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Overview
Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and continuing until the 1920s, hundreds of thousands left Scandinavia to begin life in the United States and Canada. Sweden had the greatest number of its citizens leave for the United States, with more than one million migrating between 1820 and 1920. Per capita, Norway was the country most affected by the exodus; more than 850,000 Norwegians sailed to America between 1820 and 1920. In fact, Norway ranks second only to Ireland in the percentage of its population leaving for the New World during the great European migration. Denmark was affected at a much lower rate, but it too lost more than 300,000 of its population to the promise of America. Once gone, the move was usually permanent; few returned to live in Scandinavia. Michigan was never the most popular destination for Scandinavian immigrants. As immigrants began arriving in the North American interior, they settled in areas to the west of Michigan, particularly in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and North and South Dakota. Nevertheless, thousands pursued their American dream in the Great Lakes State. They settled in Detroit and played an important role in the city’s industrial boom and automotive industry. They settled in the Upper Peninsula and worked in the iron and copper mines. They settled in the northern Lower Peninsula and worked in the logging industry. Finally, they settled in the fertile areas of west Michigan and contributed to the state’s burgeoning agricultural sector. Today, a strong Scandinavian presence remains in town names like Amble, in Montcalm County, and Skandia, in Marquette County, and in local culinary delicacies like æbleskiver, in Greenville, and lutefisk, found in select grocery stores throughout the state at Christmastime.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780870137754 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Michigan State University Press |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2006 |
| Series: | Discovering the Peoples of Michigan |
| Pages: | 86 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Scandinavians in Michigan
By Jeffrey W. Hancks
Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2006 Jeffrey W. HancksAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87013-775-4
Chapter One
Denmark
Historical Context for Immigration
The southernmost and geographically smallest Scandinavian country, Denmark experienced a much lower rate of emigration than neighboring Norway and Sweden. This is due in large part to its relatively flat topography and fertile soil. Danish farmers were able to produce enough agricultural products to sustain themselves and their countrymen. However, some Danes did decide to leave Europe for North America. The migration from Denmark to the United States was greatest between the years 1861 and 1930. The beginning of this period corresponds with the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, during which many Danes supported the Union cause, and end of this period coincides with the implementation of the immigrant quota system during the Great Depression. During those seventy years, a total of 326,925 Danes migrated to the United States. The decade with the largest number of Danish immigrants was the 1880s, when 88,132 Danes left for America. There were three primary reasons that the Danes left home. First, the promise of religious freedom, particularly for Mormons, attracted many Danes. Second, as with many Europeans, the Danes were tempted by the allure of cheap, abundant land in the United States. Third, many Danes living in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein chose to emigrate to the United States after Denmark lost the Danish-Prussian war of 1864 and ceded the entire territory to German rule.
Mormon missionaries were particularly active in recruiting Danes to the faith. The Danish constitution of 1849 guaranteed the freedom of religion, so missionaries were free to practice in Denmark. Most Danes, while members of the state-sponsored Evangelical Lutheran church, were not particularly strong in their faith, and therefore were more receptive than other Europeans to the missionaries' message. The missionaries' efforts were relatively successful, and by 1905, 23,509 Danes had converted, with a majority of them coming from the rural province of Jutland.
Upon conversion, Danish Mormons were encouraged to leave Denmark for the United States. The very first wave of Danes to migrate to the United States consisted of newly converted Mormons. Between 1850 and 1870, 16,760 Danes left for the United States. Of that figure, 7,840 of them were Mormons. The missionaries' success in converting Danes to Mormonism increased greatly after the Book of Mormon was translated into Danish by the first Danish convert, Peter Clemmensen, following a personal appeal by church leader Brigham Young. Most Danish Mormon emigrants settled in the newly created Utah Territory, but before they set out for Utah, they met at staging areas located throughout Iowa. The Danes sailed for New York, continued by boat to Albany, New York, and then traveled by rail to Niagara and further to Windsor, Ontario. They crossed into Detroit and continued by rail to the staging areas. There is no evidence of any significant number of Danish Mormon converts settling permanently in Michigan.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the ancient Danish practice of feudalism had long ceased to legally exist. However, its remnants still were in place, as many farmers were landless and forced to live and work on the farms of wealthy landowners. Additionally, the price of productive land was too high for most farmers to ever realistically wish to purchase their own farms. This was particularly a problem on the fertile southern Danish islands of Lolland and Falster. Further complicating matters, landowners on the islands took to raising sugar beets, which have a very short harvest season. Landless farmers could not earn enough money working during the short harvest to survive the long winters. Lolland and Falster, in addition to inhospitably rocky and sandy areas like the island of Bornholm and northern and western Jutland, were the areas that provided the highest percentage of immigrants to North America. To the landless residents of these areas, the desire to own their own farms, particularly in the vast, empty American Midwest, was too tempting to resist.
