large industrial company, '' Blaafarveværket''. It was there that he experienced his first political awakening. In April, the year after the company was experiencing difficulties, Thrane, together with 250 workers, was sacked. The family then moved to Drammen, the hometown of his wife, where Thrane became the editor of the local newspaper , but because of his radical opinions, he was fired after only five months. He had already begun his political activities.


Labour movement

On December 27, 1848, Thrane founded (Drammen Labour Union) with 160 members. The following year, several other local unions joined a national organization, and Thrane printed the first edition of the union's paper, . In May 1850, the union delivered a
petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...
to King King Oscar II of Sweden and the Norwegian
Storting The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...
(parliament), which was signed by 13,000 members. The union asked for universal voting, the extension of mandatory military service to those with property,
equality before the law Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, legal equality, or legal egalitarianism, is the principle that all people must be equally protected by the law. The principle requires a systematic ru ...
, better schools, low or no border taxes on necessary goods, such as grains, and special support for poor farmers in the form of arable land on reasonable terms. The union was primarily a union for agricultural workers and crofters and so it cannot be seen as a direct precedent for Norway's later labour movements. In November, the government dismissed the petition. The union's national conference, in February 1851, sought a revolution. Although Thrane managed to stop it, the authorities seized the opportunity to have him arrested. Thrane and 132 other members were sentenced on June 25, 1855. Thrane was sentenced to four years in prison, in addition to the four years that had already passed. The imprisonments and internal tension resulted in the end of the movement, and Thrane's attempts of revitalizing it after his release from prison were unsuccessful.


Later life

After the collapse of the movement, Thrane became a photographer and when his wife died in 1862, he emigrated to the United States. He restarted his political activities among
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
n immigrants and continued his career as a journalist. In 1865, Thrane started the Chicago-based newspaper . On May 2, 1866, John Anderson purchased the subscription lists of the foundering to start the Norwegian language newspaper '' Skandinaven.'' In 1866, Thrane started a second Chicago newspaper, which he published until 1878. In 1866, the Norwegian Synod had felt sufficiently threatened to issue "A Warning to all Christians," which condemned his socialistic ideas, but the writings that he had put out in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
actually reached only a small number of fellow socialists. He published a satirical depiction of the visit of the Norwegian author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, which he called "The Old Wisconsin Bible" (). It was mainly directed against the church leaders in the Synod. Among a number of more-or-less successful ventures in the United States, Thrane wrote and produced a number of plays for Norwegian-speaking audiences. The Norwegian Theater () was established by Thrane in Chicago in September 1866. Many of its plays were written by Thrane. In 1883, he returned to Norway for a brief visit and held a number of lectures but, disappointed by the moderate interest, he returned to the United States, where he died in 1890, in
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,
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. Years later in 1949, Thrane's coffin was sent to Norway, where he was buried and remains today in VÃ¥r Frelsers Gravlund in Oslo.


Legacy

Although his movement existed for only a few years, Thrane's work was an important contribution in the politicisation of the Norwegian worker. The
Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party ( nb, Arbeiderpartiet; nn, Arbeidarpartiet; A/Ap; se, Bargiidbellodat), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party ( no, Det norske Arbeiderparti, DNA), is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centr ...
(founded in 1887) refers to him as one of its founding fathers. Indeed, the Thrane movement united the rural and urban lower classes for a common cause for the first time in Norway. Today, Thrane is remembered in Drammen, the city where he started Norway's first labour union, . On October 14, 2017, the city held a 200-year celebration for Thrane’s birthday. He is still recognized for his efforts and labor activism. A monument of him stands in his honor in Strømsø square.


References


Sources

*Karen Larsen, ''A History of Norway'' (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1949) *Leiren, Terje I. ''Marcus Thrane: A Norwegian Radical in America'' (Norwegian-American Historical Association. 1987) *Leiren, Terje I. ''Selected Plays of Marcus Thrane'' (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies. University of Washington Press. 2008) *Oddvar, Bjørklund ''Marcus Thrane, Socialist leder i et Utland''. (Oslo, Norway. 1970) Norwegian * Koht, Halvdan ''Arbeider-rørsla av 1848 i Noreg'' (Norske Folkeskrifter Nr. 60. Norigs Ungdomslag og Studentmaallaget. Oslo ic.1914)Norwegian


External links


''Marcus Thrane Collection'' (published by Norwegian-American Historical Association''Marcus Møller Thrane'' (Store norske leksikon)
Norwegian
''Thrane, Marcus Møller'' (Originalopslag fra pax Leksikon)
Norwegian {{DEFAULTSORT:Thrane, Marcus 1817 births 1890 deaths People from Drammen Norwegian expatriates in France Norwegian schoolteachers Norwegian newspaper editors Norwegian politicians Norwegian socialists Norwegian emigrants to the United States Norwegian prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Norway 19th-century Norwegian photographers 19th-century American newspaper founders American theatre managers and producers 19th-century American journalists 19th-century Norwegian writers American male journalists 19th-century American male writers Trade unionists from Oslo