The Scandinavian Element in the United States

In acquiring the use of English and in maintaining high standards of education, the Scandinavians have an unimpeachable record which no other foreign, non-English-speaking element can equal. Illiteracy in Norway and Sweden is almost unknown. Taken together, these two kingdoms have less than one per-cent of illiteracy, and among the recruits in Sweden in 1896 only .13 % were unlettered, and only .63 % were unable to write.253 Personal acquaintance with many hundreds of Scandinavians, on both sides of the Atlantic, has failed to reveal to the writer a single adult who was unable to read and write.

One of the very first matters to receive attention in a Scandinavian settlement in the United States, has been the establishment of a school, and, as speedily as possible, the instruction has been given in English, partly because the school laws of most of the States would not recognize a public school conducted in a foreign language, and partly because the settlers desired to have the children know English.254 For a year or two in some of the isolated communities, as in Arendahl, Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 1857-8, it was necessary to conduct the schools in Swedish or Norwegian; but only rarely has any attempt been made to continue systematic, regular instruction exclusively in the mother-tongue by the maintenance of year-long parish schools. The immigrants have frequently been insistent, and properly so, upon some scheme by which they might be able to educate their children in the use of the mother-tongue; but schools for this purpose have usually supplemented rather than supplanted the ordinary public school.255 In a very few localities, like the older settlements in Goodhue County and Fillmore County, Minnesota, Allamakee County, Iowa, and Dane County, Wisconsin, parish schools are still maintained throughout the year.256

The church schools are more commonly a sort of summer vacation school supported either by the persons whose children attend, or at the expense of the whole congregation; in them are taught the language of the parents and the preacher, the church catechism, and something of church history; sometimes especial attention, as in the case of the Danish Grundtvigian “high schools,” is given to keeping alive the traditions of the European kingdom from which sprang the immigrants. The teacher of both the language and the doctrines of religion is customarily a student in some theological seminary of the denomination to which the congregation belongs. The Lutherans have kept up these vacation schools more consistently than any other Scandinavian church. The report of the parochial schools of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church for 1905 showed that on the average almost thirty days were devoted to the church school in each of the 750 congregations reporting.257

The clergy are mainly active in this mild paternalism, upon which the younger people not infrequently look with disfavor, for to the second generation it appears an unnecessary perpetuation of an un-American custom, a scheme for emphasizing peculiarities and differences rather than a means of hastening the process of amalgamation. Sometimes the younger men have revolted and broken entirely with the Lutheran church, identifying themselves with American congregations, or drifting out on the wide sea of religious indifference.

The loyalty of the Scandinavians to the public school system has been of far-reaching consequence to the immigrants themselves as well as to American society. There is always a more or less strongly marked tendency among aliens speaking a foreign language to congregate in groups in the country or in certain wards in large towns and cities, and out of this tendency springs a sort of clannishness which cannot be avoided and which is not peculiar to any class, for the immigrants naturally follow the lines of least resistance. They go to those whom they know, to those whose speech they can understand, to those from whose experience they may draw large drafts of suggestion and help. But this clannishness with the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, has been but a stage in their evolution out of which, through the gates of the English language, public schools, naturalization, and increased prosperity, they have passed to broader relations. The filling up of the Scandinavian quarters of great cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, may modify the effect of their persistent attachment to the public school; but so far the public school is the great foe to clannishness, and loyalty to it one of the best evidences of the desire of these people from the Northern lands to become Americanized. In the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, with their large Scandinavian population, there was not in 1907 a single parish in which the parochial school lasted through the year, and only a few in which vacation schools were maintained.

