A folk divided

Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940

Abstrakti

In the historiography of migration an important dimension has been notably missing. Researchers in the lands of origins have been above all interested in the emigrants – who they were, where they came from, their reasons for leaving – up to the point of their departure from the homeland. Scholars in the lands to which they came have been mainly concerned with the immigrants – where they came from, when they arrived, where they settled, what occupations they went into, especially how they adapted to life in the new land – from the moment of their arrival. But there is another side to the story: the ongoing relationship between the emigrants and their homelands, between those who left and those who stayed behind.