The Emigrants (Swedish: Utvandrarna, 1949) is a novel by Vilhelm Moberg. It is the first of his four-novel series entitled The Emigrants. In these he explores the causes and process of the major Swedish emigration to the United States beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, and their settling in such frontier areas as the Minnesota Territory.
Plot
The story takes place in the 1840s up to 1850. The first part of the novel describes the hardships faced by rural families in Sweden, who generally struggled in poverty. Karl Oskar Nilsson and his wife, Kristina, own a farm in Ljuder socken in Småland. They have four children and work hard to make a living, but the poor soil and poor harvests lead to famine. This is a catalyst for emigration to the United States in search of a better life. Karl Oskar and his brother Robert want to go, but Kristina doesn't want to leave her home country. She knows that she will never see the rest of their family again, and fears risk to their children. But after their daughter dies, she agrees to go, realizing their children are at risk in Sweden, too.
They pack up their belongings and book ship passage in a group with others from their parish. The characters illustrate some of the motives that prompted people to leave Sweden in the 19th century. The travelers include:
Karl-Oskar, Kristina and their children – seeking to escape poverty and famine, and to find a place with better land so their work pays off.
Robert, Karl Oskar's younger brother – landless, the second son of a farmer whose holdings are too small to sub-divide. He seeks escape from being a hired farmhand.
Danjel Andreasson with family, Kristina's maternal uncle, has been banished from the country as a member of a religious sect. The state Lutheran church did not abide dissent. They bring their farmhand Arvid, a friend of Robert Nilsson.
Jonas Petter Albrektsson, seeks to escape an unhappy marriage, as divorce was not possible.
Ulrika of Västergöhl, a former prostitute, wanting a new life with her illegitimate daughter Elin.
The second part of the book tells of their sea journey across the Atlantic Ocean. They board the ship in Karlshamn, and have an arduous, ten-week voyage, during which they deal with sea-sickness and scurvy, before reaching New York City in midsummer of 1850. The novel ends with the travelers marveling at the technological wonders of their new country. The Hudson River Railroad (which would grow into the New York Central) is almost complete, and opened October 3, 1851.
The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger, the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—and hence the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as an Drochshaol, which literally translates to "the bad life" and loosely translates to "the hard times". The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as "Black '47". During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million more fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% between 1841 and 1871. Between 1845 and 1855, at least 2.1 million people left Ireland, primarily on packet ships but also on steamboats and barques—one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history.
The Emigrants is a 1971 Swedish film directed and co-written by Jan Troell and starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Allan Edwall, Monica Zetterlund, and Pierre Lindstedt. It and its 1972 sequel, The New Land (Nybyggarna), which were produced concurrently, are based on Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants, a series of novels about poor Swedes who emigrate from Småland, Sweden, in the mid-19th century and make their home in Minnesota. This film adapts the first two of the four novels, which depict the hardships the emigrants experience in Sweden and on their journey to America.
Franconia Township is a township in Chisago County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 1,805 at the 2010 census, up from 1,128 in 2000. The township is home to the Franconia Sculpture Park.
Lindström is a city in Chisago County, Minnesota, United States, located 35 miles northeast of the Twin Cities. The population was 4,888 at the 2020 census. Lindström's motto is America's Little [Sweden]. U.S. Highway 8 serves as a main route for the community.
Karl Artur Vilhelm Moberg was a Swedish journalist, author, playwright, historian, and debater. His literary career, spanning more than 45 years, is associated with his four‑volume series The Emigrants. The novels, published between 1949 and 1959, deal with the Swedish emigration to the United States in the 19th century. They have been adapted for a total of three movies, and a musical.
The legacy of the Great Famine in Ireland followed a catastrophic period of Irish history between 1845 and 1852 during which time the population of Ireland was reduced by 50 percent.
A coffin ship is a popular idiom used to describe the ships that carried Irish migrants escaping the Great Irish Famine and Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances.
