The province was often ravaged in battles between Denmark and Sweden and "bondefreder" (farmer peaces) were sometimes made between Småländers and people from Skåne. The Danish influence was strong and old. Until the 13th century the province obeyed under the archbishop in Lund and the resistance against the Swedish royal power was demonstrated in Dackefejden, (Revolt of Nils Dacke) 1542-43.
Generations of Trolle, Bonde and Bielke had their family estates in southern Småland. Modern Småland has its origin in the Middle Age's Palace-county. Through a reform in 1634, the province was divided into two counties; Kalmar and Småland and later in the 17th century again in Kalmar, Jönköping and Kronoberg.
During The Viking Age iron was produced in the swampy and lake-rich Småland. The iron industry and trade rose during the 16th and 17th centuries when foreign smiths taught new methods. From the middle of the 19th century the wood industry and glassworks took the place of the iron industry. Kosta is the oldest running glassworks, grounded in 1742. Orrefors was the first glassworks which used artistic contributors and designers. Several glassworks followed and thus contributed in making Swedish crystal world famous.
Church and religion have been of great importance and the vicarages were the cultural centre in the province for a long time. During the 19th century the revivalism went forward among the poor people, both within the established Church and the free churches.
Småland is one of Sweden's lake-richest and most forested provinces. The spruce forest has given the province the gloomy name "Mörka Småland" - Dark Småland. Their fast growth and good quality make them, however, very important to the Swedish economy. The prehistoric landscape was more open, the spruce forest was kept away by burn beating and grazing. The agriculture was still, in the 18th century, the principal industry but the stony moraine ground prevented farmers from finding larger cultivation areas. Many swampy grounds and bog earth were drained during 19th century to win more area.
The crofters constituted a farmer proletariat. When Industrialisation began, many applied for jobs in the factories. The big increase in population, together with starvation and poverty in the middle of 19th century, led to emigration of many younger crofter-families. Among the million Swedes who emigrated to North America, almost a fifth came from Småland.
THE EMIGRANTS FROM
SMÅLAND, SWEDEN.
THE AMERICAN DREAM.
by Ken Sawyer,
Halifax, England. 1999
Introduction.
These
are my collected notes about emigration from Sweden to the USA first became
interested in this subject when I discovered that some of the Swedish emigrants
traveled by train through my home area in West Yorkshire (England), en route
from Hull to Liverpool. I had previously known a little about this great
emigration and then I was further stimulated when we visited the Emigrants
Museum in Växjö, Småland; this was a main province from which the emigrants
departed and is the reason for emphasising Småland as representative of Sweden
as a whole.
With
the start of steam powered ships their voyage to the USA took 2-3 weeks and
often included a crossing from Gothenburg to Hull on board the ships of the
Wilson Line. This was followed by a train journey from Hull, through the
Huddersfield/Halifax area, to Liverpool and then a crossing by the Inman Line
or another company’s ship to New York.
·
Did you know that in 1638, through a Government inspired emigration, the
colony called New Sweden was established in Delaware, on America’s East Coast?
It was in Sweden’s possession for almost twenty years, but was then lost to the
Dutch.
·
Did you know that in the second half of the 19th Century and the early years of the 20th, more than a
million Swedes, around 1/4 of the population, emigrated from Sweden and mainly
to the USA?
·
Did you know that this was called the “American fever”? Even today, at
least five million USA citizens are of Swedish extraction?
Vilhelm Moberg, storywriter about the
emigrants.
The 20th Century Swedish writer from Småland,
best sums up the story of these emigrants. He wrote the powerful epic novels,
“The Emigrants”, “Unto a New Land”, “The Settlers” and “The Last Letter Home”.
The first of these moving novels relates a fictional journey of the main
characters, Karl Oskar and Kristina, from Ljuder a parish in Småland to the New
World. It represents the real life exodus of hundreds of thousands of people. I
quote its’ first words:
“This is the story
of a group of people who in 1850 left their homes in Ljuder parish in the
province of Småland, Sweden and emigrated to North America. They came from a
land of small cottages and large families. They were people of the soil, an
they came of a stock, which for thousands of years had tilled the ground they
were leaving.”
These few words set
the background for the story, which is also the story of the first period of
group emigration.
Småland forms most of the south eastern wedge
of Sweden. It is an area of great natural beauty, with an unusual terrain; deep
pine forests studded with glittering lakes. Even so, the thin, stony nature of
the soil was a reason why a quarter of the region’s population emigrated to
America in the period from 1850 to 1920, in order to escape rural poverty.
