Kenneth O. Bjork grew up in Enderlin, a small town where his father ran the hardware store.
He planned and supervised the efforts of a staff of ten (teachers and administrators from the U.S.) and taught as a professor at the University of East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya.
During this period he also steeped himself in African history, qualifying his ability to teach it upon his return to St. Olaf, establishing a precedent in the department that he also chaired for 25 years.
[3] In 1947 Bjork released Saga in Steel and Concrete, a pioneering work in the study of the migration that brought Norwegian born engineers and architects to America and participation in the country's economic growth.
In 1958 he published West of the Great Divide, a reinterpretation of the internal migration patterns, which show a continuous movement of people from older settlements in the Midwest to new settlement areas further west, motivated by the same motives which had led to departure from their home country.