Editing Sigrid Undset (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Sigrid Undset young.jpg|left|thumb|Undset as a young girl]]

Sigrid Undset was born on 20 May 1882 in the small town of [[Kalundborg]], Denmark, at the childhood home of her mother, Charlotte Undset (1855–1939, née Anna Maria Charlotte Gyth). Her father was the Norwegian archaeologist Ingvald Martin Undset (1853–1893). Sigrid Undset was the eldest of three daughters. She and her family moved to Norway when she was two.<ref name=litteratursiden>{{cite web|url=https://litteratursiden.dk/forfattere/sigrid-undset|publisher=Litteratursiden|title=Forfatter Sigrid Undset|date=30 June 2024|access-date=9 April 2025|language=da}}</ref>

She grew up in the Norwegian capital, [[Oslo]] (or Kristiania, as it was known until 1925), where the family moved in July 1884. When she was only 11 years old, her father died at the age of 40 after a long illness.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nbl.snl.no/Ingvald_Undset|title=Ingvald Undset|first=Bergljot|last=Solberg|date=28 September 2014|website=Nbl.snl.no|access-date=11 November 2017}}</ref>

The family's economic situation meant that Undset had to give up hope of a university education and after a one-year secretarial course she obtained work at the age of 16 as a secretary with an engineering company in Kristiania, a post she went on to hold for 10 years.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gonorway.no/norway/articles/undset/47/index.html|title=Sigrid Undset|last=Anderson|first=Gidske|website=Go Norway|access-date=21 March 2018|archive-date=28 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228184742/http://www.gonorway.no/norway/articles/undset/47/index.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.norwegianamerican.com/heritage/an-extraordinary-woman-the-life-of-nobel-laureate-sigrid-undset/|title=An extraordinary woman: The life of Nobel Laureate Sigrid Undset|last=Pedersen|first=Mo|date=25 July 2017|website=The Norwegian American|access-date=21 March 2018|archive-date=22 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180322020706/http://www.norwegianamerican.com/heritage/an-extraordinary-woman-the-life-of-nobel-laureate-sigrid-undset/|url-status=dead}}</ref> She later said that she detested the work.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sigrun Slapgard|title=Dikterdronningen|page=63|language=no|publisher=Gyldendal|year=2007|location=Oslo|isbn=978-82-05-33289-8}}</ref>

She joined the [[Norwegian Authors' Union]] in 1907 and from 1933 through 1935 headed its Literary Council, eventually serving as the union's chairwoman from 1935 until 1940.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nordicwomensliterature.net/writers/undset-sigrid/|title=Undset, Sigrid|website=Nordic Women's Literature|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-02-10}}</ref>