Copyright © Hans Högman 2017-04-17
The Emigration from
Sweden to the USA (2)
Background & Reasons For the
Emigration
Religious Reasons
Religious motives are often mentioned as a cause of
the emigration to the United States.
This was certainly true for the first colonists that
emigrated from England to North America. In many
cases it was religious and political persecution that
drove these people to emigrate. Also in Sweden,
religion and faith had some importance.
Sweden was, according to its Constitution, a Christian
country with a State Church, the Church of Sweden. It
was the only church to which Swedes could belong
and it was (is) an Evangelical Lutheran church.
America became the country of freedom in this field.
In the United States there was no "State Church" or
compulsion to belong to a specific faith. For the
Europeans, including Swedes, who had no possibility
of practicing their own faith, the United States
became the Promised Land.
The Bishop Hill Colony founded in 1846 in Illinois,
arose from the lack of religious freedom in Sweden
at the time. However, one has to distinguish the
period prior to 1858-1860, from the period
thereafter when compulsion in religious matters was
largely abolished in Sweden. The emigration of Erik
Jansson and his followers took place before this
dividing line in the Swedish freedom of religion.
Sweden adopted a new Church Act on January 12,
1726, the so-called Konventikelplakatet (The
Conventicle Article) which banned all pious meetings
outside the control of Church of Sweden, such as
Bible reading and prayer meetings in people’s homes
headed by laymen. The intention behind the
Conventicle Article was to stop the different Christian
revivalist movements that grew up during the 18th
and 19th century. The article was debated at several
Parliament meetings but was not abolished until
1858.
A religious meeting that was not headed by a parish
minister from Church of Sweden was still not
allowed during the regular hours of public worship
without special permission. However, this last
restriction was abolished on December 11, 1860.
Then it became possible to hold religious meetings
during regular hours of public worship, but not so
close to a church that they disturbed the regular
church service.
All Swedish citizens had to belong to the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Sweden. However, foreigners who
belonged to a different denomination were allowed
to do so if they exercised their religion in seclusion.
Nor was it possible for Swedes to leave the Church of
Sweden. Apostasy from the Church of Sweden
involved penalties like banishment, loss of the right
to inheritance and loss of civil rights. This naturally
brought a heavy pressure to dissident religious
people. These punishments were abolished in 1860.
The revivalist movements around 1860 were such a
strong force in the society that they couldn’t be
prevented and a few Free Church movements were
officially approved. Laws adopted in 1860 and 1873
also gave Swedish citizens the prerogative of leaving
the Church of Sweden provided that the person in
question at the same time entered another, officially
approved, communion.
However, we have to remember that the mass
emigration from Sweden didn’t begin until the 1860’s, in
other words after when it was allowed to leave Church
of Sweden, under the conditions mentioned above.
The religious freedom that was in force in the United
States naturally attracted many people. The Free
Churches were after 1858/1860 consequently
allowed to carry on with their religious activities in
Sweden (often with the aid from the American Free
Churches) so it wasn’t the lack of religious freedom
that drove the Swedish emigrants to the United
States. There is no direct connection between Free
Church districts and large emigration areas. The
numbers of emigrants are not necessarily higher in
the typical Free Church districts. Jönköping Län in
Småland, with many Free Church movements, had
indeed large emigration, but this area also had
serious social and economic problems.
In other areas with large emigration, like Halland,
Dalsland, Värmland and Öland, the Free Church
movements were not very dominant.
The Temperance Movement
The temperance movement has had some influence
on the emigration. The Swedish temperance
movement, organized as a resistance movement,
grew in size during the 19th century. The movement
had in the 1840’s about 100,000 members in
different local associations. A victory for the
movement was the ban of peasant household
distillation in 1855. Thereafter the only legal
distillation was the one made under the auspices of
the Government.
The work of the temperance movement was
certainly, from time to time, regarded as an intrusion
in people’s personal life. It was common that parish
ministers were engaged in the temperance question
but they received criticism for this and therefore
perceived this as a persecution when they received
few votes in the Church elections.
At times also, the Church authorities regarded the
parish ministers’ involvement in the temperance
question as a division of the congregation member’s
interest in the Church and which they had no desire
to encourage.
Emigration could be the solution of this kind of
problem for the parish ministers. This was the case
for Parson Paul Esbjörn (1808 - 1870), one of the
leaders of the Augustana Synod. Paul Esbjörn
emigrated from Sweden to the United States in 1849.
