Odda and it’s Melting Factory
part 1 - the roots
Photo: N.V.I.M.
I was born and grew up in this small industrial town, Odda, situated in the western parts of Norway at the end of a deep fjord, in a narrow valley under mountains up to 1400 meters high.
When I grew up at Odda, there were approximately 9000 inhabitants. The population rose to 10000 in 1970, but today it is reduced to less than 7000 inhabitants.
Photo: N.V.I.M.
Photo: N.V.I.M.
Around 1900 Odda was an idyllic rural place with only a few hundred inhabitants. At the end of the 19th century Odda had long been a world tourism Mecca. Tourists came to Odda from many European countries to admire the beautiful waterfalls, the mountains and the glaciers around Odda.
Around 1900 Odda was an idyllic rural place with only a few hundred inhabitants. At the end of the 19th century Odda had long been a world tourism Mecca. Tourists came to Odda from many European countries to admire the beautiful waterfalls, the mountains and the glaciers around Odda.
Photo: N.V.I.M.
During the summer Odda could be visited by up to 80 tourist ships, and there was a lively trade with all the horse-drawn carriages that in a hurry were transporting tourists from the harbour and up to tourist attractions such as Låtefoss waterfall and back down the Odda valley to the many hotels that existed in Odda at the time.
During the summer Odda could be visited by up to 80 tourist ships, and there was a lively trade with all the horse-drawn carriages that in a hurry were transporting tourists from the harbour and up to tourist attractions such as Låtefoss waterfall and back down the Odda valley to the many hotels that existed in Odda at the time.
Among those who came back to Odda year after year was Emperor Wilhelm the second and many other wealthy Europeans, including several English Lords, who loved to fish salmon.
Hotel Hardanger
Down by the fjord there was a great hotel in the Swiss style, the Hotel Hardanger which was at that time the largest wooden building in Northern Europe. After 1906, with the sudden stop of the tourist industry that occurred after industrialization, the stately wooden building was used for many different purposes, typically as an assembly hall, a library, a cinema and conference, meeting and training facilities for several local teams, the town hall and school. Finally, after many decades of such use, the Hotel Hardanger was demolished in the mid 1970s. The demolition was regarded as a big mistake at the time and is still regarded as a big mistake today.
1906, when industrialization came to Odda, huge changes started to occur. The population increased in a few years from a few hundred to over five thousand and many houses and many different facilities were built. The whole place was transformed in just a few years.
Photo: N.V.I.M.
The first years of the 20th century saw a few visionary young engineers and lawyers with new knowledge and competencies (and with capital) travel in the mountains around Odda, mapping the rivers and waterfalls they saw there. They were aware of the great opportunities of the waterfalls in the region, and they bought the waterfalls rights and land from the peasants for almost nothing. They did so because they had information that the industrialization pioneers were in the process of planning a large-scale industrialization in Odda and Tyssedal. These waterfall rights that the engineers and lawyers had acquired from the landowners for very little money were rapidly sold on to the industrialization pioneers for many times the initial price.
1936 novelist Gro Holm, who herself was married to an engineer who worked on the melting plant in Odda, published the novel The white coals, which describes how some smart merchants robbed the local landowners. - One could compare the rape of Odda to the way the native Americans were tricked out of their land, and also the Zulu in South Africa and the aborigines in Australia, etc.
- One could compare the rape of Odda to the way the native Americans were tricked out of their land, and also the Zulu in South Africa and the aborigines in Australia, etc.
1906 the industrial adventure started in Odda, with the construction of the factories that for almost one century had a very strong impact on the society of Odda. In few years the place grew from a few hundreds of inhabitants to several thousands. Historians relate that there were hundreds of people taking part in the construction of the new society, coming from other parts of Norway and even from abroad, especially from Sweden. The construction workers and their families were during this initial period living in very bad conditions in the centre of the place, and there were battles and disorders every night due to the lots of people stewed together in small places.
"When the factories began operating workers' dwellings were built. The first was built in Nyland and the farm Bokko where the factory had now bought land for construction. There were wooden houses with 4 apartments with one room and a kitchen in each. 1912 the last dwellings at Nyland were finished, and 1913 came the large three-storey Murboligen - the brick dwelling - at Bakke, facing the 9 small dwellings of wood that already were built on the new empty land just behind the central dwelling area. Centrally between the hand craft environment Brotateigen and the old farmstead in the village was this strange brick coloss, witnessing that a new type of living environment seriously had gained access to the old village community."
A total of seven barracks came up. They were originally meant to haddock special workers, and they were soon crowded with people. "They were just like the chosen." One of the barracks was consecrated as the dining hut. Here it was possible to buy dinner for anyone who could not work it out otherwise.
For the villagers the barracks at Nyland were in many ways the symbol of all that dangerous and morally reprehensible that followed the new time: «There was drunkenness and fighting, it occurred every day. It happened we arrived on Monday morning going to school, and we heard screaming, yelling and commotion down there. We did not dare go the road way, so we went up to the chapel and then down to the village.»
"The first factory workers
The relative prosperity was founded on a steady production increase at the two factories. The Carbide Factory started with a crew of around 500 in the period 1908-1912, 600 to 700 in the period 1912-1920, with a peak of about 950 during the war. The Cyanamid Factory had a similar development: about 400 in the period 1908-1912, about 600 in the year of 1912, with a peak of about 700 in 1914/18. The workers came literally from all over the country. In addition, there was a strong element of Swedes. The rumor of well-paid work in Odda spread quickly. Often it occurred that workers from a village or a town attracted acquaintances and relatives when they had been home for a visit.
When I was born, a few years after the end of the second world war, a great period started in the life of my hometown, certainly due to the good historical frame conditions. This was a period of optimismm, a national political consensus and general economic growth. Willy Ingebrigtsen tells of when his father got work at Cyanamid in 1909:
"Yes, after what mom told, father went to sea, and they only had a small apartment in Bergen. Then they had the two boys, my older brothers. When the father came home from the sea, they read in the newspaper that they needed people here in Odda. And there were rumors that they earned very good money in here. So father traveled in, he wanted to probe the ground. He found work in the workshop.
Then mother could tell these other women in Bergen that father earned four crowns a day. And then the housewives clapped their hands together; four crowns a day! Have you heard anything like it! They earned only two crowns a day in Bergen then. That was in 1909."
The history of Odda shows both ups and downs. There was a very optimistic period just after the construction of the factory. But already in the early twenties came the breakdown. The factory was broke, and it lay down for several years until new financing lifted it up again.
Photo: N.V.I.M.
When I was born, a few years after the end of the second world war, a great period started in the life of my hometown, certainly due to the good historical frame conditions. This was a period of optimism, a national political consensus and general economic growth.
This was the period of national reconstruction after the war. For many years the country was governed by the labor party and it’s leader Einar Gerhardsen, the «land father». Norway’s focus during the fifties and the sixties was on reconstruction, increased material wealth and social inclusion, and little by little the material conditions improved all over the country. In particular in places like Odda the municupality was very wealthy, thanks to the huge income from the leases of the waterfalls, which were signed for quite a long term.
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