CONRAD GEORGE SELVIG:

Conrad George Selvig was born in Rushford, Minnesota on October 11, 1877. He was the third of four children born to Gunhild Marie Hognestad and Gunnar Kristofferson Selvig (Gunder C. Selvig) who had emigrated from Stavanger, Norway to Chicago, Illinois in 1871. The Selvig family moved to Rushford when Gunnar Selvig accepted a position as a foreman with the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad. Gunhild died in 1881 and Conrad's father married Rachel Byberg, also a Norwegian immigrant, in 1883.

Selvig graduated from Rushford High School in 1895 and was back in school the following year as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse just across the county line from Rushford in Money Creek Township, Houston County. In the summer of 1896 Selvig was nominated to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but failed to pass the entrance examinations. He also subsequently failed to gain entrance to the Naval Academy and found himself back in Minnesota's Root River valley as a country schoolteacher, first at the Vinegar Hill School in Money Creek Township and later at Bratsberg in Fillmore County.

During the Spanish American War Selvig served six months as a private with Company F of the Twelfth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The company camped and trained at Chickamauga Park, Georgia through the months of July and August where Selvig suffered from malaria but did not succumb to the typhoid that had infected the campgrounds. The company was sent to Camp Hamilton near Lexington, Kentucky for garrison duty between August 24 and September 14 and then returned to Minnesota. Selvig was mustered out on November 5, 1898 and shortly thereafter resumed teaching in Fillmore County at York Township.

Selvig began the 1901 school term as superintendent of the public schools in Harmony, Minnesota and continued there until 1907 when he was hired as superintendent of the public schools in Glencoe, Minnesota. During this time Selvig also attended summer courses at the University of Minnesota and by 1908 had acquired both bachelor's and master's degrees in education. At the same time Selvig became interested in practical education as a method to prepare students who were not college-bound for the vocations they would occupy after school. A year after becoming Glencoe's superintendent Selvig convinced the board of education to introduce a curriculum that included courses in home economics, carpentry, and agriculture. The following year Selvig lobbied for passage of the Putnam Bill to authorize state aid for agricultural, manual, and domestic training in the state's high schools. He spoke before various community groups, wrote an article for newspaper publication, and joined with other school superintendents to canvass support from educators and their local boards of education. Once the bill was enacted Glencoe was named one of the ten schools to receive state funding and Selvig worked with several conference committees to develop the curriculum.

In July of 1910 Selvig was appointed by the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents as director of the Northwest School of Agriculture in Crookston, Minnesota. Selvig remained in Crookston for nearly 17 years and earned a reputation as an expert on agricultural education and farming issues. Over those 17 years Selvig served as president of the Red River Valley Dairymen's Association, the Red River Valley Livestock Association, the Red River Valley Development Association, and the Minnesota Export League, as well as becoming closely involved with the popular Red River Valley Winter Livestock and Farm Crops shows.

During the spring of 1924, as the post-world war agricultural depression worsened, Selvig spent three months in Washington, D.C. speaking with congressional members and leaders of various farm organizations. Convinced that receding agricultural prices were becoming a core national economic problem and seeing no single influential trade organization speaking for agriculture, Selvig supported passage of the McNary-Haugen Bill because it would have established an agricultural marketing corporation in an effort to support domestic prices. In 1926 Selvig decided to campaign for the ninth district's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was elected on the basis of his support for the McNary-Haugen bill and subsequently served three consecutive terms in Congress as a member of the committees on flood control, roads, census, and labor. Never appointed to the committee on agriculture, he continued to work for passage of the failed McNary-Haugen bill by providing background research to committee members.

Minnesota's congressional districts were redrawn following the 1930 census resulting in the loss of one representative. The 1932 elections were held at large by the entire state and Selvig, who had voted against the 1930 Smoot-Hawley bill because he believed the protective tariffs would be offset by increased production costs, lost his seat.

The following year Selvig contracted a severe flu infection that damaged his hearing, which had been aggravated over the years by severe colds and illnesses following his service in the Spanish-American War. Selvig and his wife moved to Santa Monica, California in 1935 and Selvig became involved with the American Society for the Hard of Hearing and with its local branches in California. He served as the chairman of the Society's legislative committee and compiled a digest of state laws that affected the hearing impaired.

Selvig married Marion Elvira Wilcox of Mabel, Minnesota, whom he had met during the summer of 1900 at a teachers certification course, on June 17, 1903. The Selvigs had three children: Helen Marion, born July 31, 1904; Margaret Elizabeth, born July 5, 1907; and Conrad George, Jr., born June 6, 1910. Selvig's wife died July 5, 1949 in Santa Monica, California and he died August 2, 1953 after writing his autobiography. They are both interred in Oakdale Cemetery in Crookston, Minnesota.

Biographical information was taken from the collection.

Return to top

Correspondence, scrapbooks, speeches, news clippings, and an autobiography provide details concerning Root River valley public schools, the Northwest School of Agriculture and the Northwest Experiment Station, the diversification of Red River valley farming practices, the organization and activities of Red River valley farm associations, and the winter exhibitions jointly sponsored by the Northwest School and the various farm associations. The news clippings also document Selvig's congressional campaigns and his views on agricultural issues, cooperative marketing, tariff legislation, flood control measures, and immigration policy.

Military records include nomination letters, promissory notes, and a narrative account that detail Selvig's appointment as a cadet at West Point. Induction ephemera, diaries, letters, discharge records, speeches, and pension applications reflect Selvig's service with the 12th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War.

Additional items include materials that describe trips Selvig made with his wife to Alaska (1919), Europe (1931), and California via Cuba (1937-1938). Miscellaneous ephemeral materials include school report cards, a phrenology chart, audiograms, Christmas greeting cards, inaugural invitations and programs, and an oversize greeting from the 1916 St. Paul Winter Carnival.

Return to top

Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item here]. Conrad George Selvig Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 11,507

Processing Information:

Processed by: Kathryn A. Johnson, October 1981; James Chattin, August 1994; Monica Manny Ralston, 2002

Catalog ID number: 990017377190104294

Return to top

Selvig's 1908 University of Minnesota thesis, National Aid to Education; his speeches as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives; and his published autobiography, A Tale of Two Valleys, are available in the Minnesota Historical Society library.

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Rural schools -- Minnesota -- Fillmore County.

Agricultural education -- Minnesota.

Agricultural colleges -- Minnesota -- Crookston.

Agriculture -- Red River Valley (Minn. and N.D.-Man.)

Manual training -- Study and teaching -- Minnesota.

Spanish-American War, 1898.

Political campaigns -- Minnesota.

Hearing disorders -- Diagnosis.

Persons:

Selvig, Marion E., 1879-1949.

Selvig family.

Organizations:

Glencoe Public Schools (Glencoe, Minn.)

Harmony High School (Harmony, Minn.).

Red River Valley Winter Shows.

United States. Army. Minnesota Infantry Regiment, 12th. Company F.

University of Minnesota. Northwest School of Agriculture (Crookston, Minn.).

University of Minnesota. Northwest Experiment Station (Crookston, Minn.).

Places:

Minnesota -- Biography.

United States -- Armed Forces -- Recruiting, enlistment, etc. -- Spanish-American War, 1898.

Minnesota, Northwestern -- Politics and government -- 1918-1945.

Alaska -- Description and travel.

Europe -- Description and travel.

Document Types:

Diaries.

Autobiographies

Occupations:

Soldiers -- Minnesota.

Teachers -- Minnesota.

School superintendents -- Minnesota.

Legislators -- United States.

Titles:

Tale of two valleys, an autobiography.

Return to top