Historically Småland has had it tough. The simple rustic charm of today’s
pretty red painted cottages, “de röda stugorna”, belies the intense misery
endured by generations of local, simple peasants in the 19th century. Even the walls and piles of stones in the fields have a story
to tell.
Sweden was
predominantly agrarian in the early 19th century. Industry
was largely limited to the unique, small forms of industrial settlement and
organisation in the Swedish countryside called a bruk, often iron works. The
owner was known as the Patron and he was a sort of local chieftain! Timber
production was also a significant industry. So it was a static society with
economic and social immobility and an isolated countryside but there were
skilled workers in the land.
Yet, by the middle
of the 1800’s, all the explosive and revolutionary possibilities were
gathering. The harmony of Sweden disrupted as truly radically as it did in the
pages of Moberg’s novel. A long series of developments threatened to become a
revolution. Even though an isolated and seemingly backward place like Ljuder in
Kronoberg County seemed immovable as a community, it became part of Sweden’s
most emigration-affected areas in the eventful second half of the 19th Century.
The emigrants’
motives were not simple but rather a complex of evolutionary factors and
fundamental changes in Sweden’s life.
Population pressure in the 19th Century.
The upsurge in
population in pre-industrial Sweden was explained by a report of the Cathedral
Chapter of Växjö. The Bishop of Växjö at the time was the famous poet Esaias
Tegnér. The report rather sarcastically stated:” With the assistance of peace,
vaccination, and potatoes the population has increased considerably. But since this development is not
matched by new jobs the result is one-sided and a badly planned system has come
forth all over the society. The land is filled with dugouts inhabited by people
with no other capital than their hands.” This theme of “peace, potatoes and
vaccination” of the Cathedral Chapter’s report underlines the reasons for the
rapid population growth. Sweden’s population, which was 1.8 million in 1750,
rose from 2.3 million in 1800 to 3.5 million in 1850,to 4.6 million in 1880,
more than twice that of the beginning of the century. The population explosion
was primarily amongst the poorest section of the citizens. At the beginning of
the century 90% lived in the countryside and by the mid 1850’s 80% of the
population was occupied in farming, which includes forestry. Even at the end of
the century 75% were still in the countryside. (Some statistics give 72% in
agriculture in 1870. 55% in 1900.) Agriculture and its’ related occupations was
the mother trade of Sweden. Peace. Following the successful war against the
Danes in 1814, Sweden was no longer involved in wars, as it had been for many
decades in the 17th and 18th Centuries. When
Pomerania, which included the old Hansa towns of Stralsund and Greifswald, was
given up the last remnant of Sweden’s once considerable empire on mainland
Europe departed. Finland and the Åland Islands had been lost to Russia in 1809.
Now Sweden was free from military involvement abroad. So soldiers were less
needed and a source of diminution of population by slaughter disappeared, as
Sweden entered into long lasting peace.
Potatoes
Signifies the
improved food and nourishment for which the potatoes provided a better base
than the previous poor bread, which often included such an ingredient as bark
from the trees. State supported land reform began in 1827 and led to the change
from the open field system and communal crofting villages to individual,
enclosed farms. The reform was intended to gather the small parcels of land of
Swedish rural communities into more efficient, economic units. The cultivated
acreage dramatically increased – actually threefold between 1800 and 1875. The
land reform had positive and negative effects. Better cultivation methods
resulted in a growth in agricultural output and the availability of more food
for some. The benefits came to those who owned land. Yet the changes also led
to an increase in rural poverty and a backward social trend. Some of the
benefits were minimized by the system of divided inheritances in the large
families. This led to farms being fragmented into very small and often unviable
holdings. The number of farmhands of both sexes dramatically increased.
Karl Oskar Nilsson,
in Moberg’s novel, inherited 1/16th of a homestead, which was considered enough
for a smallholder in this stony Småland. His inheritors would then have
inherited 1/32nd, if not less.
There was a social
loss too. The farmers had usually worked together and there was a sense of
co-operation and mutual support, especially at times of difficulty. Now there
was unrest and the breaking of close links in the community.
By the reforms, the
peasants were even denied access to the previous village common ground, which
had helped them to eke out a living. If they could not clear more land and if
they should fall into debt as crops failed or were insufficient, then they
would have to sell up and move to a town, if they could find work, or go to
America. In most cases they had come from independent farm families, but the
“backward social trend” in an overpopulated rural society had brought them to
the lowest rung of the social ladder. Many of this larger population were
absorbed into the semi-dependent classes. Farm owners let small plots of land,
known as a torp, tocrofters in return for a fixed number of days’ labour on the
farm. Even less secure were the dugout or hut wellers, squatters or
backstugsittare, who had no more than a very simple dwelling on a farm or in
forest clearings, a potato patch and perhaps a goat. They had no guarantee of
employment. Karl Oskar and his family at Korpamoen were relatively wealthy
compared to “the people in the forest”, these torpare and the backstugsittare.
