HISTORY AT WORK: THE 1888 NEW SWEDEN JUBILEE DAG BLANCK During the summer of 1888, an advertisement appeared in several Swedish-language newspapers in Minnesota, inviting "all Swedes in and around Minneapolis" to a meeting on 21 July to plan the 250th anniversary of "the arrival of the Swedes in America."1 This appeal to commemorate the establishment of the colony of New Sweden on the Delaware River in 1638 was signed by 15 prominent Swedish immigrants in Minneapolis, including Minnesota's secretary of state, Colonel Hans Mattson, and minis• ters of the Swedish Lutheran, Mission Covenant, Baptist, and Methodist churches. The proposed celebration took place on September 14 that same year and one observer noted in 1899 that "never has 'Svenskarnas Dag' been celebrated in a more grandiose way in America."2 Much more than a great and memorable celebration was involved, however, for the New Sweden Jubilee of 1888 in Minneapolis raises some important questions. Most specifically, what was included on its program? Who participated in it? Above, all, what was its overall significance to the growing community of Swedish immigrants in the United States? Between 1860 and 1930, some 1.3 million Swedes immigrated to the United States. Thus a Swedish-American community was created, often referred to as "Swedish-America." As the number of immigrants kept growing, so did Swedish-America. Numerically it reached its peak in 1910, when some 665,000 Swedes were recorded in the U.S. Census.3 Since Swedish immigrants were found throughout the United States, Swedish-America was not so much a geographic entity, but rather, as Sture Lindmark has put it, "a collective description of the cultural and religious heritage which the Swedish immigrants brought with them and perpetuated in America."4 Swedish-America consisted of a great number of ethnic institu• tions which in many different ways helped the immigrants adjust to their new environment. They included churches of various deno• minations, schools, mutual aid societies, newspapers, musical and 5 professional organizations, provincial societies, political groups, trade unions, and a multitude of social clubs, maybe numbering as many as 3,000.5 The Swedish-American community was fragment• ed, and a strong dichotomy, mainly between secular and religious groups, but also to some extent between these and certain radical organizations, emerged in Swedish-America toward the end of the nineteenth century.6 As the Swedish-American community grew larger and more diversified, a particular Swedish-American ethnic identity was also constructed, providing the rapidly growing number of immigrants and their children with an answer to the question what it meant to be a Swede in America. The various ethnic institutions played a very important role in this respect, supplying their members with a variety of answers. For the Swedish-Americans, as with other ethnic groups in America, this was a dialectic process, and the emerging ethnic identity consisted of specific, selected elements from the ancestral heritage which were used by the immigrant group in the process of its adjustment to American society.7 Public manifestations such as historical jubilees were a particular• ly characteristic way of expressing the group's ethnicity. For the Swedes, the 1888 New Sweden Jubilee has been called the break-through in a long series of historical celebrations.8 These included the erection of the Linnaeus statue in Chicago in 1891, Swedish-American participation in the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, the 1910 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Augustana Synod in Rock Island, the unveiling of the John Ericson monument in Washington, D.C. in 1926, the New Sweden Tricentennial in Philadelphia in 1938, and the Swedish Pioneer Centennial in Chicago in 1948. It is in this context that the 1888 New Sweden celebration must be seen, as an important part of the process through which representatives of different Swedish- American ethnic institutions utilized historical events in the construction of a Swedish-American ethnic identity.9 In assessing who the participants in the New Sweden 1888 Jubilee were, it is important to note that the initiative for the celebration was taken by Hans Mattson.10 At this time, Mattson was one of the best known Swedes in Minnesota. He had served as colonel of the Third Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, secretary for the Minnesota State Board of Immigra• tion, and as a land and emigration agent for various railroad companies in Minnesota, actively recruiting Swedish immigrants 6 for the state.11 He played an important role in Swedish-America as editor and owner of various Swedish-language newspapers, and was the first Swedish immigrant in Minnesota