The Laura Goodman Salverson Archive

A Western Icelander in the Canadian Prairies

Laura Goodman Salverson (1890-1970) was best known for her Norse-inspired fiction and her sympathetic depictions of Scandinavian and German immigrants in North America. Born in Winnipeg to impoverished Icelandic immigrants, Salverson moved with her family to Minnesota and Mississippi before returning to Canada as an adult. She was an active member of the Canadian Author’s Association and the Paris Institute of Arts and Sciences, which awarded her a gold medal for literary merit in 1938. She was the first person to win two Governor General’s Awards, first in 1937 for The Dark Weaver (fiction) and again in 1939 for her memoir Confessions of an Immigrant’s Daughter (non-fiction). Most of her works are no longer in print. This archive is an attempt to recover Salverson’s works and bring her literary contributions back into public view.