Nearly three hundred thousand persons of Danish blood have come into
the country since the Civil War. A large number migrated from
Schleswig-Holstein, after the forcible annexation of that province by
Prussia in 1866, preferring the freedom of America to the tyranny of
Berlin.
Whatever distinctions in language and customs may have characterized
these Northern peoples, they had one ambition in common--the desire to
own tillable land. So they made of the Northwest a new Scandinavia,
larger and far more prosperous than that which Gustavus Adolphus had
planned in colonial days for his colony in Delaware. One can travel
today three hundred miles at a stretch across the prairies of the
Dakotas or the fields of Minnesota without leaving land that is owned
by Scandinavians. They abound also in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois,
Eastern Nebraska, and Kansas, and Northern Michigan. Latterly the
lands of Oregon and Washington are luring them by the thousands, while
throughout the remaining West there are scattered many prosperous
farms cultivated by representatives of this hardy race. Latterly this
stream of Scandinavians has thinned to about one-half its former size.
In 1910, 48,000 came; in 1911, 42,000; in 1912, 27,000; in 1913,
33,000. The later immigrant is absorbed by the cities, or sails upon
the Great Lakes or in the coastwise trade, or works in lumber camps or
mines.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151