The mid-19th century saw a surge of immigration from Sweden to the United States. Many were farmers looking for new opportunities for land to work, and many were more well-off than typical immigrants from other European countries who were displaced by famine or poverty. Because they could afford to buy land and livestock, these Swedes settled the expanding frontiers of the Midwest rather than settling in cities. Some of the first settlers in the 1840s wrote back to Sweden with their experiences, encouraging friends and relatives to make the trip, or warning about the dangers: Unonius in Wisconsin, Cassel in Iowa, and the Janssonists in Illinois.
This week’s mailbag is a smörgåsbord of selections from letters by a Swedish immigrant during the Civil War, found in MS AmW 7, Miscellaneous Western Americana Manuscripts, 1836-1910. These came to Houghton through the work of the Harvard Commision on Western History. The Commission began in 1911, spurred by the arrival of historian Frederick Jackson Turner at Harvard, and funded in part by Alice Forbes Perkins Hooper, in memory of her father, Charles Elliot Perkins. Many works about the American West came to Harvard and Houghton through their work, but not without controversy, since many local western librarians and archivists felt that Harvard was overreaching and obtaining material that should more rightly belong to them. The Archivist of the Commission even felt the need to address these concerns in a piece in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin from 1916, “The Harvard Commission on Western History has frequently reiterated its original policy as announced in 1912, that it has no desire to deprive any state or local library of material to which it has a better claim.” Though largely defunct by the end of the first world war, the Commission did inspire further collecting and would be instrumental in bringing important collections in American history to the library.
Some of the Swedish letters in the collection are from P. Gustaf Johnson, who offers a personal perspective of events large and small. Though writing from Knox County, Illinois, where he is working at the time, he seems to have originally come from the area of New Sweden, Iowa, where his sister and brother-in-law, Mary and Olagus Stephenson, still lived.
Johnson wrote much about the weather in his letters, and how different the Midwest’s climate was from the cool and pleasant summers and relatively mild winters of his homeland.
Det är en Ting jag inte Tycke om amerika för, om Sommertiden är här Så ovanligt warmt ock om wintren deremot Så kalt wi hafven möckett vakert wäder nu men det är ett det är Så ombytligt Den ene Dagen är det Så varmt den andra så kalt Så det kunde Behöfvas 4. eller 5. rockar.
There is one thing I do not like about America. Summers here are unusually hot and the winters on the other hand so cold. We are having lovely weather now but it is so changeable. One day it is warm and another so cold that 4 or 5 coats are necessary
He writes in another letter, from 22 April 1861, about going to work on a farm and about who already works there, and what that might mean about his settling in to his new land.
Det är 3 Swenska Drängar dit jag sken ock en Swensk piga jag tycker inte om för det är så många Swensker der för jag får inte Lära mig tala Englis.
There are 3 Swedish farm hands where I went and one Swedish girl. I don’t like that there are so many Swedes there because I won’t learn how to speak English.
In that same letter, Johnson writes about the war that had started just weeks before, and of his desire to go fight for the Union.
Jag hade tänkan att gå at krig det är mång Swenskar som skan gå men jag blef aftragd med att gå eljest war Det min mening att hjelpa linken.
I was thinking of going to war. Many Swedes are going there. I was dissuaded, otherwise it was my intention to help Lincoln.
In a final letter, 20 July 1863, Johnson tells about his experience on the 4th of July, in Quincy, Illinois.
Jag war i quinsy Fourt of July Det war så möcket folk där jag tyckete inte så bra om folkett derinne det war intett annat än Copperheads and I was a Copperhead to De lagar sig till resatt Drafta i Illinois De har varitt omkring ock Tagitt up namna men de har inte mitt namn i Sina Lista.
I was in Quincy the Fourth of July. There was a large crowd of people there. I didn’t like the people from there. There were nothing but copperheads “and I was a copperhead, too.” They are getting ready for the draft in Illinois. They have been around and taken up names, but they don’t have my name on their list.
Other letters from Swedish Immigrants from the same time period can be found in an article from the Year-Book of the Swedish Historical Society of America, vol. 7 (1921-22), digitized from the collections of Widener Library, through the Open Collection Program: Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930.
This posting is part of a weekly feature on the Houghton Library blog, “You’ve Got Mail,” based on letters in Houghton Library. Every Friday this year a Houghton staff member will select a letter from the diverse collections in the Library and put that letter into context. It is our hope that this feature will introduce you to the amazing variety of correspondence included in our collections and the topics, mundane and momentous, personal and universal, they explore.
[This post was contributed by James Capobianco, Reference Librarian.]