NORTH DAKOTA IN 1879, FROM AN OLD MAP OF DAKOTA TERRITORY
The first State child-labor act was passed in 1909. Under the present law, employment of children under the age of 14 is prohibited. The proposed child-labor amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified by the North Dakota Legislature at the 1931 session.
RACIAL GROUPS AND FOLKWAYS
International repute as a farming State brought North Dakota a steady stream of immigration up to the time of the World War. Tales of the rich wheatlands of Dakota drew a continuous procession of settlers with their household goods from the eastern States and from across the sea, to claim a share of the fertile western acres.
Little more than two decades has passed since this influx ceased. The State presents a patchwork of foreign groups, each still retaining many Old World customs of speech, dress, and social life. Cultural assimilation, however, has slowly veneered the life of the State with an American character which is gradually seeping into and supplanting the ways of the Old World.
The prevalence of foreign speech and customs seems quite justified by the 1930 census, which showed 105,148 persons, or 15.5 percent of the total population of 680,845, to be of foreign birth. In addition to this number, a still larger portion of the population, 45.4 percent, is first-generation American, born of foreign parents and therefore in close contact with the speech and customs of its fathers during its formative years.
Forty-two countries, most of them European, have contributed to the foreign-born population of North Dakota. Norway has the largest representation, followed in order of numbers by Russia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, and other countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary, Finland, Rumania, and Iceland.