Karlshamn is a locality and the seat of Karlshamn Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden. It had 13,576 inhabitants in 2015, out of 31,846 in the municipality.
The Highland Potato Famine was a period of 19th-century Highland and Scottish history over which the agricultural communities of the Hebrides and the western Scottish Highlands saw their potato crop repeatedly devastated by potato blight. It was part of the wider food crisis facing Northern Europe caused by potato blight during the mid-1840s, whose most famous manifestation is the Great Irish Famine, but compared with its Irish counterpart, it was much less extensive and took many fewer lives as prompt and major charitable efforts by the rest of the United Kingdom ensured relatively little starvation. The terms on which charitable relief was given, however, led to destitution and malnutrition amongst its recipients. A government enquiry could suggest no short-term solution other than reduction of the population of the area at risk by emigration to Canada or Australia. Highland landlords organised and paid for the emigration of more than 16,000 of their tenants and a significant but unknown number paid for their own passage. Evidence suggests that the majority of Highlanders who permanently left the famine-struck regions emigrated, rather than moving to other parts of Scotland. It is estimated that about a third of the population of the western Scottish Highlands emigrated between 1841 and 1861.
Kristina från Duvemåla("Kristina from Duvemåla") is a Swedish musical written by former ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus (lyrics) and Benny Andersson (music). It is based on a series of four novels by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg detailing a family's poverty-driven migration from Sweden to America in the mid-19th century: The Emigrants (1949), Unto a Good Land (1952), The Settlers (1956), and The Last Letter Home (1959).
The New Land is a 1972 Swedish film co-written and directed by Jan Troell and starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Eddie Axberg, Allan Edwall, Monica Zetterlund, and Pierre Lindstedt. It and its 1971 predecessor, The Emigrants (Utvandrarna), which were produced concurrently, are based on Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants, a series of four novels about poor Swedes who emigrate from Småland, Sweden, in the mid-19th century and make their home in Minnesota.
The Emigrants is the collective name of a series of four novels by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. Written in the mid-twentieth century, they explore the large Swedish emigration to the United States that started about a century before. Many of the first immigrants settled in the Midwest, including the Minnesota Territory:
Unto a Good Land is a Swedish novel by Vilhelm Moberg. It is the second of his four-novel The Emigrants series.
Chisago Lakes is an area of Chisago County, Minnesota, along Highway 8. The Chisago Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce includes the combined areas of Shafer, Center City, Chisago City, Almelund, Taylor's Falls, and Lindström.
The Petworth Emigration Scheme was an initiative sponsored by the Earl of Egremont and promoted by Thomas Sockett, Anglican Rector of Petworth. It sent around 1800 working-class people from southern England to Upper Canada between 1832 and 1837.
Johan Allan Edwall was a Swedish actor, director, author, composer and singer, best-known outside Sweden for the small roles he played in some of Ingmar Bergman's films, such as Fanny and Alexander (1982). He found his largest audience in the Scandinavian countries for playing lovable characters in several of the film and TV adaptations of the children's stories by Astrid Lindgren. He attended Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Training Academy from 1949 to 1952. During his long career he appeared in over 400 works. At the 10th Guldbagge Awards in 1974, he won the award for Best Actor for his role in Emil and the Piglet.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, about 1.3 million Swedes left Sweden for the United States of America. While the land of the American frontier was a magnet for the rural poor all over Europe, some factors encouraged Swedish emigration in particular. Religious repression and idiosyncrasy practiced by the Swedish Lutheran State Church was widely resented, as was social conservatism and snobbery influenced by the Swedish monarchy. Population growth and crop failures made conditions in the Swedish countryside increasingly bleak. By contrast, reports from early Swedish emigrants painted the American Midwest as an earthly paradise.
Swedish Emigrant Institute was a research center and museum designed to preserve records and memorabilia relating to Swedish-American migration.
The Great Irish Famine's effect on the United States economy was substantial.
The Highland and Island Emigration Society was a charitable society formed to promote and assist emigration as a solution to the Highland Potato Famine.
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