Skip to Main Content

America Letters

This guide is for anyone looking to conduct research on “America Letters” (letters written by Swedish immigrants in the United States to family back home in Sweden) using Swenson Center resources.

Books

Some book titles to get you started. This is not an exhaustive list!

 

Letters from the promised land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914

Barton, H. Arnold, 1975.

America, reality & dream: the Freeman letters from America & Sweden, 1841-1862

            Friman, Axel; Stephenson, George M; Barton, H. Arnold; 1996.

Norse immigrant letters: Glimpses of Norse Immigrant life in the Northwest in the fifties

            Eide, Richard Benjamin, 1925.

Mom's letters home.

            Larson, Anna Johnson, 1971.

Letters from Astrid: Swedish roots of an American family

            Hanson, Carol Carpenter, 2013.

Land of the free: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's America letters, 1880-1881

            Bjørnson, Bjørnstjerne; Haugen, Eva Lund; Haugen, Einar Ingvald; 1978.

Śami reindeer herders in Alaska: letters from America: originally published in Nuorttanaste 1901-1937

            Kárášjohka : ČálliidLágádus, 2014.

With affection, Marten: a Swedish immigrant's letters about his struggles and triumphs homesteading on the prairie

            Hofstrand, Richard K., 1983.

Up in the Rocky Mountains: writing the Swedish immigrant experience

            Attebery, Jennifer Eastman, 2007.

A ring and a bundle of letters: an immigrant's story and the family's stories back home: with genealogical information on Eric Helsten's family

            Voolich, Erica Dakin, 2013.

Swedish Annie, an immigrant life on the Iowa Prairie: love letters

            Hartrman, Gerda Preston, 2005

In their own words: letters from Norwegian immigrants

            Zempel, Solveig, 1990.