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❖ 107 ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Chapter 7 Writing History Together Norwegian American and Swedish American Historians in Dialogue Mark Safstrom Is there a special relationship between Norwegian America and Swedish America?Participantsraisedthiscentralquestionatthe“FriendsandNeighbors” conference at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, October 19–20, 2007. Answering this broad question would require more time than the weekend conference allowed. What was addressed perhaps was that a special, time-honored relationship does seem to exist between the respective historical communities, the Norwegian-American Historical Association (naha), founded in 1925, and the Swedish-American Historical Society (sahs), established in 1948. While Scandinavian perspectives, not to mention Scandinavianism, have frequently been applied in the histories of the various immigrant groups, the historians of these two societies have interacted more with each other than with any other ethnic history society in North America. Furthermore, when the scholars of each society have included comparative studies of ethnic groups other than their own, they have most often chosen each other as the comparative subject. This observation on its own does not prove that the relationship between Norwegians and Swedes in North America was any more special than the relationships with other Scandinavian groups. What it does suggest is that for many decades a high level of awareness, cooperation, and mutual respect has existed between naha and sahs. If institutions play a central role in the life of ethnic communities in North America, then the relationship between these two societies does suggest that the ties between Norwegian America and Swedish America may have been stronger than those connecting the other migrants from the Nordic region, such as Danes and Swedish-Finns. As the members of naha and sahs have written articles and published books over the years, they have left a long trail of breadcrumbs for anyone looking to trace the interaction between Norwegians and Swedes, as well as the interactions of their historians. This chapter will present some of the highlights of this relationship, focusing on articles with Swedish-Norwegian relations as a major theme, comparative work and collaborations between historians from each group, and the general philosophies of ethnic history that have appeared 108 ❖ Mark Safstrom over the years. What follows is thus a brief “history of the histories” produced by naha and sahs that will draw some conclusions about the results of this relationship. The sources for this exploration are the full run of the journals of each organization as well as the commemorative book published by naha on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary in 1975, The Norwegian-American Historical Association 1925–1975 by Odd S. Lovoll and Kenneth O. Bjork. A comparable work for sahs has not yet been published. The first of these journals to appear was that of naha, which has had three different versions of its title: it started as Studies and Records in 1926, was changed to Norwegian-American Studies and Records in 1931, and was shortened to Norwegian-American Studies in 1962. The journal of the Swedish-American Historical Society (known from its founding in 1948 to 1983 as the Swedish Pioneer Historical Society) has had two names, the Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly, launched in July 1950, and its present title, Swedish-American Historical Quarterly, which appeared first in January 1984.1 Trendsetters Through the pages of these journals, certain people’s names loom larger than others, in the amount of scholarship published, the positions held, and the years served. A few people have clearly been trendsetters in promoting collaboration between naha and sahs. The earliest example of this impulse was already evident in the remarks of naha’s first president, D. G. Ristad, in the very first volume of the journal. In describing the purpose of the organization, Ristad expressed the group’s desire “to cooperate with all organizations that touch, in their activities, the broad field that the association seeks to cultivate—the Norwegian element both in its relations to its racial source and its special historical and cultural backgrounds and in its relations to the history and culture of the American people, of which it has gradually been becoming an integrant part.” Several decades prior to the establishment of sahs, the journal of naha was already engaged in questions of cross-cultural studies, particularly with Swedish American history. As soon as sahs was born, members in both fields quickly expressed the desire for interaction.2 Leaders within the sahs community also acknowledged the positive effect of cross-pollination between Swedish and Norwegian American historians that had already taken place...

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