to take an active part in state politics. He served as Republican secretary of state in 1870-1872 and in 1887-1891. During the election campaign in 1886, Svenska Folkets Tidning called him "the most popular Swede in Minnesota."12 Hans Mattson thus held a strong position in both Swedish-America and the wider American community, and the fact that he stood behind the celebration indicates that it was an event designed to appeal to both. Colonel Hans Mattson. A considerable number of Swedish-American groups were represented in the celebration. On the organizing committee, headed by Hans Mattson, which was set up as a result of the appeal, many different Swedish-American organizations had their representatives. The participating Swedish-American groups can also be found mentioned in newspaper accounts of the celebration. The program originally called for a parade through Minneapolis, which had to be canceled due to rain, followed by a public meeting 7 in the Industrial Exposition Building in the city. The plans for the parade were, however, published in Svenska Folkets Tidning in advance and give a good picture of what the planning committee had in mind. The parade was to have been divided into four divisions.13 Each was to be led by a marshal and to include a marching band. The first was to have represented the Swedish-American societies in Minneapolis. Included in it would have been a number of "military organizations," "Sällskapet Norden" (The Norden Society), "Svenska Bröderna" (The Swedish Brothers), "Gustav Adolfs föreningen" (The Gustavus Adolphus Society), and "Föreningen Freya" (The Freya Society). These societies would have represented the secular spectrum of Swedish-America in Minneapolis. "Säll• skapet Norden" was formed in 1870 as a dramatic society and during the 1870s and 1880s the Society sponsored many theater productions, as well as banquets and festivities.14 "Svenska Bröderna" was a mutual aid society which was established in 1876 and was in 1899 characterized as "in its economy and member• ship" the strongest of all the Swedish organizations in Minnea• polis.15 "Gustav Adolfs föreningen," finally, was a Swedish quasi-military organization established in 1886, which for a time constituted a part of the Minnesota State Militia's Battery of Artillery. The three following divisions of the parade were to be religious in character. Each would have been devoted to one of the major Swedish-American denominations. The Swedish Lutherans would have marched in the second division, the Swedish Baptists in the third, and representatives of the Swedish Methodist Church were to have made up the fourth division. The program in the Minneapolis Exposition Building consisted of four major and several shorter addresses, as well as poetry and music.16 The major speakers, all connected to Swedish-America in some way, included William Widgery Thomas Jr., Johan Alfred Enander, the Reverend August Skogsbergh, and the Reverend Carl A. Swensson. Thomas was a former U. S. consul and minister to Sweden, and had in 1870 established the Swedish settlement of New Sweden in Maine.17 Enander was the influential editor of the Swedish-language newspaper Hemlandet in Chicago, and a well- known public speaker in Swedish-America.18 Skogsbergh, one of the leading pastors of the Mission Covenant Church, was often referred to as the "Swedish Moody."19 Swensson, a Lutheran 8 minister in Lindsborg, Kansas, and the founder of Bethany College there, was also a well-known author and public speaker, and was active in Kansas state politics.20 Shorter addresses were also given by Hans Mattson, who also served as chairman of the event, and Cyrus Northrop, president of the University of Minnesota. The invocation was offered by the Reverent T. N. Hasselquist from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, and poems, all in Swedish, by such established Swedish-American literary figures as Herman Stockenström, A. T. Lindholm, David Nyvall, and Ernst Lindblom were read or sung.21 The musical selections included two patriotic songs in Swedish, "Vårt Land" (Our Country), originally Finno-Swedish but often sung in Sweden as well since no national anthem had yet been established at this time, and "Hor oss, Svea" (Hear Us, Svea), composed by the Swedish Romantic poet Gunnar Wennerberg in 1853 and frequently sung at Walpurgis Night and Gustav Adolf celebrations in Sweden.22 The equally patriotic "Star Spangled Banner" was also included on the program. Judging from this list of participants, it is apparent that some normally antagonistic groups within Swedish-America had, at least temporarily, put their differences aside, and that a wide spectrum of Swedish-American opinion was thus represented at the celebra• tion in Minneapolis. All the major Swedish-American