Swedes' story told at Gunn exhibit
|Swedish maids at Mayflower, circa 1900. Credit: Gunn Museum|
They came with shawls on their heads and suitcases in their hands. They came because they were poor and wanted that to change. They came as farmers, laborers, blacksmiths and domestic servants. They came to Connecticut and they were Swedish.
Although the story of immigration to the state has focused largely on its most plentiful newcomers: Italians, Irish, Poles and French Canadians, The Gunn Memorial Library and Museum in Washington has added a fascinating and beautifully told story of a group of immigrants to the state that has largely escaped attention: Swedes.
Between 1850 and 1900, 1.3 Swedish immigrants settled in the United States, nearly one-fifth of the population of the Scandinavian country. Most settled in Illinois, Wisconsin, southern Minnesota and Nebraska, but a small but significant number moved to Washington, such that by 1910, Swedes made up 22 percent of Washington's population of 1,747 people. Although Washington boasted other groups of immigrants — Germans and the Irish, for instance — Swedes would become the dominant ethnic group by the early 1900s.
Stephen Bartkus, curator of the museum, said he had little idea that the numbers were so significant. Three years ago, when Washington resident Jennifer Johnson Whittlesey was cleaning out her father's estate on School Street, she asked Bartkus whether the museum might be interested in claiming some of his materials.
"It was amazing stuff," said Bartkus, "Boxes and boxes of photographs and utensils her Swedish ancestors had kept." Prior to the bequest, the museum's Swedish holdings consisted of one bad photograph and an old newspaper clipping. "That planted the seed in my head," Bartkus said of the donation. "The museum had never paid attention to this story before. I had no idea that there were that many Swedes here enough to establish two churches."
The current exhibit expands the museum's understanding of Swedish immigration exponentially. In addition to splendid photographs, tools, cooking utensils, furniture, clothing, crafts and religious items, it includes lists of Swedish families in Washington at the turn of the century and maps that pinpoint precisely where these families lived. The exhaustively researched exhibit also recreates the look of a Swedish kitchen, church and workplace as well as the sights that greeted the immigrants when they were first processed on Ellis Island.
Bartkus says the first Swedish immigrants began arriving in Washington as early as 1869, largely to work as domestic servants for many of the wealthy New York families who had summer homes in the town. Many Swedes were drawn to the United States after the passage of Homestead Acts, beginning in the 1860s, which offered newcomers land at little or no cost. Although most Swedes were farmers, the country's soil and short growing season was challenging. Industrialization came later to Sweden than to the rest of Europe. Poverty and a desire to escape universal conscription combined to spark emigration, said designer Sandy Booth. Booth, artistic director Chris Zaima, and artist Keith Templeton, along with a team of other volunteers, created this gorgeous exhibit.
"A lot of the farmland wasn't really suited to crops," said Robin McHan, of Washington. McHan, a Salem Covenant Church liaison, Swedish descendant, and museum volunteer, is responsible for much of the research in the archives, including creating the map showing the homes of Washington's Swedes whose ancestors were Swedish immigrants. Although many Swedes listed their occupation as farmer, McHan says, "A lot of them were servants. We have a whole contingent of very rich people in and around the Green and Swedish immigrants started working for these people on their house and in their little farmlets."
But Washington Depot was starting to develop as well, Bartkus said. The Borden Milk Company, established in 1857 in the Burrville section of Torrington, soon established one of its factories in the Depot. The opening of the Shepaug Valley Railroad, in 1872 encouraged other small industries to follow.
The largely Lutheran Swedes started the Swedish Ecclesiastical Society, now the Salem Church, in 1882. Bibles from that church, as well as quilts, hand-carved statues and crosses and an album that includes every confirmation class from 1893 to 2012, are on view. So, too are decorative pieces including porcelain plates that feature couples dressed in native costumes dancing. A series of Dala horses — carved and painted wooden horses — stand across from a collection of dolls, clocks, piggy banks, copper pots and a mandolin used in church services.
The museum borrowed additional furniture from several area antique dealers, including Dawn Hill Antiques, which donated a gorgeous Mora "hip" clock, a wooden pedestal clock designed to look like a woman's body.
The exhibit is animated by compelling oral histories and individual stories, including that of Karla and Olga Quist, who came to Washington from Smaland, Sweeden in 1909 and, by 1920 bought a log cabin and 14 acres fro $1,400.
The couple raised 12 children in the house. And then there is the poignant story of the widower Carl Johan Andersson, who left Sweden in 1880 at 43, apparently after the death of his wife in childbirth.
The couple left a 4-year-old son, Carl Wilhem, who was discovered eight year later, alone in a Swedish church. Carl Wilhem, left Sweden a year after his estranged father and settled, finally in Washington, where he worked as a gardener.
Contact Tracey O'Shaughnessy at firstname.lastname@example.org.
If You Go:
What: "Coming to America, Washington's Swedish Immigrants"
Where: Gunn Historical Museum, 5 Wykeham Road, Washington
When: Through Jan. 12, 2014
How: call 860-868-7756 or visit www.gunnlibrary.org/museum
More stories from Arts
- Texas designer going places with spring collection
- Artist leads gallery tour of current works
- Hotchkiss play offers 'Dog'-eye view
- City defined by 50 objects
- The glorious contradictions of Mahler
- Shepaug Valley students display Native American inspired art
- Woodbury's Fine Line Art Gallery spring show continues
- Westover to stage 'Moment'
- Reception opens collage exhibit
- Yale Center for British Art named one of world's 50 greatest