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Ingrid Elisabeth Semmingsen (29 March 1910 in
Hamar Hamar is a town in Hamar Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. Hamar is the administrative centre of Hamar Municipality. It is located in the traditional region of Hedmarken. The town is located on the shores of Mjøsa, Norway's largest lake ...
,
Hedmark Hedmark () was a county in Norway before 1 January 2020, bordering Trøndelag to the north, Oppland to the west, Akershus to the south, and Sweden to the east. The county administration is in Hamar. Hedmark and Oppland counties were merg ...
– 31 May 1995) was a Norwegian
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
. Appointed as a
professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...
at the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...
in 1963, she was the first female professor of history 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 ...
.


Personal life

Semmingsen was born in
Hamar Hamar is a town in Hamar Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. Hamar is the administrative centre of Hamar Municipality. It is located in the traditional region of Hedmarken. The town is located on the shores of Mjøsa, Norway's largest lake ...
, as the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel and farmer Peter Thorvald Gaustad (1878–1949) and his wife Gudvor, née Todderud (1884–1956). She grew up at a farm in
Stange is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Hedemarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stangebyen. Other villages include Bekkelaget, Espa, Bottenfjellet, Ilseng ...
. In 1939 she married
Rolf Ingvar Semmingsen Rolf Ingvar Semmingsen (August 13,1908 –May 1, 1979) was a Norwegian civil servant. He was born in Stor-Elvdal in Hedmark, Norway. He was the son of Martin Semmingsen (1875–1964) and Anne Strand (1874–1961). Having graduated as cand.jur ...
, a bureaucrat who served as director of the Norwegian Price Directorate.


Career

Semmingsen took the cand.philol. degree in 1935 with a paper on the lower class in her native Hedmark from 1850 to 1900. She appeared in radio programs with popular singer Alf Prøysen, who came from a such social background. Her grandfather and great-grandfather had both been involved in the Marcus Thrane movement. Ingrid was a member of the radical group
Mot Dag Mot Dag (, 'Towards Day') was a Norwegian political group. The group was active from the 1920s to the early 1930s and was first affiliated with the Labour Party. After World War II, many of its former members were leaders in Norwegian politics an ...
for a short period. She later concentrated on American history and the Norwegian immigration to the United States. Her first publication was the 1938 article ''Utvandringen til Amerika 1866–1873'', which was printed in the journal '' Historisk Tidsskrift''. She published ''En verdensmakt blir til. De forente staters historie'' in 1946, with a second edition in 1972, as well as the work ''Veien mot vest'' in two volumes in 1941 and 1950. The second volume earned her the
dr.philos. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
degree in 1951, becoming the first female history
doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles * ...
in Norway. She was appointed professor in
American history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...
at the
University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...
in 1963, as the first female professor of history in Norway. Semmingsen's appointment in American history was replaced with an appointment in general history in 1968. She again concentrated on Norwegian nineteenth-century
social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...
in addition to emigration history. She published ''Standssamfunnets oppløsning i Norge'' in 1954, and ''Husmannsminner'' (1960) was the result of a project at the
Norwegian Museum of Cultural History Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History), at Bygdøy, Oslo, Norway, is a museum of cultural history with extensive collections of artifacts from all social groups and all regions of the country. It also incorporates a large open ...
. In the field of emigration history she published ''Amerikabrev'' (1958) and ''Drøm og dåd. Utvandringen til Amerika'' (1975). She retired in 1978, but long after this she has been considered an authority on the Norwegian immigration to the United States, together with Odd Lovoll. Lovoll has cited Semmingsen as his primary inspiration, and called her body of work a "national treasure". Semmingsen was a member of the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...
from 1952, and held
honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad ho ...
s at the
Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...
and
St. Olaf College St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Ola ...
. She was also a deputy member of the
Norwegian Nobel Committee The Norwegian Nobel Committee ( no, Den norske Nobelkomité) selects the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize each year on behalf of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's estate, based on instructions of Nobel's will. Five members are appointed by ...
. Her last article was printed in 1988, and she died in 1995 in
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 ...
.


Selected works

* ''Veien mot vest'' (2 volumes) (1941 and 1950) *''En verdensmakt blir til. De forente staters historie'' (1946) * ''Standssamfunnets oppløsning i Norge'' (1954) * ''Amerikabrev'' (1958) * ''Husmannsminner'' (1960) * ''Drøm og dåd. Utvandringen til Amerika'' (1975); translated as ''Norway to America: A History of the Migration'' (1980)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Semmingsen, Ingrid 1910 births 1995 deaths People from Hamar People from Stange University of Oslo alumni Academic staff of the University of Oslo Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Norwegian women academics 20th-century Norwegian historians Norwegian women historians