The final major subgroup of Danes who chose to immigrate to North America was ethnic Danes living in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. For centuries, ethnic Danes and Germans lived side-by-side in the duchies, particularly in Schleswig. After a series of mid-nineteenth-century wars between the Danes and the Germanic peoples, however, Denmark was finally forced in 1864 to cede all of its claims to the two duchies, in addition to Lauenburg, to Austria-Prussia. The loss of the three duchies resulted in a reduction of almost 40 percent in Denmark's land area and population. Subsequent acts of forced Germanization ordered by Otto von Bismarck upon the Danes in Schleswig made a total of sixty thousands ethnic Danes leave the area during the first forty years of German rule.
Early Danish Settlers in Michigan
The first permanent Danish settler in Michigan was a young man named Christian Jensen, in 1853. Previously some Danes had come through Michigan as Great Lakes seamen, but none had settled in the state. Jensen first lived along the Flat River in Montcalm County, eventually reaching Gregory's Mill, now called the Village of Gowen. Jensen quickly Anglicized his name, calling himself Johnson, and he bought a piece of land just north of Gowen. After clearing the land, he sent a positive letter home to Denmark in which he stated, "Here are cheap and plenty of good timber land, good wages, earnest people, good government, nice girls; I am going to marry one of them."
The following year two more Danes arrived, newlyweds August and Ane Rasmussen, on the recommendation of Christian Johnson's letters. In turn, Rasmussen began sending positive letters home to Denmark about the abundant opportunities available in the Gowen area. His very first letter home set the tone for future correspondence:
My dear brother C. Rasmussen, Relatives and Friends: I will write to you today August 3, 1856, to perform that promise I gave you when I last saw you, namely, write you how we got through our voyage, etc. We are both in life and in good health. We reached C.J. [Christian Johnson] all right. We are living near a river. Here are plenty of sawmills and lots of work. It is now in haying and harvest time here. The wages are about six times as much as in Denmark. As we have not yet received our trunk, we are going to work a little while to earn some money. My wife has a good place with a relative of Mrs. C.J., and C.J. and I go out to work in the harvest field. We can here get a good house to live in, and all the stove wood we need free of charge. Here are thousands of acres of good farming land to be had almost for nothing. Here is more than enough good land for all the people in the country where you live. Here are good and noble people. Think what a good opportunity you can secure for each of your children, while in Denmark they cannot get a poor shanty. If God is willing, and we live, my plan is to clear a couple acres of land, and seed in with wheat, and build a good log house. I can work at this once in a while, and keep to work for the company most of the time, and thus earn our living and pay some down on the land. Now, it is for you to make up your mind and start out of the old house. I will do my part. Come out, and bring along our brother-in-law, and your wife's folks, and as many as you can get. We will provide for you all. I hope to see you once more. Let us soon hear from you and what you will do. According to what you write, I shall lay my plans. Your brother, A.R.
Rasmussen's bitter feelings toward Danish landowners continued in future letters, as he wrote that American farmers received better wages than their Danish counterparts from "those long-fingered, proud noblemen of Denmark who feed their harvest people on salt herring and barley pudding seven hundred and twenty times a year." August Rasmussen's letters had an almost immediate impact, as by the following year, 1857, of the forty Danes who had arrived in Gowen, thirty-six were his relatives.
The Danes made a living working in the numerous sawmills in and around Greenville and by farming and dairying. The gently rolling landscape of southern Michigan is very similar to that of Denmark, so the Danes immediately felt at home in the state. Furthermore, Montcalm County's good-quality soil made it easy for the new arrivals to utilize the agricultural skills they had honed over generations in Denmark. Corn, wheat, and potatoes grew in abundance, and the positive letters written by the immigrants and read by friends and relatives in Denmark encouraged even more Danes to pack up and move to Michigan.
Danish Education in the United States and Michigan
One of the greatest contributions Denmark has made to the world of education is the folkehøjskole, or the folk school. The movement for folk high schools grew out of the nineteenth-century nationalist movement in Denmark. The schools were particularly popular in Schleswig, as the ethnic Danes in the area were under constant pressure from the Germans to assimilate, even before the area officially fell under German jurisdiction in 1864. Folk schools catered primarily to students with a minimal formal education, teaching them the essentials of Danish society, including history, literature, music, and language. Students lived at the schools for a term, with men commonly attending during the winter so they could tend to their farms during the summer. The purpose of the schools was not to train the students for any particular job, but rather to make them well-rounded, informed citizens. For that reason, exams were not given and grades were not recorded.
By the time Danes began leaving for the United States in the 1860s, the folk school movement was fully entrenched in Danish society. In the United States, many Danish-Americans sought to duplicate the folk school system they had come to appreciate in Denmark. Two of their strongest supporters were the famous Danish bishop Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig and his son Frederik Lange Grundtvig. The elder Grundtvig supported the cause and curriculum by writing a songbook especially for the Danish-Americans. One of the songs, Der er et yndigt land (There is a lovely land), has since become the civil Danish national anthem. The younger Grundtvig traveled to the United States to help start the folk schools. In time, five folk schools in the Grundtvigian tradition opened in the United States in rural areas near established Danish settlements in Elk Horn, Iowa; Nysted, Nebraska; Danebod, Minnesota; Solvang, California; and Ashland, Michigan.
