Nelson, Knute (1843–1923)

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Knute Nelson, c.1895.

Norwegian immigrant Knute Nelson served state and country throughout his life, first as a soldier and a lawyer, then as a legislator and the twelfth governor of Minnesota. He was the state's first foreign-born governor.

Nelson was born in Evanger, Voss, Norway, on February 2, 1843. In 1849, he and his widowed mother immigrated to the United States, settling first in Chicago (1849–1850) and then in Dane County, Wisconsin, where he enlisted in the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry (1861–1864) during the Civil War. After the war, Nelson graduated from the Albion Academy and studied law in a Madison, Wisconsin, law office. He was admitted to the bar in 1867. The same year, he married Nicolina (Nicoline) Jacobson. Nelson, a Republican, was a representative in the Wisconsin Assembly from 1868 to 1869.

In 1871, he moved with his family to Alexandria, Minnesota, where he practiced law while farming a homestead tract. He served as Douglas County attorney (1872–1874), Minnesota state senator (1875–1879), presidential elector (1880), University of Minnesota regent (1882–1893), and Fifth Congressional District representative (1883–1889).

Nelson was elected governor of Minnesota in 1892 and 1894, holding the post from January 4, 1893, to January 31, 1895. He resigned in 1895 to run successfully for the US Senate, where he remained until 1923. Nelson was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Committee on Public Lands, and he was active on the Commerce and Indian Affairs committees. His most notable legislative measures included the Nelson Bankruptcy Act (1898) and the act creating the Department of Commerce and Labor (1902). He also helped establish the Interstate Commerce Commission. Nelson supported a low tariff, a federal income tax, Prohibition, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the League of Nations. He died on April 28, 1923, during his fifth senatorial term. He is buried in Alexandria, Minnesota.

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First published: June 6, 2011
Last modified: September 18, 2020

Related Resources

Related Resources

Primary

Knute Nelson Papers, 1861–1924
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00578.xml
Description: Papers mostly concerned with political aspects of Nelson's life, plus some about his military service.

Records of Governor Knute Nelson, 1892–1895
Minnesota State Archives, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/gov026.xml
Description: Official papers relating to Nelson's terms as governor.

Gordon, Hanford Lennox. An Address to the Voters of the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota. [Minnesota?: s.n., 1882].

Nelson, Knute. Inaugural Address of Governor Knute Nelson to the Legislature of 1893. Minneapolis: Harrison and Smith, 1893.

———. The Indian Appropriation Bill: Speech in the House of Representatives, March 9, 1886. Washington, DC: [Government Printing Office], 1886.

———. The League of Nations. "We are as vitally interested in securing a permanent world's peace as we were in participating in a world's war." Speech of Hon. Knute Nelson of Minnesota in the Senate of the United States, October 9, 1919. Washington, DC: [Government Printing Office], 1919.

———. Plain Facts on Finance: Address. [Minnesota: s.n., 1896].

———. Speech of Senator Knute Nelson, of Minnesota, on the right to acquire and govern additional territory: in the Senate of the United States, January 20, 1899. Washington, DC: [s.n.], 1899.

———. Summary of our Most Important Land Laws: an article from the "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science" for May 1909. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909.

Secondary

Adams, Elmer E. "The Nelson-Kindred Campaign of 1882." Minnesota History 5, no. 2 (May 1923): 87–107.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/5/v05i02p087-107.pdf

Bjorgan, G. Rudolph. "The Success Story of an Immigrant." PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1967.

Chittenden, Newton H. History and Catalogue of the Fourth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers. From June 1861 to March 1864. Baton Rouge, LA: Gazette and Comet Book and Job Office, 1864.

Chrislock, Carl H. "A Cycle in the History of Minnesota Republicanism." Minnesota History 39, no. 3 (Fall 1964): 93–110.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/39/v39i03p093-110.pdf

Evans, Walter Bennett. "The Early Political Career of Knute Nelson, 1867–1892." Master's thesis, University of Minnesota, 1937.

Gieske, Millard L. "The Politics of Knute Nelson, 1912–1920." PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1965.

Gieske, Millard L., and Steven J. Keillor. Norwegian Yankee: Knute Nelson and the Failure of American Politics. Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1995.

Odland, Martin W. The Life of Knute Nelson. Minneapolis: Lund Press, 1926.

Preus, Jacob A.O. "Knute Nelson." Minnesota History 5, no. 5 (February 1924): 328–347.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/5/v05i05p328-347.pdf

Roberts, Kate. Minnesota 150: The People, Places, and Things that Shape Our State. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007.

Rolfsrud, Erling Nicolai. Scandinavian Moses. Farwell, MN: Lantern Books, 1986.

Zeidel, Robert F. "Knute Nelson and the Immigration Question: A Political Dilemma." Minnesota History 56, no. 6 (Summer 1999): 328–344.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/56/v56i06p328-344.pdf