Swedish Americans

The first Swedish Americans were settlers in New Sweden . The colony was created by Queen Cristina of Sweden in 1638, she was located in the Delaware Valley, including the territories of the modern states of Delaware , New Jersey and Pennsylvania . New Sweden entered New Holland in 1655 and ceased to be the official territory of the Kingdom of Sweden. However, many Swedish and Finnish colonists retained some kind of political and cultural autonomy.

Nowadays, the history of New Sweden is reflected in the view of the American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia, Fort Christina State Park in Wilmington, Delaware, and Governor Printz Park and The Printzhof in Essington, Pennsylvania.

Midwest

Swedish emigration to the United States reached new heights in 1896 , and it was this year that the Order of Vasa America existed, a Swedish American organization, was created to help immigrants. Swedish Americans usually came through New York, and then settled in the upper part of the Midwest. Most of them were Lutherans and belonged to the synods that are now associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America , including the Augustan Evangelical Lutheran Church. Theoretically, they were devoutly believing people.

In 1900, Chicago was the city with the second largest number with the presence of the Swedish ethnos after Stockholm , the capital of Sweden. By then, the Evangelical Convent Church was established by the Swedes in Chicago and created institutions. Many others settled in Minnesota , in particular, following the state of Wisconsin , as well as New York , Pennsylvania , Michigan , Iowa , Nebraska and Illinois . Like the Norwegian and Danish Americans, many Swedes preferred the rural lifestyle that they led in Sweden; like many immigrants, settled on farms or in small towns throughout the Midwest .

New England

In the east, New England has become a destination for many skilled industrial workers and Swedish centers established in areas such as Jamestown , New York, Providence , Rhode Island , and Boston , Massachusetts . Small Swedish settlements were also built in New Sweden, Maine .

The largest settlement in New England was Worcester, Massachusetts . By the beginning of the 20th century, numerous American churches, organizations, enterprises, and associations were organized by Swedish Americans. Among them are the Swedish Funeral Services Corporation (1885), the Home Swedish Lutheran Home for the Elderly (1920), and the Scandinavian Athletic Club (1923). These organizations exist to this day, although some have changed their names. Numerous local lodges of the Swedish national American organization also flourished and have remained somewhat solvent since 2008. On the outskirts of Queensigamond, the largest Swedish American settlement area, rural road signs read like a map of Sweden: Stockholm Street, Halmstad Street, and Malmö Street and others.

US West Bank

Many Swedes also reached the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries, along with the Norwegian Americans. There is a noticeable impact in the Seattle Ballard neighborhood , as well as in the Swedish Medical Center, the main hospital in Seattle. Swedish immigrants who have arrived in recent decades have settled mainly in the suburbs of New York and in Los Angeles .

In 1860–1890 there was little assimilation in American society. There was a relatively weak Swedish American institutional structure until 1890, and Swedish Americans were somewhat unsure of their socio-economic status.

The growing Swedish community of America contributed to the growth of the institutional structure - there was the Swedish press, Swedish churches and colleges, ethnic organizations that were built with sponsorship from Swedish charity in the United States. Blank (2006) states that after 1890 a self-confident Americanized generation arose. In the prestigious college of Avgustan, created in America, students began to dominate after 1890. Some students are sons and daughters of farmers and workers. These students developed an idealized representation of Sweden, which is characterized by romanticism, patriotism and idealism, as well as their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic. The new generation has become particularly proud of the Swedish contribution to American democracy and the creation of a republic that promised to establish freedom and destroy the threat of slavery. One of the main figures was the representative of Johan Alfred Enander, longtime editor of Hemlandet (Swede-homeland), a Swedish newspaper in Chicago . The Swedes, moreover, were among the first founders of America with their new colony of Sweden in the state of Delaware , and they were more honest than the cynical and greedy Dutch and English.

In 1896, the Order of Vasa America, a Swedish-American organization, was created to ensure ethnic identity and social services, such as health and death insurance, subsidies, a variety of social and recreational opportunities, and also maintains contacts with fellow lodges in Sweden. Johannes and Helga Hoving were the leaders of this organization, calling for the maintenance of the Swedish language and culture among Americans, especially the younger generation. However, they returned to Sweden in 1934 and the Order of Vasa was Americanized.

Swedish was the second largest foreign language of the press in the USA (after German) in 1910 . Valkyrian magazine was founded in New York and helped to strengthen the ethnic group based on collective memory and religion. There were numerous communities of writers and journalists, of which the most famous was the poet-historian Carl Sandberg from Illinois .

Baigent (2000) explores the dynamics of economic and cultural assimilation and the “American dream” in one small city. Most Swedes in McCisport, Pennsylvania , between 1880 and 1920 were permanent settlers, not temporary migrants. Immigrants greatly appreciated the freedom of religion that America offered, but their political freedoms were severely restricted. The dreams of many individual Swedes have come true, but the dream of creating a permanent Swedish community in Maccysport has not been realized, as individual Swedes moved further within the United States in pursuit of continued economic success. Swedish Americans created their social identity in the United States in the period prior to their membership in public clubs and their deliberate membership or non-membership in institutions of different ethnicity.

Swedish Americans were against joining the First World War , in which Sweden was neutral. Political pressure during the war, encouragement and rapid transition from Swedish to English in church services, the older generation was bilingual by now and the young barely understand the old language.

In the 1930s, assimilation into the American way of life was almost complete, with rare experience of hostility or discrimination.

After 1940, Swedish Americans rarely teach at universities or colleges, and Swedish newspapers and magazines in the US were almost all closed. Several small US cities have retained some visible Swedish influence.

The formal membership of the church in 1936 was reported as follows:

• Synod (Lutheran) of Augustus - 1,203 churches - 254,677 members
• Baptists - 300 churches - 36,820 members
• Swedish Evangelical Freedom - 150 churches - 9,000 members
• Swedish Methodists - 175 churches - 19,441 members
• Mission of the Conventants - 441 churches - 45,000 members

Several small cities in the United States retained a somewhat marked Swedish influence. For example: Silverhill, Alabama , Cambridge, Minnesota , Lindstrom, Minnesota, Karlstad, Minnesota; Lindsborg, Kansas , Gothenburg, Nebraska , Auckland, Nebraska, Andover, Illinois ; Kingsburg, California , Bishop's Hill, Illinois, and Bemus Point, New York .

About 3.9% of the US population is reported to be of Scandinavian origin (which also includes Norwegian-Americans, Danish-Americans, Finnish-Americans, and Icelandic-Americans). Currently, according to a survey of American society in 2005 , only 56,324 Americans continue to speak Swedish at home, compared with 67,655 in 2000 ^[3] . Most of them are recent immigrants. Swedish American communities generally switched to English in 1920 . Swedish is rarely taught in universities or colleges, and newspapers and magazines in Swedish are rarely published.

Swedish Americans by state

Ten states with the largest presence of Swedish Americans

Ten states with the largest percentage of Swedish Americans in the population

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• Swedish American Museum Center in Chicago
• Swedish American Museum in Swedesburg, Iowa
• Swedish Historic Society of Rockford, Illinois
• Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center
• Swedish Colonial Society
• Multicultural America Swedish Americans
• Swedish American Historic Society
• Swedish Council of America
• Svensk Hyllningsfest in Lindsborg, Kansas
• Swedish American Heritage Society of West Michigan
• Swedish Expat Organization in New York and Los Angeles