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Swedish Americans

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Swedish-Americans are the Americans with Swedish heritage, most often related to the large groups of immigrants from Sweden in the late 19th century and early 20th century. They usually came through New York City and settled in the Midwest. Most were Lutheran and belonged to synods now associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, including the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church. Theologically they were pietistic; politically they were Republican, supported prohibition, and supported Progressive causes.

Swedish emigration to the United States reached new heights in 1896, and it was in this year that the Vasa Order of America, a Swedish-American fraternal organization, was founded to help immigrants who often lacked an adequate network of social services. In the year 1900, Chicago was the city with the second highest number of Swedes after Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Many others settled in Minnesota in particular as well as Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. A few small towns in the U.S have specific Swedish characteristics, such as Lindsborg, Kansas, Andover, Illinois, Kingsburg, California, and Bishop Hill, Illinois. Many Swedes also came to the Pacific Northwest during the turn of the century, along with Norwegians. The Swedish immigrants that arrive today settle mostly in the big cities, particularly New York and Los Angeles which both have substantial Swedish populations. Around 3.7% of the American population is said to have Scandinavian heritage (which includes Norwegian-Americans, Danish Americans and Icelandic Americans) and around 160,000 Americans speak a Scandinavian language at home. Most Swedish-Americans are Lutherans or Methodists. The term usually does not refer to the inhabitants of the former Swedish colony of New Sweden which was located in modern day Delaware and New Jersey.

Swedish-Americans by state:

The 10 states with the most Swedes:

  1. Minnesota – 486,507
  2. California – 459,897
  3. Illinois – 303,044
  4. Washington – 213,013
  5. Michigan – 161,301
  6. Florida – 155,010
  7. Wisconsin – 149,977
  8. New York – 133,788
  9. Texas – 127,871
  10. Massachusetts – 119,267


Famous Swedish-Americans

In alphabetical order:

  1. Nadia Bjorlin
  2. Mitch Hedberg
  3. Charles Lindbergh
  4. William Rehnquist
  5. Glenn Seaborg
  6. Mark Wahlberg


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References

Scholarly secondary sources

  • Anderson, Philip J. and Dag Blanck, eds. Swedish-American Life in Chicago: Cultural and Urban Aspects of an Immigrant People, 1850-1930 (1992)
  • Barton; H. Arnold 1994; A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish-Americans, 1840-1940. Southern Illinois University Press.
  • Beijbom, Ulf. "The Historiography of Swedish America," Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly 31 (1980): 257-85;
  • Kvisto, P., and D. Blanck, eds. 1990. American Immigrants and Their Generations: Studies and Commentaries on the Hansen Thesis after Fifty Years. University of Illinois Press.
  • Lovoll, Odd S. ed., Nordics in America: The Future of Their Past (Northfield, Minn., 1993),
  • Nelson, Helge. The Swedes and the Swedish Settlements in North America 2 vols. (Lund, 1943)
  • Ostergren, R. C. 1988. A Community Transplanted: The Trans-Atlantic Experience of a Swedish Immigrant Settlement in the Upper Middle West, 1835-1915. University of Wisconsin Press.
  • Pearson, D. M. 1977. The Americanization of Carl Aaron Swensson. Rock Island, Ill.: Augustana Historical Society.
  • Pihlblad, C. T. 1932. "The Kansas Swedes". Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 13: 34-47.
  • Runblom, Harald and Hans Norman. From Sweden to America: A History of the Migration (Uppsala and Minneapolis, 1976)
  • Schnell; Steven M. "Creating Narratives of Place and Identity in "Little Sweden, U.S.A." The Geographical Review, Vol. 93, 2003
  • Stephenson, George M. The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immigration (1932).
  • Swanson; Alan. Literature and the Immigrant Community: The Case of Arthur Landfors Southern Illinois University Press, 1990
  • Vasa Order of America wbesite at http://www.vasaorder.org


Primary sources

  • Barton, H. Arnold ed. Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914 (3d ed., 1990)

See also

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