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❖ 275 ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Chapter 16 The Basis for Pan-Scandinavian Cooperation in Minneapolis–St. Paul Nordic Involvement in American Politics Prior to 1930 David C. Mauk The first two voluntary organizations among Nordic immigrants in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota—a Lutheran church in each city—conform to the conventional view of pan-Scandinavian institutions. Swedes and Norwegians joined forces early in community development to form a congregation made up of both nationalities because each group alone held too few individuals to establish a separate organization. In the conventional view, pan-Scandinavianism is as a whole a relatively short-lived phenomenon—a kind of institutional “marriage of convenience” that ends in more or less amicable divorce as soon as one partner in the alliance feels secure enough in its numbers to go its separate way. The concept applies to the leisure-time associational life of immigrants, focusing on institutions founded by the foreign-born generation and its children. This chapter first examines how well the traditional model of pan-Scandinavianism explains the experience of Swedish and Norwegian Americans in the Twin Cities. Then it presents the demographic foundation for a more broadly conceived notion of inter-Nordic cooperation in American politics based on the groups’ significant population size. Finally, it details their involvement in local politics during the historical period prior to 1930.1 Conventional Pan-Scandinavianism in Minneapolis–St. Paul In the Twin Cities, the generic features of pan-Scandinavianism were evident as soon as two or more of the nationalities became present in the 1850s. Their inter­ relatednorthernEuropeanhistories,mutuallyunderstandablelanguages,andsimi­ lar cultures including Lutheranism and a common base of values, as Odd Lovoll says, “tied them to each other, even when [they were] disagreeing.” From the beginning, he continues, “fragmentation and confrontation . . . held sway among Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian brethren and sisters” in the United States, where they “had at best a love-hate relationship.” The intramural groups confronting each other in the 1800s and early 1900s were often, for example, representative of subcultures in the Nordic homelands rather than “Swedes” or “Norwegians.”2 276 ❖ David C. Mauk The first institutional evidence of Swedish-Norwegian immigrant cooperation is instructive in both the circumstances of its origin and the causes of its demise. In 1848 Swedish immigrants and a smaller contingent of Norwegians formed the Scandinavian Methodist Episcopal Church on the Near East Side of St. Paul, the first Protestant congregation in the territorial capital. Despite its pan-Nordic name, the church membership included only a minority of Norwegians and even fewer Danes. Like the majority of members, the leadership was Swedish. They worshipped together until 1873, when the Norwegians left to form a separate congregation in the newly organized Norwegian Methodist District of Minnesota. In the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, five Swedish and three Norwegian men voted in 1866 to bring their families together in the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Church, a congregation in the pan-­ Scandinavian Augustana Synod. In its first two years this church was served by both Swedish and Norwegian immigrant preachers who came in from surrounding rural settlements. At the end of this short period, however, the growth of the Norwegian element as well as disputes over the administration of the Sunday school and plans for a building led the congregation to split along ethnic lines.3 JohnJenswoldprovidesapersuasiveportraitoftheconventionalmodelof interNordic institutional association in “The Rise and Fall of Pan-Scandinavianism in Urban America,” noting that “the full flowering of organizational pan-­ Scandinavianism produced a plethora of institutions covering a variety of immigrant interests in Minneapolis in the 1870s and 1880s. Norwegians united with Swedes in Scandinavian temperance societies, brass bands, singing societies, rifle companies, athletic clubs, and drama groups.” Jenswold emphasizes that the city’s business and educated Scandinavian elites created exclusive clubs. Class and occupational interests also provided the central motivation for the early union locals that Scandinavian laboring men and women formed to protect their interests . In accordance with the social attitudes of the time, some leisure associations were also limited to one gender—women’s clubs, both religious and secular or job related, as well as men’s business and workingmen’s groupings. Even the cele­ bration of “national days,” such as Syttende Mai and Svenskarnas Dag, became Scandinavian events in the Twin Cities during those decades.4 By 1890, asserts Jenswold, “the era of interethnic good feelings began to wane.” He sees nationalist feelings growing forcefully among Norwegian Americans through the fifteen years between the start of the 1890s and the dissolution of...

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