Manuscripts Collection
Ole O. Sageng was born in Osterdalen, Norway, December 1, 1871. He came to the United States with his family in 1878, settling near Dalton in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. He graduated from Fergus Falls (Minnesota) High School in 1895, and attended Augsburg College, Minneapolis. Sageng taught rural schools in Otter Tail County and in Grand Forks County, North Dakota. He farmed for many years near Dalton, and was chairman of the Rural Credit Board from 1925 to 1931.
Sageng ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature in 1896 and again in 1898 as a Populist. He was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1900 as a Populist, representing the Fifty-Ninth District in the regular session of 1901 and in the 1902 special session. In 1902 he ran for re-election in the House, but was defeated.
Sageng was elected to the Minnesota State Senate from the Fifty-Ninth District in 1906 (Populist/People's Party) and served until his voluntary retirement in 1922. In the Senate he was chairman of the Committee of Rules, and served on the committees on education, finance, and general legislation. He was an early advocate of "county option," Prohibition, and women's suffrage. He was president pro tem of the Senate in 1921.
In 1924, with the support of progressive elements in the Republican Party and of prominent leaders of the women's suffrage and Prohibition movements, he ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senator, but was defeated in the primary. Sageng was elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1950, representing the Fiftieth District until 1954.
Sageng married Carrie Brandvold (1881-1958) of Dalton, Minnesota, in 1904. They had six daughters (Borghild, Mathilda, Maria, Olga, Evangeline, and Dagny) and two sons (Karl and Richard). Carrie died November 23, 1958 after having been in failing health for ten years. Ole Senging died March 30, 1963.
Major legislative issues addressed in the papers include state employee retirement plans, liquor control, education, health and welfare programs, and the regulation of food and drugs. There is also information (1904-1919) on women's suffrage, Prohibition, transportation, and the regulation of utilities, interest rates, and medical practitioners. Other papers deal with the 1916 Minnesota congressional campaigns and with Sageng's unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate (1923-1924). The correspondence is fairly complete for the years in which the legislature was in session (odd-numbered years). There are letters from many prominent Minnesota political leaders and from Sageng's constituents. The 1904-1910 correspondence is incoming, with few of Sageng's replies. His replies become more frequent in 1911.
In 1904-1919 the issues center around women's suffrage and Prohibition. Other matters include legislation relating to railroads; education, including state aid for schools, salaries of school administrators, the creation of teachers' colleges and agricultural schools, and teacher pensions and retirement programs; liquor licensing; food and drug regulation; grain regulation and wheat grading; the establishment of the Home School for Girls, located at Sauk Centre; dairy sanitation; regulation of public utilities; regulation of interest rates; Bible reading in the public schools; roads and highways; dental regulations; automobiles; osteopathic and chiropractic regulation; and state employees' retirement plans.
Correspondence from 1916 and 1923-1924 concerns Sageng's political career outside the legislature. The 1916 correspondence relates to a Republican proposal to have Sageng run for Congress, and to Sageng's work for Republican candidates in the 1916 campaign. Much of it relates to Frank B. Kellogg's campaign for the U.S. Senate. Material from 1923-1924 deals with Sageng's unsuccessful bid for the Republican U.S. Senatorial nomination.
There is information on Republican prospects in the Ninth District; the Farmer-Labor senatorial incumbent, Magnus Johnson; and the other Republican candidates for the position: Theodore Christianson, Oscal Hallam, and Thomas Schall.
Correspondence from the 1951 and 1953 legislative sessions documents such issues as state employee retirement plans, social security for teachers, the granting of arrest powers to liquor control officers, county welfare programs, game and fish regulations, mental health programs, the sale of drug products in grocery stores (the "Pill Bill"), reorganization of school districts, fair employment practices, and sales tax.
A two-part inventory compiled by Cecil M. Johnson in 2012 lists, in chronological order, items contained within the Ole O. Sageng papers by date, correspondent, and topic. Johnson's inventory also includes a brief summary of the content or messages conveyed by each item. In addition to the papers held by the Minnesota Historical Society, Johnson's inventory also includes documents that are held by the Otter Tail County Historical Society or by Sageng family members.
Accession number: 9497; 15,874
Recataloged with additions by: David B. Peterson, August 2006.
Previously shelved under call number A/.S129.
Catalog ID number: 0900039297
Largely photocopies of pages from selected Minnesota legislative manuals.
This list was taken from the collection inventory prepared by the original cataloger, probably ca.1963.