Henriette Christiane Koren Naeseth papers, circa 1946-circa 1979

Naeseth was the daughter of C.A. Naeseth, longtime Luther College professor, and his wife, a daughter of U.V. Koren. She graduated from Grinnell college and received graduate degrees from the Universities of Minnesota and Chicago. After teaching at several colleges, she joined the Augustana college faculty in 1934 and taught until her retirement in 1968. "She became one of the very distinguished members of the Augustana faculty, rising to become chair of the humanities division…for 23 years." Luther College granted her an honorary degree in 1961, She received the St. Olav medal in 1970. 

Her principal scholarly work was The Swedish theatre of Chicago, 1868-1950 (Augustana Historical society, 1951). She translated Sigrid Undset's Return to the future (1942) and contributed several articles to NAHA's Studies and Records. These papers consist of Naeseth's writings on Marcus Thrane. She became interested in writing a critical study of his life and works as early as 1952 when she submitted a translation of the section of Ernst Skarted's Vagabond och redactor (1914) on Thrane. Blegen encouraged her to broaden her study and make use of the extensive manuscripts which had been given to the University of Oslo library. Blegen recommended that Bjork "continue the correspondence with her…She will do a no. 1 job if and when she carries through her plans." Her correspondence with Bjork ends sadly with a letter (March 29, 1979) from an Augustana colleague informing Bjork that her "physical and mental condition is rapidly deterioration" and offering to send him the "masses of Thrane material…a complete and horrifying chaos." Bjork comments that "Quite some time ago, Henriette sent me preliminary translations of Thranes's plays and a good part of her interpretive writing about the man. I got nowhere trying to edit some of the latter; she rejected out of hand what I had done." NAHA in 1987 published Terje Leiren's Marcus Thrane, A Norwegian radical in America. While Naeseth's material was made available to Leiren, he does not refer to it.