The old communities were split and families were separated from their
neighbours and the neighbourhoods they had known for centuries. The spirit of
togetherness and cooperation disappeared. Subsistence farming failed and people
were starving. With a basic diet of potato, poor bread, soured milk and
cranberry it was not surprising that many peasant folk should seek something
better in the towns, or in this magic land they were increasingly hearing
about. So there were large groups of people who were in a hopeless situation
with little prospect of improvement in the immediate future. Whenever poor harvests
and consequent hunger or even starvation came, then a choice had to be made.
Starve and die, or move on, perhaps to America.
It is no
coincidence that the major emigration areas of Sweden were the poor
agricultural areas where the division of farmsteads was at the highest.
Småland, Värmland, Dalsland, Bohuslän, Västergötland and Hälsingland were
significant in proportion to their population in this respect. In the period
1750-1850 the number of dugout settlers, maids, hired hands, and dependent poor
and old people multiplied three times. So the rural population was divided
between a land owning class at various levels and a landless class, even by the
beginning of the emigration period. Agricultural output went up due to farm
schools and better farming methods – the potatoes of the phrase- so many people
were better fed. Yet the old social fabric weakened and disappeared, scattering
villagers to the cities and abroad. Vaccination. This represents the medical
advances that were happening. The average family had 8 children, yet usually
only 6 survived to be 15 years of age. Protective vaccination was introduced in
1801.Previously nearly 1/5th of the population
died in a year of smallpox or other epidemics. This was especially so in the
war years, for returning soldiers spread typhus and dysentery and deficient
hygiene did the rest. In 1808-09 there were more deaths than births. Outbreaks
of measles in 1829, smallpox in 1837-39 and dysentery and cholera in 1857 led
to many deaths. However the improved health measures gradually reduced infant
mortality.
Bad economic conditions and Famine.
The growing
population in Småland made intensive use of the available land, as happened
elsewhere including in Värmland.
Trees and
underbrush were cleared to allow of ploughing as large, often very large,
stones were cleared also. The distinctive Småland field walls are built from
these cleared stones, but where the stones were too large to move they are
piled up in the middle of the fields. Cultivation went on around them as they
became part of the meadow land scene. They represent much hard labour in the 19th Century. Hay, mosses, herbs and berries were harvested. Bark for bread
and leafy branches for
animal food was
collected from the trees. The axe was in constant use for fuel, tools and
furniture. Many of these skills were to come in very useful for pioneer settler
farming in America later.
Sweden balanced on
a knife-edge between well being and starvation. If nature failed, then
catastrophe was inevitable in spite of community grain stores and “household
societies”. There were crop failures in 1836 and 1837. Famine hit several areas
of
Sweden in 1848,
including Småland where there was famine in summer, autumn and winter. This was
the case again in 1867 and 1868, with major crop failures due to extreme
weather conditions.1867 was a wet year in which the grain rotted in the fields. 1868 was a
very dry year and the fields became scorched. There was also late spring onset
and early arrival of the winter‘s cold weather. 1869 was a year of severe
epidemic. The last countrywide harvest failure, and the resulting severe
hunger, provoked the first main mass emigration. In 1868 and 1869 54,000
emigrated. Another 50,000, mostly relatives of the recent wave, followed in the
next four years. - So over 100,000 emigrated from 1868 to 1873. They were
mainly from southern, western and central Sweden. A high proportion of these
emigrants were from villages and areas from which the emigrants of the 1840’s
and 1850’s had departed, so they already had some knowledge and hopes of
America
from letters.
The record of the
emigrants comes from the annual reports submitted by the parish clergy, who
acted as Registrars. The priest granted an emigrant’s certificate. These
figures were passed on through the County Governor to the Central Statistical
Bureau. The records were supplemented by port statistics and much valuable
information comes from ships’ records of passengers. Some people did not report
their intention of emigrating to the village priest. Perhaps they wished to
avoid a stern and solicitous warning against their desire to emigrate. Some
also left from Norwegian, Danish or German ports.
Intolerance of religious beliefs.
