Up in the Rocky Mountains: Writing the Swedish Immigrant Experience
Before the turn of the twentieth century, many Swedish men emigrated to the American Rockies as itinerant laborers, drawn by the region’s developing industries. Single Swedish women ventured west, too, and whole families migrated, settling into farm communities. By 1920, one-fifth of all Swedish immigrants were living in the West. In Up in the Rocky Mountains, Jennifer Eastman Attebery offers a new perspective on Swedish immigrants’ experiences in Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado,
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Not Just Lake Wobegon,
Our usual image of the Scandinavian immigrant is that of the Minnesota farmer. This isn’t just because of Garrison Keillor. Most of the history books about Scandinavian Americans have been writtten at Lutheran colleges in the Midwest, and they focus almost entirely on the Midwestern experience. Yet as Jennifer Eastman Attebery points out in this book, by 1920 some 20% of Swedish Americans were living in the West. Even in the Pacific Northwest, where there is a major Scandinavian museum, there have been very few books written on the western Scandinavian experience, and there is basically nothing about Scandinavians in the Rocky Mountain states. Attebery, based at Idaho State University, has been working to fill this void, and this book is a major contribution. In the West Swedes took part in all the adventures of the frontier: prospecting and mining, building railroads, cutting timber, cowboying. Their stories are far more diverse and entertaining than those of Midwestern farmers. Attebery tells their stories through their letters. This is a scholarly book, so the opening discussion of methodology may be a bit abstract for the general reader. But then she offers chapters organized around different aspects of immigrant experience, such as work, religion, and community, chapters offering an interesting cast of characters and stories. A 70-page appendix offers the actual letters.
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