Arbeideren (Hamar) - Pre-history

Pre-history

Demokraten was originally the name of a short-lived newspaper in Hamar started by Leopold Rasmussen in 1852, connected to the Marcus Thrane movement. Rasmussen started a second newspaper, Oplands-Posten, in Hamar later in 1852, to compete with his own Demokraten. An organ for the social liberal labour movement in the district, Arbeiderbladet existed from 1889 to 1892 and was published out of different cities, including in Hamar in the year 1890.

A countywide chapter of the Labour Party was established in Hedmark in mid-November 1904. After the countywide party convention in Stange in 1906, the convention summary had to be printed in the Kristiania-based newspaper Social-Demokraten, as it lacked its own local newspaper. The county board thus decided to buy 1,500 copies of the Social-Demokraten to distribute to its members. There was a growing notion that the party needed its own newspaper. In the same year, the labour movement in Solør (south of Hedmark) bought the paper Solungen, which had existed since 1904. The takeover came into effect on 1 January 1907, and publishing began the following year. Solungen pretended to be the labour movement organ for the whole of Hedmark, and outside of Solør it was published as Hedemarkens Amts Socialdemokrat (Solungen). However, the rest of Hedmark county was not satisfied with this solution.