The national Church
of Sweden had been very strong and the local clergyman, the präst or
kyrkoherde, could exercise a powerful influence for good or ill over
parishioners. Yet its’ influence was starting to wane as there was a growth in
new thinking, both religious and secular. Many people sought greater freedom of
religious expression. A revivalist (väckelserörelsen), Bible based movement
grew in protest against what were seen as the limitations of the State Church,
which was seen to side with the employers and the ruling classes. Those not
being allowed to think what they wanted included the supporters in Dalarna and
Hälsingland of the revivalist preacher, Erik Jansson from Uppland. His
preaching was frequently directed against the Swedish Church and that was
forbidden. These were people of inner strength, conviction and high ideals and,
as a result, the first group of “Janssare emigrated in 1846 and went to their
“Land of Canaan”, Bishop Hill in Illinois. 1,326 people emigrated that year,
twenty times greater than in any previous year. Yet Jansson himself eventually
fell from grace as he became a dominating and wayward leader in the USA and
lost support. A similar group called the Åkians appears in Moberg’s “The
Emigrants”.”
Intolerance of political beliefs.
As the number of
industrial workers grew, the unbearable conditions gave rise to a folk labour
movement of workers seeking improved working conditions and higher pay. The
year 1879 saw the first strike in Sundsvall, and from then on workers joined
unions to try and get better working conditions and pay for themselves and
their colleagues. The organizers of these movements were often strongly
suppressed and the leaders persecuted, often with support from the government.
Many unionists were forced to emigrate in fear of their lives. Associated with
this was a strong temperance movement and a women’s’ movement and both gained
popularity.
Industries.
The Industrial Revolution affected Sweden
later and much more slowly than in most Western European countries.
Consequently the cities and larger towns remained few and small. No real
industrial revolution occurred and developments such as mechanization and the
introduction of railways, were piecemeal. Sweden had vast resources in talented
people, the mountains of metal ores, the enormous forests and the powerful
rivers. These resources were relatively dormant until a breakthrough of the
timber industry in the 1850’s, when the wilderness became very valuable. As
steam power developed, the sawmill was freed from dependence on rapids. Huge
sawmill areas grew up around river outlets such as at Sundsvall and in the
Ådalen district in Norrland. Intensive railway building shortened the long
distances between the Lapland ore mining areas and the export harbours such as
at Luleå. Industrial centres were created around the railways. So Norrland was
transformed into a pioneer America type area within Sweden. Many were attracted
to the north by the timber and pulp industry.
The Industrial Age
came to Sweden in the 1870’s, with the main industries in timber, iron and
steel, textiles and glass. Glass making became very important in Småland. Its’
Kingdom of Glass or Crystal, or Glasriket, in places such as Kosta, Boda and
Orrefors is a popular and significant part of the economy today. Small-scale
workshop industry in the previously mentioned bruks developed into modern
industrial concerns. The Swedish companies ASEA, Ericsson, SKF and AGA were all
founded in this time. Inventors such as John Ericsson and Alfred Nobel
(dynamite and later benefactor of the Nobel prizes) thrived. New industrial districts
generated large internal migration, as in Britain. So by 1870 15% of the
population worked in mining, construction, manufacturing etc., and this was 28%
at the turn of the century. This seemed to be powerful industrial progress, but
it was never strong enough to satisfy the very basic needs of many people.
Sweden was not stagnant economically, but if industrialization had come
earlier, the industrial areas would have absorbed the population pressure. The
slow growth
of industry could
not create the ideal society and urban life was not always attractive. When
times got worse there was no social security. Therefore, an average of two men
emigrated for each man occupied by industry.
A literate people.
Another significant
factor was the Act of 1842, establishing compulsory elementary education. The
folkskolan -a basic primary school- virtually erased illiteracy and also
enabled people to read about America
Where did the idea
of emigration come from?
When there seemed
to be no chance of moving from the difficulties the idea of leaving Sweden
arose.
“When one may not
think what one wishes.
When the food runs
out.
When a maid may be
a maid forever.
When the senses are
numbed by indolence.
Then a possibility
opens up.
To travel to
America.
One can make something
of one’s life.
(From
Smålandsposten - Glimtar ur Kronobergs historia. Juni 1996)
The emigration
which started in the mid 1840’s was mostly of people seeking to escape from
something, as in the above lines. They usually travelled in groups. The mass
emigration started with the so-called famine years in the late 1860’s. Folk
travelled to something new and hopefully better, a United States economically
expanding after the Civil War. How did they get their knowledge about
America? Part of the answer was that those who had emigrated wrote glowing
accounts of their lives in letters to their home districts, sending news of the
job possibilities. These letters were known as the “Amerika brev”. They told of
fertile land, amazing railroad builders’ wages, excellent forestry jobs and
success, even if it was not always true! These letters were treated not so much
as private communications and were circulated around, sometimes being published
in the countless local newspapers or being collected in a whole book.
