Table of Contents
- 1 Where did thousands of Scandinavians move to?
- 2 Where did the Scandinavians live?
- 3 Where did people from Sweden settle?
- 4 Where did Scandinavians immigrate us?
- 5 Why did so many Scandinavians settle in Minnesota?
- 6 What state has the most Scandinavians?
- 7 Where did German and Scandinavian immigrants settle in America?
- 8 Where did the people of Scandinavia come from?
- 9 Where did the Scandinavians come to North Dakota?
These immigrants, mostly rural families, made their way to the newly-opened lands of the Midwest, settling in Minnesota and Wisconsin, then moving west to Iowa, the Dakotas and sometimes the Pacific Coast.
Typically, Scandinavia refers to the countries of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and sometimes other Nordic countries like Finland and Iceland. Individuals who immigrated to the Americas from Scandinavia brought with them cultural, economic, educational, and other valuable contributions.
Why did the Scandinavians leave their homeland?
It was in the 19th century, however, that the great migration of Scandinavians to the U.S. took place. The once-prosperous Scandinavian nations were rocked by political strife and social upheaval as regional wars and agricultural disasters created tremendous instability in everyday life.
Where did people from Sweden settle?
After the Civil War, the Swedish settlements spread further west to Kansas and Nebraska, and in 1870 almost 75 percent of the Swedish immigrants in the United States were found in Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.
Scandinavians settled predominantly in rural areas of the Midwest and Great Plains ― particularly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota. Prior to the 1870s, few Scandinavians made their way to the West Coast. One survey reported 65 Norwegians in Washington Territory and 47 in Oregon in 1870.
Why did Scandinavians move to America?
Many Scandinavians were lured to the United States after receiving “American letters” from friends and family that described fruitful land and employment opportunities. Prepaid transportation tickets from relatives and friends often helped finance the trip to the New World.
In 1870, there were about 50,000 Norwegians living in Minnesota. The land scarcity and famines that had pushed entire families to leave rural Norway had subsided, and young men from Norway’s cities now came in droves to Minnesota seeking better-paying employment.
Minnesota
Scandinavian Americans by state
| State Rank | State | Percent Scandinavian Americans |
|---|---|---|
| – | United States | 3.8% |
| 1 | Minnesota | 32.1% |
| 2 | California | 3.6% |
| 3 | Washington | 12.5% |
Why do so many Scandinavians move to the northern Midwest?
Those were lands that were available for little or nothing, from the government in the era when more Scandinavians emigrated. And, most people tend to move to an area where the kind of crops, etc., that they were accustomed to growing could be grown, or the industries they were accustomed to working in were practiced.
An overwhelming majority of immigrants during the 19 th and early 20 th Centuries chose to settle in America’s larger cities once they arrived in the country, but the Germans and Scandinavians flocked to the rural Midwest instead.
Scandinavia (Skan-de-Nay-vee-yah) is an area of northern Europe that includes the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Finland and Iceland can also be classfied as part of Scandinavia. In this text, the term “Scandinavian” refers to people from all five of the countries whose ancestors were Vikings.
When did the Scandinavians come to the United States?
By the middle of the century, the time was ripe for mass immigration, and Scandinavians began arriving in American ports in large numbers. Each group of immigrants-those from Sweden, from Norway, from Denmark, Finland, and Iceland-would take a different path to life in the United States.
People from Sweden made up the second-largest group of Scandinavians to immigrate into North Dakota, but their numbers were much smaller than the Norwegians. About 15 times as many Norwegians as Swedes settled in the state. In 1882, about 40 Swedish families moved into northern Burleigh County.