Å danne politiske borgere – Ole Gabriel Uelands innsats for forbedret politisk opplysning

This chapter will shed light upon Ole Gabriel Ueland’s proposal to establish a stortingstidende in 1836, a regular paper aiming to mediate the discussions at the Storting to a broader audience. Ueland, who was one of Hans Nielsen Hauge’s followers, was one of the leading politicians in the Norwegian peasant opposition from the 1830’s, and he is known as a driving force behind the Presidency Act in 1836. This act secured that Norway gained a higher degree of local self-government. I will argue that Ueland’s proposal can be seen in a time-typical tension between agitation and enlightenment, and that the proposal must be understood against his background in the Hauge movement. While most Norwegians at that time only had basic skills in reading and writing, Hauge’s followers possessed a higher level of competence and would be able to read and understand the content of a stortingstidende.