Newspapers, such as
“Barometern” in Småland, also published articles about America, which were
avidly read and passed from hand to hand. The settlers also sent a great deal
of money to support those left behind at home. Some emigrants came back to
Sweden on visits, with undreamed of wealth in their pockets and taking fabulous
gifts for their families. Not all these letters told the truth. Failure was
covered up by fictitious accounts of relative success. The recipients were not
to know this and these signs of relative prosperity encouraged others. In this
way an impulse to go to a better life developed. This was “the America Dream”.
The new railway
companies in America needed hard working construction employees. They engaged
new workers from Sweden through the agents in New York and Gothenburg. They
offered land close to their lines and made it possible for a potential emigrant
employee to buy a ticket from their home to wherever they were needed, such as
Jamestown in New York State.
When were the main emigration periods?
Minor emigration happened in the early part of
the century. From 1820 to 1844 only 209 Swedes arrived at New York.
From 1845 to 1854
15,000 followed and these early groups were the pioneers. Their reasons for
emigration varied, but usually included farming failure and the consequent
foreclosure of the debt, religious persecution or even a combination of these.
They travelled in family groups, usually from the same village. So the fictional
Karl Oskar left a Småland impoverished from the ’48 disaster. Many of this
first wave were farmers who took their relatives and servants. There were also
craftsmen and some middle class urban people. Group travel, often with a strong
leader, gave security on the way and on arrival, for in America they knew no
one. A ticket from Göteborg to Chicago cost about 200 Kr at this time. This
first wave developed a tradition of emigration. Statistically the emigration
had three peaks:
1868-72, the famine emigration with about
100,000 emigrants. In the Linneryd parish in southern Småland, the sheriff
foreclosed 300 farms through debt in 2 months. Children begged in droves. Bread
was made from varying ingredients, mainly white moss, other lichen, chaff.
1880-93 with about 350,000 persons leaving; One
hundred years ago precisely, in 1899, 11,842 Swedes emigrated to America and of
them 685 were from Kronoberg County in Småland, whilst 787 were from Jönköpings
Län.
1901-10. After the 1st World War, the USA passed strict immigration laws and mass emigration
ceased. There was however a further, but less sizeable, temporary peak
resulting from the Swedish economic depression in the 1920’s.
From Jönköpings Län
significant figures are:
1845-1854. - under
2.000.
1868-1872. -about
15.000.
1880-1893. -about
30.000.
1918-1930. -about
5.000
Who did the organization?
Early emigrants, be they individuals, families
or small groups often sailed “on top of the cargo”. They had makeshift and
cramped sleeping quarters, on board a sailing bark or brig from a Swedish
harbour such as Karlshamn or Karlskrona in Blekinge, spending 3 months at sea.
These vessels carried their regular cargo, such as pig iron, for this was a
major export to the USA. It was as big as the exports to Teesside’s newly
developing iron works in England. Later the movement became very business like.
A network of emigration agents co-operated with shipping companies to recruit
new settlers and organize the trips, which mainly started from Gothenburg.
These agents were usually trusted people in the villages and small towns, such
as the teacher or a shopkeeper. The shipping companies introduced a system of
pre-paid tickets for emigrants to send home for younger family members or even
a widowed mother. With the start of steam powered ships the voyage took 2-3
weeks and often included a crossing from Gothenburg to Hull on board the ships
of the Wilson Line. This was followed by a train journey from Hull, through the
Huddersfield area, to Liverpool and then a crossing by the Inman Line or
another company’s ship to New York. Conditions on board were often dire.Some
emigrants from southern Sweden travelled by way of Denmark and/or Germany.
·The steamer “Hero”
left Gothenburg in 1866 with 500 emigrants, nearly 400 oxen, 900 pigs, calves
and sheep sharing the accommodation. Some agents were rogues and some newcomers
were robbed and cheated when they arrived in New York. Yet most of the
emigrants prospered in comparison with the life they had left behind in Sweden.
Swedish emigration history.
