Lillian Ross - "Letters From Norway"

Consists of an article fromThe New Yorker magazine dated 6 October 1975 written by Lillian Ross entitled "Letter from Oslo." It discusses Norway in the 1970s: its economy, unemployment, retirement, employment, geography, migrants, education, and industrialism. There is information about the Sesquicentennial Norwegian Utvandrigen Til Amerika (Immigration to America) and the activities and speeches for the commemoration in 1975. There is also information about the changing attitudes in Norway toward America. The article also includes information about King Olav V and his activities such as his visits to the United States for the Sesquicentennial. Additionally, there is discussion about the debate in Norway about joining the Common Market and about the changes industrialism and the oil industry brought to Norway.

Article citation: Lillian Ross, “Letter From Oslo,” New Yorker, October 6, 1975, 102-128.

Biographical Note

Lillian Ross is an American journalist and author, who was a staff writer at The New Yorker from 1945 until she retired. She was born Lillian Rosovsky in 1918 or 1919 in Syracuse, New York and raised in Brooklyn, the youngest of the three children of Louis and Edna (née Rosenson) Rosovsky. When Lillian was around 17 years old she began working at The New Yorker. She and her editor, William Shawn, eventually began a lifelong affair, which lasted until his death in 1992. Lillian wrote a couple of memoirs, including The Talk of the Town, about her long friendship with J. D. Salinger. It included photographs of Salinger and his family with her family, including her son, Erik, whom she adopted in Norway in 1965.