This chapter aims to provide a historic overview of Norwegian emigration to America and the establishment of immigrant communities in the New World, and thereby give some background to the society in which Norwegian as a heritage language has been spoken up to the present. Norwegian\hyp Americans showed a strong tendency to settle down in rural communities where people from the same region in Norway often clustered. Thereby the "old" Norwegian dialect could continue to be the favored language among neighbors for several generations. They also established several institutions, like the church and the press, which for a long time played an important role in maintaining the heritage language. The decline of Norwegian started around the First World War, and accelerated during the following years, when most churches rapidly shifted to English, the newspapers closed, and an America-born generation of Norwegian\hyp Americans who favored English became influential in the immigrant communities. Today there are only a few Norwegian heritage speakers left. Since the majority of Norwegian emigrants settled in the Upper Midwest, the focus of this chapter will be on this geographic area.