The Scandinavian Element in the United States: University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. 111, No. 3, September, 1914Babcock, Kendric Charles
History
The Scandinavian Element in the United States: University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. 111, No. 3, September, 1914
Babcock, Kendric Charles
Scandinavians -- United States
These ordinary shipping notices in the newspapers of New York City, and
several other similar paragraphs, are the first entries in the
chronicles of the newer Scandinavian immigration to the United States.
From the cessation of Swedish immigration in the seventeenth century
down to 1825, no considerable companies made the long journey from the
Northlands to America, tho adventurous fellows in twos and threes came
now and then, men who misliked the humdrum life in the old parishes,
with its narrow opportunity and outlook, men who found the sea the only
highway to novelty and a possible fortune.[22] Now, at last, the coming
of a company of some size, from Norway, adding one more to the
lengthening list of nationalities which contributed to the complex
population of the United States, attracted more than passing
attention.[23] That the sloop was not Danish, and that there is some
discrepancy in the number of passengers--(and crew?)--and in the number of
days in the voyage, are minor matters and easily accounted for; the New
Yorker of 1825 could hardly be expected to distinguish clearly between
Danes and Norwegians, when the people of the Northwest at the present
time apply the name Swede indiscriminately to Swedes, Danes, Norwegians,
Finns, and Icelanders. But back of the arrival of this little sloopful
of Norwegians, is a story of motive, organization, and movement, more or
less characteristic of Scandinavian immigration during the next two
generations. The two main elements are: conditions in Norway and the
United States, and the personal activities of one of the adventurous
fellows already referred to.
[22] Interview with Capt. O. C. Lange (who reached America in 1824) in
Chicago, 1890; Norelius, _Svenskarnes Historia_, 1.
[23] _Niles' Register_, XXIX., 115. Several extended quotations from
newspapers in New York, Boston, and Baltimore, for the month of
October, 1825, relating to this company of the sloop
"Restoration", indicating the interest created by its coming, are
printed in Anderson, _Norwegian Immigration_, 69-76.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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