It has not been
unusual for us to be asked to take photographs when we have met visitors from
the USA, who are descendants of the emigrants, as they visit Utvandrarnas Hus
(the House of the Emigrants) in Växjö. Perhaps they have come to trace their
ancestry. This is the Swedish Emigrant Institute, founded in 1965 and since
1968 located in the House of Emigrants. It promotes emigration research at all
levels and facilitates contacts between Sweden and its’ emigrants and their
descendents
There is a research room and service, with
Europe’s largest collection of books and documents on emigration history,
including microfilmed old church registers and inventories, and ships’
passenger lists from ten harbours. Here visitors may trace their family roots
at a charge of 100kr per day. There is an excellent main exhibition, “The Dream
of America” about the background, development and consequences of the
emigration. It is possible to follow the migrants’ journey on fully laden horse
drawn carts or carriages with their “America trunks” to a port such as
Karlskrona or Gothenburg. It has about 30,000 visitors a year with many
Swedish-Americans coming, especially for Minnesota Day, celebrated on the
second Sunday of August.
Arrival at New York.
The busyness of the
harbour, with its’ mass of ships and forest of masts and spread of buildings,
must have been an overwhelming experience for the mainly country folk. Strange
languages and the activities of the “runners” bidding for their services will
have been bewildering and nerve racking. Often these “runners” were earlier
immigrants and earned their money by helping the new immigrants through their
problems with officials and with first housing.
These runners or
other agents were contracted to plan, arrange the transport and then accompany
the immigrant groups on a major stage of their journey inland. A typical
contract is set out in Moberg’s “Unto a Good Land”.
Contract for Transportation of
Immigrants.
The undersigned
agrees to carry the immigrants, who have arrived on the brig Charlotta of
Karlshamn, from New York to Chicago, on the following conditions:
1. From New York to Albany by steamer, from
Albany to Buffalo by steam wagon, and from Buffalo to Chicago by steamer.
2. For every adult person the fare is 8
dollars, children under 3 years free, children between 3 years and 12 years
half fare.
3. The same fare entitles the traveler to 100
lbs. Baggage free and 150 lbs. On the steam wagon.
4. The baggage of the passengers is
transferred free of charge from the vessel in New York to the steamer, and
likewise in Albany and Buffalo, the whole way through to Chicago.
New York, June 26, 1850.
New York then was
just another stage of their journey, unless criminal agents cheated them of
their little money. As shown by the above contract, the immigrants needed to
arrange to travel on by steamer up the Hudson River to Albany, the Erie Canal
and the Great Lakes. The further journey to the homestead lands was carried out
by horse carts and walking. Later the railroads made these stages relatively
simple. Whether in town or countryside, most immigrants, even the skilled
artisans,
started from the
lowest level of society.
Where did they go?
In the earlier periods most of the emigrants
were from the countryside, and sought a farming life in the Mid-West.They were
land hungry people. The possibility of wide open opportunities and of getting
huge unspoiled land areas to settle on almost free, if they dared to travel
west, played a large part. The terms of President Lincoln’s 1862 Homestead Act
indirectly made the northern part of the areas between the rivers Mississippi
and Missouri very attractive for Swedish settlers. The land there was very
fertile. Emigrants who were prepared to become American citizens could have 160
acres of virgin land to develop. The only requirement was to clear, build on
and cultivate the land in the first 5 years, and then it became their own.
These emigrants took with them traditional virtues of hard work, thrift and
honesty.
From New York many
moved on to Chicago, where they either stayed or its’ railway station became a
staging post as they headed for lands similar to the ones they had left behind.
Many went on to the well-forested Minnesota and, as it was so popular with folk
from Sweden’s forested areas, it became known as the Swede State of America.
Many went also to Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Dakota and Kansas. The everyday
reality of the pioneer’s life was different to the glamour of the dream. The first home was a
cabin as simple and as primitive as a poor torpstuga [hamlet hut] in Småland.
Clearing the ground of stones in Småland was replaced by the rooting out of
stumps. Some were hesitant about settling on the prairie because the landscape
was so different. Be it prairie or hill land all Swedish communities were
formed, where only or mainly Swedish was spoken.
Increasingly
Swedish emigrants went further west to California and Texas and here Swedish
colonies developed also. There is still a significant Swedish-American culture in
parts of these states.
These pioneers had
a tough task and had to work hard by day and into the night. It is well
illustrated in Moberg’s books. A basic house for shelter had to be built.
Ground had to be cleared and prepared for cultivation. Cattle had to be
purchased and fed. Many had economic problems in their early days in the USA.
They had little spare money after paying for their journey. There were hard
winters and the family could be close to starvation before everything was up
and running. Language was a problem for many, although in later emigrations
town dwellers went to evening classes in English. Soon many unmarried men
became lumberjacks or railway or construction workers in the rapidly growing
towns. Actually every fourth Swedish immigrant came from a town so the farmer
Swede rural prototype immigrant picture is far from true.
