[148] Nelson in his History of the Scandinavians, I, 253 ff., gives some careful and excellent tables of statistics compiled from official publications of the United States and of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Too much reliance should not be put upon the earlier figures derived from either source. It will also be noted that the European figures are in many cases given in even fifties and hundreds, which savors of estimates rather than of exact statistics. Nelson, p. 244, declares that these foreign statistics, so far as they go, are more reliable than the American.

[149] Sundbärg, Sweden (English Translation), 132; Sundbärg, Bidrag till Utvandringsfrågan från Befolkningsstatistisk Synpunkt, 34 ff.

[150] The statistics of Norwegian and Swedish immigration were combined down to 1868, but for convenience here the combination is continued to the end of the decade. Statistical Abstract of the U. S. (1912), 110.

[151] United States Statutes at Large (1861-2), 392 ff.

[152] Young, Labor in Europe and America, 676,—quoting and summarizing from a report to the Secretary of State by C. C. Andrews, United States Minister to Sweden, Sept. 24, 1873.

[153] J. H. Bille, “History of the Danes in America”, Transactions of the Wis. Acad. of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, IX, 8 n., citing H. Weitemeyer, Denmark, 100.

[154] For Denmark, the increase has been about 1% per year since 1870; Sweden shows a slightly smaller increase, falling as low as ¼% in 1890; Norway has a still smaller average increase than Sweden, estimated by Norwegian authority “1865-1890, .65%”. The same writer adds: “The Norwegian race, in the course of the fifty years from 1840 to 1890 must have about doubled itself, which is equivalent to an annual growth of about 1.4%.” Norway, 103; Statesman’s Year-Book, 1900, 491, 1047, 1050.

[155] Supplementary Analysis of 12th Census, 31-33.

[156] These figures are drawn from the tables in the Census Reports, 1910, Population, I, 875 ff. The statistics generally deal only with white persons, thus excluding blacks and mulattoes of the Danish West Indies.

[157] See chapters VIII-X.

[158] The “line which limits the average density of 2 to a square mile, is considered as the limit of settlement—the frontier line of population”. Eleventh Census, Report on Population, I, xviii. See R. Mayo-Smith in Political Science Quarterly, III, 52.

[159] For the tables illustrating this discussion, see Appendix.

[160] Gronberger, Svenskarne i St. Croixdalen, 3 ff.

[161] Sparks, History of Winneshiek County, Iowa, III.

[162] See Appendix I.

[163] Svenska Folkets Tidning, Jan. 1, 1896, estimated the totals as follows: Swedes, 100,000, Norwegians, 62,000, and Danes, 35,000!

[164] Kæding, Rockfords Svenskar, 27, 35.

[165] Census Reports, 1900, Population, I, Tables 33 and 35.

[166] These are of course enumerated as Danes. Pembina County, in the extreme northeast corner of North Dakota had in 1900 1588 Danes (Icelanders). The movement from Iceland began about 1870. See R. B. Anderson in Chicago Record Herald, Aug. 21, 1901.

[167] G. T. Flom, “The Scandinavian Factor in the American Population”, Iowa Journal of History and Politics, III, 88.

[168] Statistical Atlas of the Twelfth Census, Plates 69, 71, 73, 76; Iowa Journal of History and Politics, III, 76.

[169] Mattson, Story of an Emigrant, 60, 94. Here is printed, in translation from Hemlandet, a stirring appeal “To the Scandinavians of Minnesota!;” Fædrelandet og Emigranten, September 29, 1870.

[170] Osborn, “Personal Memories of Brig. Gen. C. J. Stolbrand”, Year-Book of the Swedish Historical Society of America, 1909-10, 5-16.

[171] Dietrichson, Det Femtende Wisconsin Regiments Historie, 26.

[172] Mattson, Story of an Emigrant, 59-93.

[173] Anderson, Norwegian Immigration, 112-127.

[174] Enander, Borgerkrigen i de Forenede Stater, 106; Dietrichson, Det Femtende Wisconsin Regiments Historie, ch. i.

[175] Dietrichson, “The Fifteenth Wisconsin, or Scandinavian, Regiment,” Scandinavia, I, 297 ff.

[176] Nelson, History of Scandinavians, I, 166.

[177] Quiner, The Military History of Wisconsin (ch. xxiii, “Regimental Histories—15th Infantry”), 631.

[178] Johnson and Peterson, Svenskarne i Illinois, 143-149.

[179] Ibid., 155-161.

[180] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 59-93.

[181] Ibid., 62.