In higher education the Scandinavians have allowed their denominational zeal to outrun their judgment. They have founded numerous seminaries and so-called colleges, but almost invariably as a part of the necessary equipment of a religious denomination, for how could a self-respecting sect, no matter how young or how slightly differentiated from its older brethren, permit its children to attend the schools of those whose denominational beliefs or practices had become objectionable enough to warrant a schism in the church? A few of these institutions, like Luther College, at Decorah, Iowa, Gustavus Adolphus College at St. Peter, Minnesota, Augustana College at Rock Island, Illinois, and Bethany College at Lindsborg, Kansas, have maintained an excellent standard of work and exercise a wide and beneficent influence.258 The great majority, however, have simply wasted resources by the multiplication of ambitious, struggling, poorly-equipped, so-called colleges, with little or no endowment, and often dependent upon the congregations of the denomination which gave them birth.259

One of the results of the excessive splitting-up of the Scandinavian churches is that the energies which ought to be concentrated are frittered away on unnecessary schools. A separate denominational school and a family paper seem to be indispensable parts of the machinery of every newly organized sect, no matter how young or how small or how poor it may be.260 The number of these institutions continually varies with the ups and downs of the denominations trying to support them. In 1893, Mr. J. J. Skordalsvold, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, put the number of Scandinavian colleges, schools, and seminaries in the United States at thirty-six, with an attendance of about five thousand.261 Sixteen of these, with an attendance of twenty-five hundred, one-half of the total, were located in Minnesota. By 1900 the sixteen had grown to twenty schools, having property worth $500,000, one hundred and sixty teachers, and three thousand students.262 In that state, however, and in others like North Dakota, these schools are likely to follow the same course as many of the schools of other pioneering Protestant denominations, and become little more than preparatory schools on the one hand, or theological seminaries on the other, leaving to the State university the maintenance of higher education in every field save arts and theology. Even as secondary schools, not many of them will be likely to survive the third generation of the original immigrants, unless they are much better endowed than any one of them is at the present time.263 The Red Wing Seminary (Hauge Synod) of Red Wing, Minnesota, founded in 1878, is essentially an ordinary private secondary school with a theological course attached, and three-fourths of its work is conducted in English.264 Bethany College at Lindsborg, Kansas, one of the three prosperous Swedish colleges, and perhaps the most ambitious, is substantially an English-speaking college, with nine departments of instruction, and in 1912 a registration of 919. Only in the classes in Swedish language and literature is the instruction given in Swedish, tho “Swedish is required of all students preparing to enter the ministerial work of our Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church.”265 Luther College, the Norwegian institution at Decorah, Iowa, has followed along the same course only not quite so far. Several years ago the proportion between English and Norwegian as media of instruction was slightly in favor of the English in the college classes; in the classes in the preparatory department, in the literary societies, and in the conversation of the students, English was decidedly predominant.266 The practice of this, the oldest, and in some respects the soundest and most influential, of the Scandinavian colleges, is sure to be adopted by the lesser schools which survive their adolescence.

From a religious standpoint, the most noteworthy characteristic of Scandinavians wherever found, is their intense Protestantism. Everywhere and always they are uncompromising enemies of the Roman Catholic church, and there are barely enough Catholics among them in Europe and in the United States to prove that it is possible to convert one of them to that faith. In fact, their dislike of Catholicism is an instinct coming down from Reformation times rather than a matter of experience or close-at-hand observation; but so strong is this feeling that it colors, consciously or unconsciously, their relations in politics and society in the United States. Their distrust of the Irish is at bottom more a religious than a racial instinct, even when it takes an active form. While this dislike and suspicion are still real and large, it has undoubtedly been reduced by the breaking-up of the old rigid lines of Lutheranism, which has taken place in the last two decades in the United States.

