Swedish emigration to the United States
In the 19th and early 20th centuries 1.3 million Swedish people left Sweden for the United States. The main reason for them was the availability of cheap but quality farm land. There were also high paying jobs in mechanical industries and factories in smaller cities. Why so many left Sweden was the population growth and shortage of good farm lands, and lack of indutrial jobs.
By 1890 the U.S reported over 800,000 Swedish-Americans. Many of these immigrants explored the country but many also stayed in the bigger cities like Chicago. Young women went from working at a farm in Sweden to being someone's housemaid in the U.S. In 1910 Chicago was the second biggest Swedish city in the world (they had about 10% of all SWedish Americans, 100,000 people) , only Stockholm had more Swedish inhabitants).
The Swedish mass immigration stopped just after World War 1.
In 2000 more than 4 million people in the U.S said they had Swedish roots. Today there are Swedish-American museums in Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle and Minneapolis. Rural cemeteries such as the Moline Swedish Lutheran Cemetery in central Texas also serve as a valuable record of the first Swedish people that came to America.
