Like their Irish counterparts, most Swedish women who worked outside the home found employment as domestic servants in American households. Most Swedish men worked in skilled trades, such asĪnd metalworking, or in factory jobs at the McCormick Reaper Works, the The largest emerged north of theĪnd became known as Swede Town a second, smaller enclave developed on the These early Swedish settlers established three distinct ethnic enclaves. During the 1870s, the Swedish population in the city doubled, outnumbered only by theĪnd British immigrant groups. Many of these earliest settlers came toĪlthough the Swedish settlement remained small for the next two decades, reaching 816 people in 1860 and 6,154 in 1870, it represented the largest single cluster of Swedes in the United States. In 1848, only 40 Swedes lived in Chicago, and that population grew slowly. The Swedish presence in Chicago can be divided into four distinct phases: early establishment between 18 mass migration and dispersal from 1880 to 1930 maturation and decline between 19 and modernization after 1960. The Swedish community in Chicago subsequently grew to become the largest in the United States.
Chicago's first Swedish settlement emerged in 1846, when immigrants destined for the Swedish religious colony in Bishop Hill, Illinois, decided instead to settle in Chicago. Only Ireland and Norway lost a higher proportion of their population in the migration to America.Īnd literate, originating from rural areas of southern Sweden. By 1910, one-fifth of all people who were born in Sweden lived in the United States.
Overpopulation and the comparatively late industrialization of the Swedish economy persuaded over one million Swedes to permanently emigrate between 18, attracted by available agricultural land and an expanding American labor market in cities such as Chicago. During the early decades of Swedish immigration, Chicago served as a gateway to settlement in agricultural areas of the Midwest.
0 kommentar(er)
