Oscar Nilssen

Who was Oscar Nilssen?

Oscar Wilhelm Nilssen was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.

He was born in Hollandstorp in Sweden as a son of a forest labourer. His father later emigrated to the United States, but Nilssen went to Norway. He worked as a forest labourer from 1896, and settled as a smallholder at Ågård in Løten from 1911. He received Norwegian citizenship in the same year.

In 1914 he was elected chairman of a new local group in the Labour Party, Løiten vestre socialdemokratiske forening. He chaired the local cooperative from 1918 to 1923, and was a supervisory council of Norges Kooperative Landsforening. From 1917 to 1921 he was vice chairman and treasurer of the Norwegian Union of Forestry and Agriculture Workers. He chaired the constituency party chapter in Søndre Hedemarkens for some years, and then chaired the county chapter from 1921. In 1951 he had a thirty-year anniversary in this position. He ultimately retired in 1954. One short hiatus came as the Communist Party was founded in 1923, and the county board decided to follow the Communists. Nilssen stayed with Labour, and was excluded as county leader by the majority county board on 13 November 1923. Nilssen got his leadership back when a new county board for the Labour Party was set up on 1 December.