Spring Program in Seattle: May 9, 2024

Lunch & Lecture at Seattle’s Swedish Club Northwest
“Stories of the Past: How Swedish Americans Shape Their Heritage” presented by Jennifer Eastman Attebery.
Thursday May 9, 2024, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

Join SAHS, Seattle’s Swedish Club Northwest, and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies (SASS) for a lunch and lecture featuring guest speaker and Society member Jennifer Eastman Attebery, Professor Emerita at Idaho State University. Attebery will share examples from her new book As Legend Has It: History, Heritage, and the Construction of Swedish American Identity (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating 75 Years

Our Fall 2023 meeting, which took place on October 20th and 21st, celebrated the Society's rich history since its founding in 1948. The theme of the 75th anniversary celebration was "honoring our past, sustaining our future." Society members and friends gathered Friday evening for a dinner and program at Old Orchard Country Club in Mt. Prospect for a program which included music, presentations, and a featured keynote speaker. Saturday afternoon saw an event at the Swedish-American Archives of Greater Chicago at Brandel Library in Chicago. This event featured an exhibition and program that highlighted the Society's work and recognized the longtime relationship with North Park University, the Society’s physical home since the mid-1950s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swedish–American Historical Society

Our History

The Swedish–American Historical Society grew out of the national 1948 Swedish Pioneer Centennial celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first Swedish immigrants in the Midwest. In Chicago, 18,000 people filled the stadium on June 4th to hear President Truman, Prince Bertil of Sweden, Carl Sandburg, and representatives from many Swedish–American organizations. Four months later, on October 15, 1948, the leaders of the centennial celebration met in Chicago and formed the Society, originally called the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society.

Our Mission

The Swedish–American Historical Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1948, with the mission of recording and interpreting the Swedish presence in America. The society is devoted to the mission of studying the Swedish emigration, its history and culture of the Swedes in North America through research, publications, programs and archives.

In 1983, the Board of Directors approved a change in the organization's name to the Swedish–American Historical Society. By then it had moved well beyond a focus on just the "pioneer" period and serves to promote interest in the entire Swedish presence in America, from the first settlers on the Delaware in 1638 to the present day.

Learn more about us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newsletter