[182] Annual Report of the Adjutant General of Minnesota, 1866, II; Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, 303-304. Similar figures for Iowa are in Nelson, II, 67.

[183] Church, Life of John Ericsson.

[184] Fædrelandet og Emigranten, July 21, 1870; interview in 1890 with the Rev. U. V. Koren, the first Norwegian Lutheran minister permanently located west of the Mississippi. Miss Bremer in October, 1850, described the road over which the early settlers in Wisconsin went 30 and 40 miles to market: “the newborn roads of Wisconsin, which are no roads at all, but a succession of hills and holes and water pools in which first one wheel sank and then the other, while the opposite one stood high up in the air.... To me, that mode of travelling seemed really incredible.... They comforted me by telling me that the diligence was not in the habit of being upset very often!” Homes of the New World, II, 235-236.

[185] It was on faith in the future of the northern zone of the Northwest, based upon observation, that the Great Northern Railroad was built without any land-grant or subsidy such as the Northern Pacific and other roads demanded and got.

[186] A copy of this interesting little pamphlet, without signature, was found in the National Library in Stockholm.

[187] Young, Labor in Europe and America, 696. Laing, Journal of a Residence in Norway (1834), 151, describes the conditions in a parish, Levanger, near Throndhjem. There fifty estates were entered to pay land tax. Out of a population of 2465, 124 were proprietors cultivating their own land; 47 were tenants leasing lands, and 144 were “housemen” or tenants owing labor for their land.

[188] Bremer, Homes of the New World, II, 314-315.

[189] The charm of this name was illustrated in a curious way during the journey of the writer and another American through the mountains of central Norway in the summer of 1890. One early evening they came to the cabin of a sæter, or summer pasture, high up on the side of Gaustafjeld, and asked to be lodged for the night. It appeared that the only room available for strangers was already occupied by two young men from Christiania; but when the conversation developed the fact that both the late-comers were from America, and one from Minnesota, the woman of the house hastened off into the next room, ordered out the two Norwegians, and announced on returning that the room was at the service of the foreigners!

[190] Report of the Board of Trade of Great Britain on Alien Immigration to The United States, 211, 212.

[191] Goddard, Where to Emigrate and Why, 247.

[192] Report of the Industrial Commission, XV, 22.

[193] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 29 ff.

[194] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 17.

[195] Ibid., 29. For work on the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, Mattson received $.75 per day, and paid for board $1.50 a week, but the determination of the real wages, per month, requires a liberal deduction from these day-wages, for the process of acclimatization was severe in such malarial districts as that in which Mattson worked, and few men at first worked more than fifteen or twenty days in the month.

[196] The following tabulation is drawn from the statistics of Dr. Young, Labor in Europe and America, to illustrate the differences of wages. Personal inquiries among men from all parts of Northern Europe confirm in a general way these figures reported from Europe. The European rates are reduced to gold values, while those for the United States are in paper money values, and should be discounted 10% or 12% to put them on a par with the other rates.

[197] Ibid.

[198] Personal interviews with a large number of Swedes and Norwegians in northwestern Minnesota, in May, 1890, brought out the fact that many of them worked in the construction of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads, and then invested their savings in railroad lands in the Red River valley, where they were prosperous farmers.

[199] Mr. Powell. General Immigration Agent of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, in the Milwaukee Sentinel, Dec. 30, 1888, p. 10.

[200] Northwest Magazine, XX. 7, 11 (1902).

[201] Such pamphlets were issued by the Wisconsin Central, the Chicago & Northwestern, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and the Northern Pacific railroads. Some of them were printed in Swedish, Norwegian, German, Dutch, and Polish.

[202] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 118 ff.

[203] Laws of Wisconsin, 1852, ch. 432; Ibid., 1853, ch. 53; Wisconsin Documents, 1853, 1854, Reports of Commissioner of Emigration.

[204] General Acts of Wisconsin, 1853, ch. 56.

[205] Ibid., 1855, ch. 3; 1867, ch. 126; 1868, ch. 120; Governor’s Messages and Documents, 1870, 11.

[206] General Acts of Wisconsin, 1869, ch. 118.

[207] Ibid., 1871, ch. 155; 1874, ch. 238; 1879, ch. 176; 1887, ch. 21; 1895, ch. 235; 1899, ch. 279. The abolished Commissioner of 1874 declared the repeal was “conceived in vindictiveness and brought about by third-rate politicians, and followed my refusal to appoint to place in my office” certain incompetents. Report of Commissioner of Immigration, 1874, 2.

[208] Annual Report of Board of Immigration, 1880, 6.