An important circumstance for the temperance
movement was of course that the Good Templar
movement, for example IOGT, worked from the
United States to Europe.
Class Antagonism
It is questionable how much social injustice
influenced the emigration. Sweden has never been a
feudal society as many other European countries.
There was of course a lower stratum of society, a
lower class who felt hatred towards the upper class.
However, the awareness of the affiliation to this
lower class was at the time still not yet waked and
turned into a class struggle and class solidarity.
Still, that the American laborers were treated better
than the European attracted many to emigrate.
Besides, the prospect to work one's way up in the
United States was better than at home. Further, farm
laborers in Sweden saw the changeover to industrial
work as a social retrogression. As a peasant
proprietor in the United States they regained their
social position.
Suffrage
The old Parliament of Sweden, the Riksdag of the Four
Estates (Ståndsriksdagen), was abolished in 1866.
Instead Sweden adopted a Bicameral Parliament (Två-
kammarriksdagen). The members of the Second
Chamber (Lower Chamber) were directly elected by
the people entitled to vote (voters) while the
members of the First Chamber (Upper Chamber)
were indirectly elected by the members of the
Swedish Landsting and by larger cities. [Landsting is
the second level of political administration in
Sweden.]
The lack of universal suffrage in the elections for
members to the Second Chamber during the era of
mass emigration didn’t really have any impact to the
emigration. The political awareness had not wakened
at the time. That didn’t happen until the end of the
emigration period.
Only men had the right to vote but this right was
restricted to wealth and income. To be entitled to
vote men needed an annual income of at least 800
SEK or be in the possession of a real property of a
value of at least 1,000 SEK or a tenancy of an
agricultural property of a certain value. Further, men
had to be 21 years old (or older) to vote and paid tax
during the last ten years. Only 20% of the adult male
population owned the right to vote in 1866. However,
due to general income increases about 60% owned
the right in 1908.
Universal suffrage for men was adopted in
Sweden in 1909. The voting age was set to 24 but
restricted to men who had paid tax during the last
three years and done their national military service
(conscription).
Universal suffrage for women was adopted on
May 24, 1919. The first general election when
women were able to vote was held in 1921.
The voting age was now set to 23 for both men and
women. The demand for men’s fulfillment of national
military service was abolished in 1924.
Sweden had from 1921 universal suffrage for both
men and women for the Second Chamber.
800 SEK in 1873 was equivalent to about 37,500 SEK
in 2010. (Source: The Royal Coin Cabinet).
Kronor is the name of the Swedish currency and it is
abbreviated SEK. See also the Swedish Monetary
System.
National Military Service - Conscription
A proposal was put forward in the Swedish
Parliament (Riksdag) in 1812 to resort to a universal
conscription service for men called Beväringen or
Beväringsinrättningen. The Swedish wars during the
first decade of the 19th century had shown the great
need of replacement soldiers for the regular
standing army. Beväringen was to be a complement
and reinforcement of the regular professional army.
The act was adopted in the Parliament on October
27, 1812, and the conscription service was to be
universal which meant that all able-bodied men fit
for military service had to undergo a minimum
military training in the armed forces. In 1820 the
service time for the draftees was set to 12 days
which had to be effected during the first year.
For some reason, the hiring of substitutes was allowed,
i.e. to pay someone to do the service in his place.
This right to avoid conscription made it very
unpopular since only wealthy had the possibility of
doing so. In 1860 the possibility of hiring substitutes
was replaced with a right to redeem conscription.
Instead of hiring someone the eligible men paid a
commutation fee directly to the Army. This right was
abolished in 1872 and from then everyone called up
had to do the military service.
The conscripts only had to do 12 days of military
service per year. However, the service time for
conscripts was increased to 30 days (divided into
two years) after the Crimean War (1853 - 1856) in the
parliament meetings 1856-1858.
In 1885 the age classes for conscription were
increased from 5 to 12 years of which the last age
classes (ages 27 – 32) were assigned to the newly
established Landstormen (Veteran Reserve). The
military service age was in other words extended 21 -
25 to 21 - 40 years of age. The service time was at the
same time extended to 42 days divided into two
years.
In 1892 a new Army Act was adopted in the
Parliament. The liability to conscript service was now
increased to 12 years in the Beväringen and 8 years
in the Landstormen (in
total 20 age classes) and
the service time was
increased to 90 days.