Each of the three peninsular kingdoms of Northern Europe has an established Lutheran church, administered by bishops, which holds still the great majority of the people. Toleration has been generally practiced for a half century, the sole exception being the ban against Jesuits in Norway.267 Of all the Protestant churches, none is more rigidly orthodox than the Lutheran, none is more unwilling to admit changes in its traditional creed; only a few years ago, the Norwegian Synod in America re-affirmed its belief in the literal inspiration of the Bible. Yet in spite of this conservatism, the Lutherans settled in the United States have invariably rejected the episcopal form of government, and have organized upon a more or less democratic basis. No matter how loyal they were to the Establishment in the Old World, a bishop has not appeared to be necessary to their happiness or salvation in the New. The Lutheran Church proper has kept within its folds a much larger percentage of Swedes than of Norwegians in the United States, the characteristic independence of the latter leading many of them even farther than mere separation from the mother-church. The persistence of the centrifugal force of dissent shows itself again and again in the violent polemics and divisions which have marked the course of Norwegian church history in America.268 While this divisiveness may in some degree be due to the fashion set by the early settlers of whom many were dissenters, probably the deeper cause is to be found in the general freedom from religious restriction and prescription which characterizes the whole United States and especially the West.

Even the more extreme sects, in regard to belief and practice, have been recruited from among the Scandinavians both before and since their coming to this country. The Mormons were early at work as missionaries in Northern Europe and, as has been stated above, won many converts, particularly in Denmark, from whose immigration Utah mainly profited. In 1900 Utah had a total foreign-born population of 53,777, of whom 9132 were Danes; 7025, Swedes; and 2128, Norwegians. The real result of the missionary work, however, is better seen in the figures for persons having both parents born in a specified country and residing in Utah in 1900: Danes, 18,963; Swedes, 12,047; Norwegians, 3,466; total, 34,476.269

The American churches and missionary societies were not unmindful of the needs of the Scandinavians scattered over the Middle West in the early days of its development, and in zealous and effective fashion gave them aid. The work of the Hedström brothers in New York and in the West, already described, reflects credit on the Methodist Church. Once at least, help came to them from an unexpected source: Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” devoted to charity the proceeds of a concert in New York, in November, 1850, and among the items of the distribution of the total of $5073.20 by a committee, is “To the Relief of the Poor Swedes and Norwegians in the city of New York per the Rev. Mr. Hedström, $273.20. To the distribution of Swedish Bibles and Testaments, in New York.”270 Besides the Bethel Ship in New York Harbor (1845), this same church established a Scandinavian mission in the Rock River Conference, in Illinois, in 1849, and two others in Iowa and Wisconsin in 1850. Three years later the report showed two Swedish missions with four missionaries, and two Norwegian missions with four missionaries.271

The American Lutheran churches undertook to aid their co-religionists, and in 1850 the Pittsburg Synod and the Joint Synod of Ohio each sent one of its ministers into the Northwest, but the epidemic of cholera caused them to hurry back to their former homes.272 The real support of some of the immigrant Lutheran missionaries came from the American Home Missionary Society (Congregational). One of the men thus assisted was Paul Anderson (Norland) who came from Norway in 1843, and received a part of his education in the new Congregational college at Beloit. He was chosen pastor of the first Norwegian Lutheran Church in Chicago in 1848, and journeyed to Albany, New York, to be ordained by a Lutheran minister, but he nevertheless served under a commission from the Congregational Society, and made reports to it for several years.273

In a similar manner this Society supported for several years the missionary labors of Lars Paul Esbjörn, a graduate of Upsala University, who was ordained a Lutheran clergyman when he emigrated in 1849, and likewise the labors of T. N. Hasselquist. Esbjörn was appointed a missionary of the Society in December, 1849, on the recommendation of the Central Association of Congregational Ministers of Illinois, to whom he presented his credentials and by whom he was examined and received into the Association.274 He was re-appointed year by year, making reports from 1851 to 1854.275 Hasselquist makes acknowledgment of his obligations to the Society in a letter of July, 1853, saying that he rejoices “in connection with your in the highest sense benevolent Society, without which it would have been impossible for me to do for my scattered countrymen what I have done… I give humble thanks to the Home Missionary Association which out of Christian benevolence helps to build up the Kingdom of Christ among scattered Swedes who are almost all very poor, but still love the word of God.”276 In 1852 the Society appointed the Rev. Ole Anderson [Andrewson?] to the charge of the Scandinavian church in Racine, Wisconsin, and two years later he reports to the Society from La Salle County, Illinois.277

