Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Between 1821 and 1920, the U.S. witnessed a significant wave of Scandinavian immigration. Within this period, Sweden was the dominant contributor. While its population stood at 5,847,637 in 1920, Sweden accounted for a staggering 1,144,607 immigrants, making up 53.5% of the total Scandinavian immigrants to the US during this era.
The size of the Swedish-American community in 1865 is estimated at 25,000 people, a figure soon to be surpassed by the yearly Swedish immigration. By 1890, the U.S. census reported a Swedish-American population of nearly 800,000, with immigration peaking in 1869 and again in 1887. [43] Most of this influx settled in the North.
Many immigrants during the early 1800s sought religious freedom. From the mid-1800s however, the driving forces behind Norwegian immigration to the United States were agricultural disasters which led to poverty , from the European Potato Failure of the 1840s to the Famine of 1866–68 .
The entry of these young immigrants into the labor market, even when their professional qualifications were low, implied an import of human capital that brought net benefits, at the same time that the receiving society saved on costs, such as nurturing and education, due to their age group. [16] Not all immigrants remained permanently in the ...
A later recession during the 1860s and famine further drove Scandinavians to emigrate. Although immigration to the United States decreased during the American Civil War, a significant wave again left during the 1880s. By the 1920s, the number of Scandinavian immigrants had decreased greatly, stopping almost entirely during the Great Depression ...
The sale of lands was another reason for migration, with many Danes becoming farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas. During the 1870s, almost half of all Danish immigrants settled in the US with their families, but by the 1890s, family immigration accounted for only 25% of the total. Many of these immigrants eventually returned to Denmark.
"The Eighteenth-Century Danish, Dutch and Swedish Free Ports in the Northeastern Caribbean: Continuity and Change." in Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800 (Brill, 2014) pp. 273-308. online; Kelsall, Philip. "The Danish monopoly trading companies and their shareholders, 1730–1774." Scandinavian Economic History Review 47.3 (1999): 5-25 ...
Notably, the heavy Scandinavian immigration for which the state is known, and the pioneering days chronicled by author Laura Ingalls Wilder occurred after statehood in the later 19th century. Unlike these later years, the first half of the 19th century was characterized by sparsely populated communities, harsh living conditions, and to some ...