The first Dane to come to Ashland was an eighteen-year-old man named Martin Jensen in 1876. The following year three brothers, Peter, Jess, and Chris Christensen arrived in the tiny south-central Newaygo County community. Within a couple of years, several Danish families made the Ashland area their new home, arriving both directly from Denmark and from other parts of the United States. By 1882, the Danish community in Ashland was large enough to support a folk school. The first director of the Dane College, as it was called, was Hans Jørgen Petersen, who came to Ashland from the folk school in Elk Horn, Iowa.
Petersen stayed in Ashland until 1886, when he moved to Minnesota to open another folk school. Over the next several years, numerous men led the school, including the Reverend Simon N. Kjems. The deed to the folk school property was generally held by the director, so when Kjems unexpectedly died and his widow returned with her children to Denmark, legal ownership of the property was up in the air. Seventeen years later, the situation was resolved and a new director arrived at the school. Keeping a director for any length of time proved difficult, due to a lack of funds and to personality conflicts. Peter Kjolhede served as director on three separate occasions, eventually dying in Ashland in 1937. Another man, a bachelor named Reverend N.C. Nielsen, lived at the folk school during one of its closed periods and served the local Danish congregation. He invited himself to dinner at a parishioner's home every evening, much to the chagrin of many of the congregation's women, who suddenly had one more plate to prepare. One evening during dinner, the resentful women secretly descended upon the school and packed up all of his belongings and put them out on the front porch, signaling the end of his time in Ashland.
In 1928, a family of non-Danes from Chicago named Graham bought the school and attempted to re-open and operate it on the folk school model. Almost immediately, it drew attention from urban newspapers touting the folk school experience as a way to "get the most out of your family relations, your job, your community, your leisure hours, and your social contacts." While adults did come to the school in the beginning, it was never financially successful, but its facilities served as an important social gathering point and source of food for the local community during the Great Depression. After ten years, the Graham family moved on and the buildings were again empty. Eventually, the Dane College's buildings were sold and used as a nursing home. In the early 1970s, Grant, Michigan, resident Arthur Nelsen, a son of one of the congregation's founders, acquired the buildings but they were in disrepair. Soon afterward, the buildings were torn down, thus ending the final remaining remnant of the Old Dane College.
Danish Religious Life in the United States and Michigan
Upon their arrival in the United States, contact between the Danish immigrants and their homeland was limited. For many immigrants their only tie to other Danes and Scandinavians came at church. The national church in Denmark was, and still is, Evangelical Lutheran. Most Danes belonged to the national church and sought to maintain this ancestral tie in the United States. Those who belonged to other faiths, especially Mormons, Baptists, and Mission Covenants, were also eager to continue their religious affiliations in the United States.
In Michigan, Danish Lutheran churches soon sprang up all over the state. They were served by a small, yet dedicated, group of pastors. Most of the pastors received their theological training in Denmark, but in time a Danish Lutheran seminary was established at Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa. Most of the Michigan churches were established in communities with large Danish populations, including Greenville, Muskegon, Ludington, and Manistee. Other churches opened in the small Danish communities of Gowen in Montcalm County, Nunica in Ottawa County, and Brown City and Marlette in Sanilac County.
A particularly colorful pastor, Danish-born Holger Rosenstand, witnessed firsthand the trust Scandinavians placed in their pastors. When Rosenstand arrived in Muskegon, the Norwegian pastor would not allow him to preach in the Lutheran church. The Methodist pastor, however, allowed him to preach, and Rosenstand was pleased to find a "warm enthusiasm for the church" in Muskegon. Later, Rosenstand visited the Danish community in Ludington. When he arrived at the town's Scandinavian Lutheran church, he met a group of Danish men and told them that services would begin as soon as the building was unlocked. This caused quite a stir among the Swedish and Norwegian trustees, who wanted to be sure that Rosenstand indeed was a Lutheran. Upon showing the trustees proof that he was commissioned by the bishop of the Danish diocese of Ribe, he was allowed to enter. However, Rosenstand was not allowed to use any of the church's candles or lights. After the service, Rosenstand asked the congregation if they were in favor of establishing a Danish-only church in Ludington. All of the Danes voted affirmatively; the Swedish and Norwegian trustees voted against it. In time, a Danish church was established in Ludington by Pastor Rosenstand. However, Rosenstand grew tired of the bureaucracy and hard work involved in starting immigrant churches, and he returned to Denmark in 1878.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Scandinavians in Michigan by Jeffrey W. Hancks Copyright © 2006 by Jeffrey W. Hancks. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction....................1Denmark....................5
Sweden....................21
Norway....................37
Conclusions....................55
The Danish Sisterhood of America....................8
The Danish Festival in Greenville....................10
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg: From Ishpeming to the World....................28
Norwegian Skiing in Michigan....................44
Icelanders in Michigan....................50
Appendix 1. Official Scandinavian Representation in Michigan....................57
Appendix 2. Scandinavian-American Civic and Cultural Organizations in Michigan....................59
Appendix 3. Scandinavian Place Names in Michigan....................63
Appendix 4. Scandinavian Newspapers in Michigan....................67
Appendix 5. Scandinavian-American Cooking....................71
Appendix 6. Scandinavian-American Folk Humor....................75
Notes....................77
For Further Reference....................81
Index....................85