The common use of the term Scandinavian to describe Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes in a broad and general way, is one of the products of the commingling of these three peoples on the American side of the Atlantic. The word really fits even more loosely than does the word British to indicate the English, Welsh and Scotch. It was applied early in the history of the settlements in Wisconsin and Illinois, to groups which comprised both Norwegians and Danes on the one hand, or Norwegians and Swedes on the other hand, when no one of the three nationalities was strong enough to maintain itself separately, and when the members of one were inclined, in an outburst of latent pride of nationality, not to say conceit of assumed superiority, to resent being called by one of the other names; for example, when a Norwegian objected to being taken for a Swede. Thus the Scandinavian Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, organized in 1860, included both Norwegians and Danes; ten years later the name was changed to the Norwegian-Danish Conference; and in 1884 the differentiation was carried further, and the Danes formed a new Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church Association, supplementing the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which dated back to 1871. Vigorous protests were made from time to time against the use of "Skandinavian" or "Skandinav." "Shall we Norwegians let the Danes persist in calling us Scandinavians?" wrote "Anti-Skandinavian" to the leading American Norwegian weekly of 1870.[9] He also quoted the sarcastic words of Ole Bull: "Scandinavia, gentlemen,--may I ask where that land lies? It is not found in my geography; does it lie perhaps in the moon?"[10] But the use and acceptability of the word steadily grew; the great daily paper in Chicago took the name _Skandinaven_; in 1889, the editor of _The North_ declared: "The term has become a household word ... universally understood in the sense in which we here use it (to designate the three nationalities)."[11] [9] _Fædrelandet og Emigranten_, May 12, 1870: "Skulle vi Norske lade de Danske fremture i at kalde os Skandinaver?" [10] "Skandinavien, mine Herrer, tör jeg spörge, hvor det Land ligger? Det findes ikke i min Geografi; ligger det maaske i Maanen?" Ole Bull, _Fædrelandet og Emigranten_, May 12, 1870. [11] _The North_, June 12, 1889.