What problems did Swedish immigrants face in America?

What problems did Swedish immigrants face in America?

The religious repression practiced by the Swedish Lutheran State Church was widely resented, as was the social conservatism and class snobbery of the Swedish monarchy. Population growth and crop failures made conditions in the Swedish countryside increasingly bleak.

What were the pull factors for Swedish immigration?

Letters sent home from family, friends and neighbors also were an important pull factor. Those who had left sent home news about availability of jobs and higher wages. Swedes who were still having a hard time in Sweden considered taking their advice and also immigrating to the United States.

How did Scandinavian immigrants influence communities in the Pacific Northwest?

Evidence suggests that Scandinavians felt a kinship with the natural surroundings and economic opportunities in the Pacific Northwest. More than 150,000 Scandinavians settled in the region between 1890 and 1910 ― many attracted to the fishing, logging, and farming industries.

How did the Swedes come to America?

Swedish mass-immigration to the U.S. began in earnest in the mid 1840s, when a number of pioneers, often moving as groups, established a migration tradition between certain sending areas in Sweden and particular receiving locales in the United States.

What did the Scandinavians bring to America?

As Scandinavian immigrants arrived in the U.S., they brought a diverse group of native languages with them, and they quickly established institutions to nurture and promote their linguistic heritage.

What did Swedish immigrants bring to America?

Numerous books, journals, pamphlets, and other types of publications were brought out in Swedish-America by a variety of publishers. Bookstores existed in many of the major urban settlements through which many imported books from Sweden were sold as well.

Why did Swedish people immigrate to the US?

A strong population growth in Sweden increased the pressure on a society that was fundamentally agricultural in nature, and moving to North America provided the Swedish emigrants with economic opportunity not available in the homeland.

Did Sweden colonize America?

Sweden established colonies in the Americas in the mid-17th century, including the colony of New Sweden (1638–1655) on the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, as well as two possessions in the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries.

How many Swedes live in America?

At present, according to the 2005 American Community Survey, only 56,324 Americans continue to speak the Swedish language at home, which is down from 67,655 in 2000. Most of them being recent immigrants.

How many Swedes immigrated to the United States?

When the American Civil War broke out, ending the pioneer period of Swedish immigration, the federal Census recorded some 18,000 Swedish-born persons in the United States. Ten years later, following the first heavy peaks of Swedish immigration in 1868-69, largely due to crop failures in Sweden, the figure was almost five times higher, or 97,332.

Are there any health problems in the Swedish American community?

There are few diseases or conditions that seem to be specific to the Swedish American community; problems that are prominent in Sweden, such as heart disease, depression, and alcoholism, are also seen within the Swedish American community, as well as in the rest of the United States.

What is the Swedish-American Historical Society?

The Swedish–American Historical Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1948, with the mission of recording and interpreting the Swedish presence in America. The society is devoted to the mission of studying the Swedish emigration, its history and culture of the Swedes in North America through research, publications, programs and archives.

Where do immigrants come from in Sweden?

As illustrated above, the great majority of Swedish immigrants came from the forests and farmlands of middle Sweden. Fewer came from the areas around larger cities such as Stockholm, Norrköping or Uppsala where economic opportunities were more plentiful.