First published in 1987. During the last half of the nineteenth century, nearly two million Norwegians and Swedes migrated to the United States. Declining rates of emigration are moderately associated with the development of urban-industrialization in Scandinavia toward the end of the 19th century. Still, the major explanation of the decline of emigration is argued to be less a response to new urban opportunities than the end result of the transformation of rural, peasant classes and the decay of the diffusion process. In this volume economic change, agricultural development, and the course of the demographic transition are separately considered to isolate the causes underlying the emigration. The social historical context is examined with an eye toward casting the results of this study in a broader light. Those lessons learned in the study of Scandinavian experience are applicable to similar processes currently unfolding in contemporary developing countries.

"America fever" gripped Sweden in the middle of the nineteenth century, seethed to a peak in 1910, when one-fifth of the world’s Swedes lived in America, cooled during World War I, and chilled to dead ash with the advent of the Great Depression in 1930. Swedish Exodus, the first English translation and revision of Lars Ljungmark’s Den Stora Utvandringen, recounts more than a century of Swedish emigration, concentrating on such questions as who came to America, how the character of the emigrants changed with each new wave of emigration, what these people did when they reached their adopted country, and how they gradually became Americanized. Ljungmark’s essential challenge was to capture in a factual account the broad sweep of emigration history. But often he narrows his focus to look closely at those who took part in this mass migration. Through historical records and personal letters, Ljungmark brings many of these people back to life. One young woman, for example, loved her parents, but loved America more: "I never expect to speak to you in this life. . . . Your loving daughter unto death." Like most immigrants, she never expected to return. Another immigrant wrote back seeking a wife: "I wonder how you have it and if you are living. . . . Are you married or unmarried? If you are unmarried, you can have a good home with me." Ljungmark also focuses closely on some of the leaders: Peter Cassel, a liberal temperance supporter and free-church leader whose community in America prospered; Hans Mattson, a colonel in the Civil War and founder of a colony in Minnesota; Erik Jansson, a book burner, self-proclaimed messiah, and founder of the Bishop Hill Colony; Gustaf Unonius, a student idealist and founder of a Wisconsin colony that faltered. The story of Swedish immigrants in the United States is the story in miniature of the greatest mass migration in human history, that of thirty-five million Europeans who left their homes to come to America. It is a human story of interest not only to Swedes but to everyone.

First published in 1987. During the last half of the nineteenth century, nearly two million Norwegians and Swedes migrated to the United States. Declining rates of emigration are moderately associated with the development of urban-industrialization in Scandinavia toward the end of the 19th century. Still, the major explanation of the decline of emigration is argued to be less a response to new urban opportunities than the end result of the transformation of rural, peasant classes and the decay of the diffusion process. In this volume economic change, agricultural development, and the course of the demographic transition are separately considered to isolate the causes underlying the emigration. The social historical context is examined with an eye toward casting the results of this study in a broader light. Those lessons learned in the study of Scandinavian experience are applicable to similar processes currently unfolding in contemporary developing countries.

A comparative history of European emigration.

Understand the culture and traditions behind the charm, to enjoy meaningful making Meets the needs of two content-hungry audiences: fiber artists and Nordic craft enthusiasts Adopt some of Nordic life's cultural norms, like gökotta (to have a picnic at dawn to hear the first bird’s song)