[209] Laws of Iowa, 1860, ch. 81; 1862, ch. 11; 1870, ch, 34.

[210] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 97, 99, 101.

[211] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 100-101.

[212] Ibid., 99, 102; Wisconsin Legislative Manual, 1895, 133.

[213] See Bibliographical Chapter, under the names, Hewitt, Listoe, and Mattson, for Minnesota.

[214] See Statistical chapter, tables 5, 6, 7.

[215] Kapp, Immigration and the New York Commissioners of Emigration, 146; Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, ch. vi.

[216] Young, Special Report on Immigration (1871), vii-ix.

[217] “According to other statistics, the average annual earnings of a workman amount to $625, and one may safely presume that every able-bodied workman contributes every year 1/5 of his earnings to the increase of national wealth. Taking into consideration the period of time of a full working capacity of emigrants according to their age, and considering the much less working capacity of females, and the cost of raising the children which they bring with them, one may fairly presume that, during the last few years, not only considerable cash capital has been taken to the United States by emigrants, but that every one of them carries to that country, in his labor, a capital which may be estimated at $1200. The total value of the labor thus conveyed to the United States during the last five years, may therefore be estimated at about $700,000,000. No wonder that the United States of America prosper.” Hamburger Handelsblatt, March 18, 1881, quoted in translation from this “leading trade journal of Germany”, in Annual Report of the Wisconsin Board of Immigration, 1881, 14.

[218] J. B. Webber, in North American Review, CLIV, 435 (1892).

[219] Forum, XIV, 810.

[220] Report of the Board and Commissioner of Immigration of Maine, 1872, 6; F. L. Dingley, “European Emigration,” Special Consular Reports, II, No. 2, 1890, 260.

[221] Annual Report of the Board of Immigration of Wisconsin, 1880, 4. A writer in the Milwaukee Sentinel, Sept. 10, 1889, states, “Many of them (Germans and Scandinavians) bring abundant means to secure large farms and stock them well.”

[222] Brace, The Norsefolk, 146; Harper’s Weekly, Sept. 1, 1888; Gamla och Nya Hemlandet, Jan. 14, 1903 (Malmö correspondent).

[223] Special Consular Reports, XXX, 116 (1903, Christiania).

[224] Amerika, Jan. 8, 1904.

[225] Letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, etc., 1892, 45, 50, 65.

[226] “In an average year the Italian bankers of New York City alone sent to Italy from $25,000,000 to $30,000,000. This is said to have an appreciative effect upon the money market.” Lippincott’s Magazine, LVIII, 234 (1896).

[227] “An Act to secure Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public Domain,” U. S. Statutes at Large, 1861-2, 392.

[228] History of Houston County, Minnesota, 481.

[229] History of Goodhue County, Minnesota; History of Houston County, Minnesota; Sparks, History of Winneshiek County, Iowa. See the numerous biographies in Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, II.

[230] Report of the Industrial Commission, XV, 301-302. Mr. R. C. Jones, assistant superintendent of Castle Garden, New York, estimated, according to an interview in the Milwaukee Sentinel, Dec. 30, 1888, that about one Swede out of a hundred went to a city.

[231] See Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, 246.

[232] History of the Upper Mississippi Valley, 281, 312, 416, 440, 511; History of Fillmore County, Minnesota, 344, 346; Northwest Magazine, Oct., 1899.

[233] History of Houston County, Minnesota, 286.

[234] The Northwest Magazine, Oct., 1889, p. 32.

[235] See the testimony of John Anderson, editor of Daily Skandinaven, before the Select (Congressional) Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 1891. House Reports, No. 3472, 51 Cong. 2 Sess., 679-683.

[236] Bremer, Homes of the New World, I, 242.

[237] Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, 146.

[238] Ibid., quoting a letter from Fargo, Dakota, July 24, 1887, to the New York Times.

[239] Langeland, Nordmændene i Amerika, ch. xi; Strömme, Hvorledes Halvor blev Prest,—an excellent picture of life among the Norwegians in Wisconsin and Minnesota; Foss, Tobias: a Story of the Northwest.

[240] Scandinavia, I, 142.

[241] History of the Upper Mississippi Valley, 228.

[242] Söderström, Minneapolis Minnen, 204; Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, 466.

[243] Ibid., I, 504, 467; II, 160, 164, 193, 229, 233, 248, 261; Söderström, Minneapolis Minnen, 202, 203.

[244] S. A. Quale, a Norwegian immigrant of 1869, and C. A. Smith, a Swedish immigrant of 1867. The North, May 21, 1890; Söderström, Minneapolis Minnen, 191.