Moberg’s picture is
true of the 1850’s but not of later. The Swedes were renowned as carpenters,
bricklayers and building contractors. The savings from a few years’ hard work
in the big city were often used to buy land for a new farm or settlement in
Minnesota or Iowa. “The Swedes built Chicago”, was a saying and by 1910 this
city was in effect Sweden’s second city. There were more Swedes in Chicago than
there were inhabitants in Gothenburg! They formed 11% of the population. It was
the leading Swedish metropolis in North America. It became a cultural and
economic centre of Swedish-America, with newspapers like “Hemlandet” and
“Svenska Amerikanaren” published in the area and circulated in the emigrant
areas.
”Hemlandet” was
published originally in Galesburg, Illinois but later in Chicago. There were
important schools, hospitals, societies, libraries and theatres. When the mass
emigration ended in the beginning of the 1930’s 70% of Swedish emigrants lived
in towns. This may be explained by the fact that the factories and big
workshops could pay respectable wages even to a Swedish crofter who had no
further education, but who was hard working.
Not only did the
Swedish emigrants send letters. They showed their success by sending a newly
taken studio photograph with the letter. The girls paraded in nice new American
ladies’ hats and could even borrow some beautiful clothes from the
photographer! Even houses were “borrowed” to be photographed in front of as a
boast to the folks back at home!
As more Swedes
emigrated it gradually became easier for others to follow. In 1920 the total
area of Swedish owned farmland in the USA corresponded to 2/3 of all the arable
land in Sweden. Swedes in American towns and cities.
Swedish people kept
together, often in order to survive in the early hard years. As already stated,
some places became “Sweden towns”. As well as Chicago there were great Swedish
housing areas in Rockford, Worcester, Minneapolis and Jamestown. The main
street of such towns was often christened “Snoose Boulevard” from the Swedish
predilection for snuff. Many Swedish stores imported Swedish specialties.
The towns became
cradles of a Swedish-American culture, somehow shaping its’ own framework
different from both Sweden and America. With their own churches, clubs, schools
and newspapers, it was possible to live and die in Chicago or Minnesota without
speaking anything other than Swedish. The main Swedish traditional festivals,
such as Midsummer, were maintained. Large numbers of Swedes gathered for some
festivals, and it is said that there were sometimes up to 100,000 people
gathered on big occasions in Chicago and Minneapolis.
Most marriages took
place within the national group. In 1910, almost 3/4 of second
generation Swedes
were of unmixed origin.
Only men at first – but the women then
worked hard.
At first it seemed that it would be a case of
men only, except when families travelled together, but the girls’ time came
later, towards the end of the 1800’s. During the time of social and economic
change in Sweden the girls left the rural areas to be maids with well to do
families in the towns, particularly in Stockholm, but their conditions were
often poor.
America was the
solution for them also. They certainly became maids too in New York, Chicago or
Minneapolis, but with much more pay, free days off and personal freedom to
choose what they wanted to do with their lives. If the woman worked in a “good”
American family she could be better off than her male fellow immigrant. One
piece of research shows that in 1900, no less than 62% of the USA’s 57,000
Swedish born working women were in domestic service. If they did not obtain a
maid’s position then they became seamstresses in the cities’ “sweat shops”.
Young women could support themselves and also their husband when they found
one. The women worked all the year round, whereas the men were often unemployed
during the low season of work or if their factory failed. The girls kept in
touch with old comrades back at home in Sweden and often saved money so that
they too could emigrate.
Making good or?
The great majority
overcame difficulties and made their own place. Many became thriving farmers by
dint of their hard pioneering work. Some made careers as bankers, businessmen,
professional men, artists or politicians. Many made their fortunes. One
emigrant known as “Lucky Swede” became America’s most successful gold
prospector in the Klondike, before losing his fortune to his chorus girl wife.
Charles Lindbergh
was the first man to fly across the Atlantic. Eric Wickman became the organizer
of the Greyhound Company. Glenn Seaburg became a Nobel Prize winner in Physics,
John Ericsson the inventor of the propeller and constructor of America’s first
battleship the “Monitor” of the Civil War.
In all, about one
fifth of emigrants eventually returned to Sweden, bringing their new riches
which were often invested in industry and businesses in the poorer areas. At Långasjö in Småland, 1/3 of local farms
was bought by returning Swedes, using money earned in the
USA.
Early in the 20th Century Sweden’s Parliament, the Riksdag, realized that Sweden was
losing too many of its’ best and youngest citizens. A survey of what had
brought about the exodus was compiled and this revealed a sorry tale of
oppression, poverty and discontent. The ills and indignities of a system that
was far from egalitarian alerted the nation’s rulers, and many of Sweden’s
later sweeping democratic reforms, which changed the country for ever, owed
much to the insights provided by
the 19th Century emigrants who sought the better life in the USA.