Since the Civil War and the great increase in the numbers of immigrants, the home missionary efforts of the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists have been carried on with persistence, if not always with perfect wisdom. In 1911 the Methodists had five Swedish Conferences with 222 churches, a membership of about 18,000, and property valued at upwards of $2,000,000, and two Norwegian-Danish Conferences, with 119 churches, 6,300 members, and property worth $400,000.278 The cost of this work to the Methodist Missionary Society is not far from $50,000 per year.279 The Baptists began their proselyting work in Norway and Sweden, and have prosecuted it steadily in the Northwest since the establishment of the first Swedish Baptist church in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1852. In 1912 the church reports showed 18 Swedish conferences, 374 churches, 28,000 members, and current income of about $350,000, and also eleven Norwegian-Danish conferences, 94 churches, 5,900 members, and current income of $65,500.280 The Congregationalists have pushed their denominational interests in like manner, and in 1913 had about one hundred churches, with rather more than six thousand members.281 Besides these churches regularly connected with the Congregational organization, there are about one hundred congregations of the Swedish Mission Union, and the group of independent congregations whose faith and practice are closely allied with those of the Congregationalists.282 The Unitarian church has endeavored to organize congregations, spending $25,000 on one church in Minneapolis in sixteen years.283 A few Protestant Episcopal parishes also exist among the Swedes, chiefly in the large cities.284

The three denominations first mentioned have for many years maintained, in their respective western theological seminaries, departments or professorships for the education of young men for ministerial service among the immigrants from the Northlands. At the Chicago Theological Seminary (Congregationalist) the Dano-Norwegian department was organized in 1884, with one professor and two students; in the following year a Swedish department was added, the professor being chosen from the Swedish Free Mission Church. In 1906 these two departments had each two professors and respectively thirteen and twenty-seven students, and published a religious paper, Evangelisten.285 Besides the Garrett Biblical Institute (Methodist), Northwestern University has two similar departments, with thirty-one students in the Swedish, and sixteen in the Norwegian-Danish section.286 In the Divinity School of the University of Chicago (Baptist), the same departments appeared up to 1912; in 1897 there were twenty-two students in the Dano-Norwegian Department, and thirty-five in the Swedish; for 1905, the corresponding figures were twenty-four students, with one professor and two instructors, and thirty-four students, with two professors and one instructor. Both departments were dropped after 1913.287

So far as the movements represented by these missionary endeavors and by the organization of schools help to furnish church privileges to those beyond the reach of other Protestant churches – since the Catholics are out of the question – they are admirable, accomplishing much good. But when they cease to be efforts to extend religious opportunities, when they are mainly devoted to swinging men and women already Christian from one denomination to another, they simply add one more factor to the inexcusable competition which too often characterizes the home missionary activity, even when it does not degenerate into a mere scramble for denominational advantage. The results in very many cases have been sadly disproportionate to the expenditures.288

Not all the forces, however, have been centrifugal; the divided body of Lutherans has attempted, with varying success, to effect permanent union. Since 1890 the centripetal reaction has been strong, gaining impetus from the highly significant efforts of the branches of the Norwegian Lutherans in a synod held in that year in Minneapolis, to create a single organization. The United Norwegian Lutheran Church, formed June 13, 1890, was made up of the Norwegian Augustana Synod, the Norwegian-Danish Conference, and the Anti-Missourian Brotherhood, thus becoming the strongest of all the American Norwegian churches, numbering 1,122 congregations, about 120,000 members, and having property valued at more than $1,500,000.289 But old antagonisms and animosities, generated in the bitterness of religious controversy, were not easily overcome, and disputes soon arose to disturb the life of the United Church. The chief of these related to the control of certain educational institutions, especially Augsburg Seminary (theological) in Minneapolis. So acute was the factional quarrel that it was taken into the courts in 1893, and continued on until 1898, when the “Augsburg strife” was settled out of court by mutual agreement. Meantime the Augsburg party had withdrawn from the United Church, taking some 40,000 members, keeping the Seminary, worth about $60,000, but giving up to the United Church the endowment fund of about $40,000.290 In spite of factions, secessions, and the expulsion of twelve congregations, the United Church as a whole prospered. Its annual report for 1905 gave the following statistics: congregations, more or less closely affiliated, 1,325; ministers and professors, 453; communicants, 267,000; property, $715,000.291 While the United Church was the largest, there were no fewer than four other branches of Norwegian Lutherans in 1914.292