[245] Kæding, Rockfords Svenskar, 67, 95; The North, Jan. 8, 1890, July 12, 1893.

[246] Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, II, 209; Söderström, Minneapolis Minnen, 181-189.

[247] Söderström, Minneapolis Minnen, 206; Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, II, 164, 228.

[248] The Chicago papers for August, September, and October give full details of the wrecking of the bank and the career of its president. See Chicago Tribune, August 9 ff., 1906.

[249] Hall, Immigration, ch. viii.

[250] Dr. E. Kraft, “The Physical Degeneration of the Norwegian Race in North America,” The North, Jan. 3, 1893,—translation from Norsk Magazin for Lægevidenskaben; Ch. Gronvald, “The Effects of the Immigration on the Norwegian Immigrants,” appendix to the Sixth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Minnesota, (1878), II, 507-534.

[251] The North, Jan. 18, 1893, translating the article mentioned.

[252] Bryce, American Commonwealth (3rd ed.), ch. lxxx; Matthews, American Character, 20-34; Roosevelt, American Ideals, ch. i, ii.

[253] Statesman’s Year Book, 1900, 1049; Kiddle & Schem, Dictionary of Education, 452. In the latter work, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland are marked with asterisks, signifying that they are practically without illiteracy. The contrast of these figures with the percentages of illiteracy of some other European countries is very striking. In 1890 the percentage of illiterates in Austria was 40%, in Hungary, 54%, in Italy, in 1897, among conscripts, 37.3% (reduced from 56.7% in 1871), and among those persons marrying, males, 32.9%, females, 52.13% (reduced respectively from 37.73% and 76.73% in 1871). For Russia the percentage is probably about 80%, perhaps as high as 90%. See Statesman’s Year Book, 1900, 374-375, 392, 744-745. Statistical returns relating to German army recruits indicate that in 1896-7 only about .11% could neither read nor write. Ibid., 592. See also, Hall, Immigration, 46, 48, 54, 61, 141.

[254] History of Fillmore County, Minnesota, 346, 463,—a Norwegian school for one year in a private house, then an English school; Sparks, History of Winneshiek County, Iowa, 16-17.

[255] For a discussion of the Bennett Law in Wisconsin, see pp. 167 ff.

[256] Beretning om det syttende Aarsmöde for den Forenede norsk lutherske Kirke i Amerika, 1906,—“Parochialraporter for Aaret 1905.”

[257] “Sammendrag af Parochialraporter”, Beretning om det syttende Aarsmöde for den Forenede norsk lutherske Kirke i Amerika, 1906, LVI; J. J. Skordalsvold, in Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, 241.

[258] See catalogs of these institutions.

[259] Several of the Norwegian and Swedish weekly papers supported by the different denominations publish regularly lists of donors to particular schools, stating the amount of money, or the nature of the articles given, enumerating the books, quantities of fuel, clothing, etc.

[260] Bille, History of the Danes in America, 20-24,—an excellent account of some of these attempts.

[261] (Transcriber’s Note: This footnote does not exist in the original work.)

[262] Nelson, Scandinavians in the United States (2nd ed.), 317 ff.

[263] The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1914, 599-609.

[264] Interview with Professor G. O. Brohough, August, 1906. See Nelson, Scandinavians in the United States, I, 179-180.

[265] Catalogue of Bethany College, 31st Academic Year (1912), 54.

[266] A. Estrem, “A Norwegian-American College,” Midland Monthly, I, 605-611.

[267] The Statesman’s Year Book, 1900, 491, 1048, 1062.

[268] Gjerset, “The United Norwegian Lutheran Church,” in Nelson, History of the Scandinavians, I, 229-242.

[269] Twelfth Census, 1900, Population, Pt. I, Tables 33 and 39; H. H. Bancroft, Utah, 441, 431; Montgomery, The Work Among the Scandinavians, 8. Mr. Montgomery, the superintendent of Minnesota for the American Home Missionary Society (1886), laments the fact that very large numbers of the Scandinavians “have become converts to Mormonism, and have ‘gathered’ to Utah,” and adds further: “I have before me the official statistics of the Mormon church (not easily obtained) giving a report of their missionary work in Scandinavia for each year from 1851 to 1881. They report that their converts in these lands during these thirty-one years reached the enormous total of 132,766 persons, and that of these 21,000 emigrated to Utah.” From a beginning of four elders of the Mormon church at work in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in 1850, the force increased to sixty-one missionaries at work in 1881.