re: #325 calochortus

I gather things were pretty grim in the second half of the 19th century. The thing that astounds me is that my grandfather, coming from that background was able to get an education (first at a Free Church seminary and then in Germany, finally emigrating and spending a year studying in Chicago.) He pastored at various churches in Winnepeg and in the US and as far as I know, he never so much as mentioned the old country to his children.

Yes, Sweden in the mid- to-late-XIXth century was a social and economic mess. It was overpopulated, in that there was not enough arable land to support everyone and at the time very little industry to provide alternative jobs. While there was not an official system of serfdom, as there was in Tsarist Russia, poor families were reduced to tenancy and could barely rub two pennies together. The state church was especially strict — everyone had to belong to the Swedish Lutheran Church and other forms of Christianity were forbidden. Moving upward in socioeconomic class was nearly impossible.

So, it’s no wonder that Swedes (also Norwegians) started emigrating to the USA and Canada beginning in the 1840s. They were still coming in droves even when my grandparents came over in the 1890s.

ICYMI the book series The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg paints a pretty accurate (and grim) picture of Sweden in the 1840s and ’50s, and what drove millions to leave it forever.