Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914

Abstract

This book is not just for Swedes.It is a compelling panorama of American life, as observed by people who had travelled the world and had sharpened their powers of observation.A pastor's son writes from Lyons, Iowa, in 1858, that he was becoming Americanized: thin as a skeleton, deeply tanned from the hot sun, teeth pitch-black from tobacco.Who could draw a more deft portrait of the pioneer?This young man had, however, introduced one Swedish custom: "The Americans always drink coffee and tea with their meals and feed milk to the pigs because they think milk is not healthy.I have taught them to drink milk . .."Another man, writing home to Sweden from Jefferson County in 1864, cannot stay on the farm in Iowa when gold is to be had in Idaho.His niece remarks some months later that "they are not mining much gold.Uncle is bothered with backache," and they intend to return to Jefferson County in the fall.Iowa was a lush land in Swedish eyes.One woman wrote that they had good bread, beef and pork, eggs and milk in abundance, cherries, apples, and had made a barrel and a half of maple syrup in the fall, adding that "when I compare Sweden with this country, I have no desire to return."Our gold prospector was also a sportsman.He did not think much of the fishing in southeastern Iowa, but "wild turkeys, prairie chickens, partridges, geese and rabbits are everywhere. . . .You may be sure the boys are good marksmen."Another poor Swede had intended to come to relatives in Iowa, but he and eleven countrymen were waylaid by a smooth talking gentleman in New York, and they ended as laborers in tidewater Virginia, which they had been told was not far from Iowa."Yes, the slaves are freed, but we are treated almost like slaves."This was in 1865.On another social level, a Swedish governess in South Carolina before the Civil War had been shocked by the behavior of southern gentlemen, who "sit and rock on their chairs, put their feet up on chairs, tables, benches, indeed even on window sills ..." One day, a Dr. Sloan came to call.

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