In contrast with the Norwegians, the Swedes have manifested a commendable unity in keeping the faith once delivered to them by the fathers, the chief exception being the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant, which can scarcely be called Lutheran. The great Swedish Lutheran Augustana Synod, one of the constituent members of the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, stood staunchly united in the midst of many changes in other branches of the church. Under the broad name of the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America, which comprised both Norwegians and Swedes down to 1870, it grew rapidly, setting its face sternly against the New Lutheranism which sought to modify the old rigidity of doctrine and practice. In 1894 the word Scandinavian was dropped.293 By 1899 the Synod represented 900 congregations, 200,000 members, and a material estate of $4,200,000.294

The break-up of the Lutheran church is not wholly to be regretted when viewed in relation to the process of Americanization, for the church has usually been a stronghold of traditionalism and conservatism. Perhaps, too, the vigorous religious and ecclesiastical disputes, wasteful of energy and of money as they sometimes seem, have contributed to a wholesome and pervasive intellectual activity not altogether unlike the results of the Puritan disputations. So careful a student of Northwestern immigrants as Mr. O. N. Nelson is inclined to the opinion that the contentions of the Lutherans may have benefited the church. “Close observation has convinced us that if there had been peace instead of war, the Norwegian Lutherans in the State (Minnesota) would have numbered several thousand less than they do. It may not seem pious to say so, but many a worldly-minded Viking has become so interested in the fight that he has joined the faction with which he sympathized in order to assist in beating the opposing party.”295

The church services in the great majority of cases are still conducted in the mother-tongue. In the United Norwegian Lutheran Church, in 1905, for example, the services in Norwegian numbered 30,407 as against 1,542 in English, and out of 1,300 congregations reporting, no more than six held services in English only, including two large congregations in Chicago and Milwaukee.296 Five other congregations conducted more services in English than in Norwegian; in ten localities the numbers were equal; and in twenty-two, they were about equal, making a total of forty-three in which English figured prominently.297 The Hon. N. P. Haugen, speaking on Norway Day at the World’s Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, commented on the fact that a Lutheran church had just been dedicated, in which English alone would be used, and said significantly: “Twenty years ago our theologians would not have entertained such a proposition.”298 Now the younger Lutheran preachers are expected to be able to preach both in their mother-tongue and in English.

The conduct of services in non-English languages will and should continue so long as there is a considerable body of men and women who emigrated too late to learn the new language well enough to stand that final linguistic test, the power to worship genuinely and satisfyingly in the adopted speech. This means that the churches will use the foreign speech until the generation of the foreign-born ceases to be predominant, and in the cities, perhaps while the second generation is in the majority; but children who receive their education in the public schools or other English speaking schools, will require that their religious instruction and their devotional exercises be conducted in English.

The children and grandchildren of the immigrants, except in certain large and compact settlements, chiefly in the cities, prefer English, and commonly use that language in conversation and in correspondence with each other. In the Swedish and Norwegian wards of such cities as Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Rockford, and in a county like Goodhue in Minnesota, where the presence of large numbers of the foreign-born makes the use of the foreign tongue imperative in the homes, streets, markets, and places of business, and where the news is read in a Scandinavian daily or weekly, the tendency to keep to the speech of their ancestors is strong. The preacher and the politician alike understand this, and the literature, speeches, and even the music, in the campaigns for personal and civic righteousness are presented in no unknown tongue, as the theological seminaries and Scandinavian departments in other institutions, and the Swedish and Norwegian political orators in critical years, bear abundant witness.