Kendric Babcock - The Scandinavian Element in the United States

There were, however, conditions in the home-lands as well as in America, which impelled immigration. Anyone who has travelled over the fertile prairies of the Mississippi valley and then through Norway or Sweden, will often wonder that so many people have been content to remain so long in the older Scandinavia. In Norway there were in 1910, in round numbers, 2,390,000 people on an area of 124,000 square miles. 15 15 Statesman’s Year-Book, 1914 , 1141 ff. Of this population, about 425,000 were gathered in the larger towns, and 250,000 were in the smaller towns, making a total urban population of 29 %, over against 21 % twenty years before. The remainder were scattered over the vast mountainous country or along the coast-line of three thousand miles. 16 16 In 1880, 20 % lived in towns; in 1890, 23.7 % lived in towns, and 76.3 % in the rural districts. Norway (English edition of the official volume prepared for the Paris Exhibition of 1900), 90. Thousands of fishermen’s huts are grappled barnacle-like to the rocks, while behind them along a trickling thread of water stretches a precious hand-breadth of soil. The greater part of the interior is one wide furrowed plateau, in whose hollows, by lakes and streams, thrifty farmers skilfully utilize their few square yards of tillable land and pasture their cattle on the steep slopes. Save around Lake Mjösen, the Leir, Vos, and Throndhjem, there can scarcely be found in all Norway anything like a broad rich meadow. The farm products are almost literally mined from the rocks. “It is by dogged, persistent, indomitable toil and endurance, backed up in some cases by irrepressible daring, that the Norwegian peasant and fisher-folk – three-fourths of the population – carry on with any show of success their struggle against iron nature.” 17 17 Wm. Archer, “Norway Today,” Fortnightly Rev. , XLIV, 415. Yet in spite of such adverse conditions, these people have ever clung with passionate tenacity to their mountainous storm-beaten Norway, and by it have been made brave without bitterness, hardy without harshness, strong yet tender.

In Sweden the physical conditions are decidedly different. The area of 172,900 square miles supports a population of 5,600,000 (1912), of whom 50 % dwell in cities of which there are now thirty with more than 10,000, Stockholm leading with 350,000. The urban population increased 166 % between 1871 and 1912. 18 18 Statesman’s Year-Book, 1914 , 1316. The increase of urban population was five times the increase of the kingdom. There are few lofty mountains and no jagged peaks, majestically dominating the outlook; the crag-set fjords are replaced by gentler bays and sounds sprinkled with beautiful islands; in some parts of the country, as in Wermland and Smaaland, are low and marshy sections, where, according to legend, the Lord forgot to separate the land and water. Agricultural conditions are less hard and means of communication are better than in Norway; closer relations exist between provinces and between parishes; information is more readily diffused, and gatherings of considerable size are held without particular difficulty.

Denmark more closely resembles Sweden than Norway, and is in still better touch with the larger world than either of the others. With an area of about 15,000 square miles, – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, combined – it held in 1911 a population of 2,775,000. Copenhagen and its suburbs had a population of 560,000. The urban population was 26 %. Unlike the other two, Denmark has several important colonies in other parts of the world. 19 19 Statesman’s Year-Book, 1914 , 789 ff.

In all three countries, as in the rest of Europe, changes in commercial, industrial, social, legal, and religious matters were sure to be slow. The tenure and succession in lands, the limited market for labor, the relatively small opportunity for initiative, especially for the younger members of considerable families, – all of these conditions with the characteristics already described, lent added attractiveness to the call of the American West.

“Arrived last evening” (October 9, 1825).

“Danish Sloop Restoration, Holland, 98 days from Norway, via Long Island Sound, with iron to Boorman and Johnson, 52 passengers.” 20 20 The New York Evening Post , Oct. 10, 1825.

“The vessel is very small, measuring, as we understand, only about 360 Norwegian lasts, or 45 American tons, and brought 46 passengers, male and female, all bound for Ontario County, where an agent who came over sometime since, purchased a tract of land.” 21 21 The New York Daily Advertiser , Oct. 12, 1825.

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 22 Interview with Capt. O. C. Lange (who reached America in 1824) in Chicago, 1890; Norelius, Svenskarnes Historia , 1. 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 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. 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.

In the region about Stavanger, in southwestern Norway, in 1825, there had been for some time a feeling of discontent with the religious conditions of the country, and a tendency to formal dissent from the established church. The direction of this tendency and the definition of the movement were vitally influenced by certain zealous and philanthropic Quaker missionaries from England, Stephen Grellet and William Allen, who visited Norway in 1818. Grellet was a French nobleman who sought refuge in the United States during the French Revolution, and there united himself with the Quakers or Friends. After residing in America for twelve years, he began making tours through Europe to propagate Quaker ideas, even obtaining an interview with the Pope, which he describes in his diary. The visit to Norway was in furtherance of his general plan. While his account of his stay in Norway does not make any mention of America, it is impossible to believe that no reference to America and to the conditions of the Friends in that part of the world, where he himself found refuge, crept into the conferences which he held around Stavanger, and that no seeds of desire to seek the New World were sown in the slow-moving minds of the Norwegian peasants whom he met. 24 24 Grellet, Memoirs , I, 321 ff.