The photo to the right
shows soldiers in uniform
m/1860 with cap m/1865,
most likely Jönköping
Regiment (Infantry). The
image is published with
the consent of Anders
Thorstensson.
The only legal possibility the authorities in Sweden
had to prevent emigration was the general
prohibition for conscripts to emigrate to other
countries without permission. It is considered to be a
connection between avoidance of conscription and
emigration. Every time the military service time for
conscripts was extended the number of emigrated
20-years old men increased, at least temporarily.
It wasn’t that difficult to obtain permission to leave
the country though. During the second half of the
1800’s the authorities were generally generous with
the permissions. However, at the end of the 1800’s
fulfillment of conscription was needed to get
permission to emigrate.
Without a such exit permit you couldn’t get a moving
certificate from the parish minister and thereby not
be able to buy an emigrant ticket through an
emigrant agent. The Police Departments in the
Swedish emigrant ports checked that the regulations
were followed and that the emigrants were legal
emigrants.
The only possibility for eligible men to avoid
conscription was illegal emigration. Normally they
then went to Copenhagen in Denmark, Oslo or
Trondheim in Norway and from there to the United
States. It is however, not known how large this illegal
emigration was.
Between 1682 and 1901 Sweden had a standing
professional Army organized within a system called
the Allotment System (Indelningsverket). From 1812 to
1901 Sweden also used a conscript system alongside
the standing army called Beväringen, as mentioned
above.
In 1901 both the standing professional army and the
Beväringen was abandoned and Sweden instead
introduced an army and navy entirely based on a
Universal Conscription System called Allmän
Värnplikt.
In a way Beväringen was a forerunner to the National
Service System.
The draftees were according to the Universal
Conscription Act to undergo a military training for 150
days followed by three compulsory military refresher
courses of 30 days each between the second and the
fourth year, in total 240 days. In 1914 it increased to
340 days.
Every Swedish man was obliged to register for
Universal Conscription the year they reached the age
of 21. In 1914 the age was lowered to 20 years old.
The first draftees received their calling up notice for
the new Universal Conscription Service in the spring
of 1902.
The training of the soldiers in the Conscription
System was now held over a longer period of time
compared to Beväringen. Each year, a fixed number
of new recruits were drafted for military training.
When one set of recruits finished their training
period a new set of recruits was drafted. Every able-
bodied Swede between the ages of 18 (first 21, then
20, later 18 years old) and 30 were liable to do
military service.
The Swedish Conscription System was inactivated on
July 1, 2010. The armed forces thereafter are now
based on a system with enlisted soldiers and officers
contracted for a specific time (contractual
employment) or until further notice.
Years of Famine
Sweden had two hard years of famine in the 1860’s;
1867 and 1868. Worst off were the Norrland
provinces and Dalarna and Värmland.
The summer of 1867 was cold very wet and the
following summer had a devastating drought. The
shortage of seed for sowing was extreme and in
some places up to a third of all livestock had to be
slaughtered. The drought of 1868 primarily hit the
southern half of Sweden.
The two preceding years were also troublesome;
there were poor crops in most places. This meant
that the margins were already narrow when the
famine struck in 1867; the stores were simply empty.
Thousands of people had to hit the roads to bigger
cities begging.
These years of famine speeded up the emigration to
the United States. It has been estimated that about
100,000 Swedes emigrated between 1868 and 1873.
See also Regions of Sweden, Map of Swedish
provinces
Push and Pull Factors
The early research of the Swedish emigration has
explained the emigration by the term “push”; it was
something that pushed people to emigrate. People
wanted to get away from something — the so-called
Push Factor. The early researchers have listed
reasons like overpopulation in the countryside,
unemployment, years of famine at the same time as
it was a boom in the United States and a possibility
of getting homestead land (Homestead Act of 1862).
Today the historians are more uncertain of the
reasons. There was no unemployment during the
major parts of the emigration era. In some places
there was even a shortage of laborers. There was for
long periods of time boom and economic expansion
in Sweden with rising wages beside shorter periods
now and then.
Today the historians believe that it was something
that pulled the emigrants to the United States rather
than something that pushed them — the so-called
Pull Factor. The big country in the West attracted
many by its possibilities and not just economical.
There was also a personal freedom that they
believed they didn’t have in Sweden.
However, it is probably a combination of the Push and
Pull Factors that forms the background to the mass
emigration.
Source References
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Source references
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