Johnsrudverkstedet – Emigration and technology diffusion

The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain around 1750 and spread throughout Europe from the late eighteenth century. This process was the most important historical event of the modern period. It involved changes in production methods and levels of output, changes in social and economic organisation and shifts in patterns and levels of trade and political power. Japan and USA were the only countries outside Europe which underwent extensive industrialisation before 1914.

The industrialisation of Norway started in the 1840s. Mechanisation of the textile industry was one of the first results. Industrialisation spread in different ways. One of several factors was skilled workers from Britain who travelled to Norway to pass on their skills to Norwegians workers.

Emigration to Northern America also influenced industrialisation. One fourth of the Norwegians who emigrated after 1880 returned to Norway. They brought back capital, knowledge and skills. Some of them started their own factories and firms based on what they had learned in Northern America. An example of this is Johnsrudverkstedet, a mechanical workshop which is moved from Lunner to Hadeland Folkemuseum.

Johnsrudverkstedet was established on Roa in Lunner by Gustav Johnsrud (1868-1944). Gustav grew up on Roa and was educated on a technical school in Sweden. When he got through with his education, he returned from Sweden and started working on Nyland Mekaniske Verksted (engineering workshop) in Oslo.

He emigrated to New York in March 1897. He went by train to Gøteborg in Sweden and then by boat to Liverpool and reached New York in April 1897. He soon returned to Norway and according the census of 1900 he lived on Lindheim in Lunner together with his twin brother Edvard and Edvards family. Gustav was a mechanic in 1900 and he produced bicycles.

Gustav got engaged to Marthe Hansdatter Finstad from Gran. But in October 1902 he emigrated to New York again. It seems like it was planned that Marthe should follow. Marthe left Gran and emigrated to New York in June 1903. She was in company with her sister Guline Hansdatter. Gustav and Marthe married in New York later that year. They settled down on Long Island and had two daughters, Anna and Gudrun.

Gustav worked in an engineering workshop on Long Island. Here he could benefit from his education. He learned to use and perhaps invent machines and products. The industrialisation of USA was in progress. Inventions and innovations were ordinary.

Meanwhile Gustavs’ twin brother Edvard had established as a black smith and carpenter in Sagstudalen in Roa. In 1907 he moved his activity to Lunner railway station.

The house and workshop in Sagstudalen was not vacant long. Gustav and his family returned to Norway in fall 1907 and they settled down there.

The workshop in Sagstudalen was a wooden house. Gustav started a forge and a mechanical workshop. The building were taken down around 1918-1920 and moved down to the river Vigga on Roa. Gustav installed a generator and used the river to produce electric light. But the machines were run by water power in the beginning.

Gustav built a new and bigger workshop at the end of the 1920s. And it is this building which is moved to Hadeland Folkemuseum. This new Johnsrud-workshop was closer to the main road to Oslo. This made it easier to get a larger circle of customers. Gustav bought new machines for his workshop. These are still in use at the museum in summer.

Gustav repaired all kind of things like stoves, milk pails, threshing machines, cars, fire engines, locomotives, sewing machines and cream separators. It is said that it was not a item Gustav could not repair.

Gustav Johnsrud won first price on the Hadeland-exhibition in 1929 for his selfmade band saw and grind-machine. He made many of these machines and sold them to firms in Oslo. He also produced lamps, razors, coffee grinders and other metal things.

Gustavs son Karl Johnsrud took over the workshop in 1944 when Gustav died. He continued to run the workshop in the same way as his father had done. He repaired all kind of items made of metal and produced band saws and grind-machines.

Written for "Brua" February 2005 by Kari-Mette Stavehaug