“Emigrants Country” in Småland.
To travel, as we
have done, along Emigrants’ Country’s winding roads, many of them still gravel
roads, is to revisit the past. Ljuder is a real place. The cross roads at
Åkerby was once the meeting place for families setting out on their long
journey west and a commemorative stone bears an inscription about those who
left. Nearby is the church built sacrificially in 1843. Visitors find it
difficult to separate fact from fiction. A clergyman was asked if the church
still possessed “the wedding crown” presented to it by a local good time girl
when she became a posh pastor’s wife in America. Neither the reformed donor nor
the crown actually existed, of course, outside Moberg’s books.
About a kilometer
away is a tiny red cottage signposted ”Korpamoen”, the name Moberg gave to Karl
Oskar and Kristina’s home. It is fictional too!
Near Långasjö is a
200-year-old peasant small holding used in the film. It is now a local tourist
attraction.
Determined Moberg
fans may travel local unmetalled roads to the isolated community of Moshultmåla
in Algutsboda parish. Moberg was born here in 1898 and an inscribed stone mark
his birthplace. His childhood school building is preserved nearby.
BARKERYD – as an example.
Lies 15km from Nässjö in northern Småland and
has an excellent agricultural museum and folk museum (hembygdsgård). A feature
of the latter is interesting documentation about emigration from the area. It
tells of Sven Magnus Swensson who went to the USA and was then followed by 700
local folk. He was born in 1816 and emigrated in 1836, spending 2 years in New
York. So he went before the major waves of emigration. He went to Texas, at
that time a free state.
He prospered,
building up a whole empire of farms and became so rich that he could develop
his own Bank on Wall Street and became a confidant of President Andrew Johnson.
When Swensson needed more farm workers he knew that Swedish workers
from his home
parish could be the best. He made arrangements through his brother Johan in
Langåsa in Barkeryd parish and paid for the emigrants’ travel on the basis that
they would work on his farms for two years in exchange. It was cheap labour, for the emigrants
could not perceive that their work contract was worth more than the cost of
their ticket. In 1848 61 travelled, in the period 1866-74 186 and then in 1875
94! These earlier journeys took 3 weeks from England, shortened by the 1880’s to 14 days and
later to ten days. An Hembygdsgårds festival is held on the first Sunday in
August annually and in 1998 there were 98 visitors from Texas.The church choir
from Barkeryd has visited San Antonio in Texas during an USA tour, some 160
years after Sven
Magnus.
Värmland.
Swedish-American
days are also held in the last weekend of July in Värmland, with visits to John
Ericssons’ mausoleum in Filipstad’s cemetery. This gifted engineer and inventor
designed the warship “Monitor” and invented the ship’s rotary propeller. His
brother Nils was almost as equally talented. They were born at Långban Herrgård
near Filipstad. Special events are held at Filipstad and Långban. The
emigration from Värmland is permanently recognized with a very fine and large
stone “Friendship Monument” on high ground near Sunne. It serves the dual
purpose of honoring the emigrants to the USA and the considerable numbers of
Finnish immigrants who settled in many of north and west Värmland’s outback
areas in the 17th and 18th centuries. The
monument is in the somewhat triangular shape of the province and is surmounted
by a winged eagle. I first saw this monument in 1953.
The emigrants who returned to Sweden.
For a variety of
reasons 185,000 Swedish emigrants returned to their homeland between 1875 and
1925. For some it was homesickness, whilst for some others family needs called
them back. Some, but not all, returned financially strong and
were able to buy
land, homes, property or businesses. The Långasjö farms situation is not
untypical.
Emigration figures 1851-1920.
USA 1,030,390.
Canada 6,653.
Norway 78,388.
Germany 30,126.
Denmark 94,114.
Some statistics from Kalmar län (county)
- emigrants to America.
1866 188 men and
141 women =329 persons
1867 423 men and
307 women =730 persons
1868 1,270 men and
989 women =2,259 persons
1869 1,625 men and
1,286 women =1,114 persons
Total 4,118 men and
3,225 women =7,343 persons
Moberg’s books were turned into two films by
the Swedish filmmaker Jan Troell, with Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow in the
title roles. These films were very popular in Sweden and the USA and have been
shown on British TV.
Moberg was from a
soldier’s family, although born in a farmers’ background. His novels of the
Swedish countryside are therefore significant documents. 
