Swedes in Wisconsin

In Swedes in Wisconsin, Frederick Hale relates the reasons these emigrants left for the New World, their arduous journeys, and their establishment of communities in Wisconsin, including the state’s first Swedish settlement, New Upsala at Pine Lake in Waukesha County. New to this edition are the selected letters of Swedish novelist and feminist Frederika Bremer, who visited Wisconsin in the autumn of 1850. During her two week-trek over the new-born roads of the southern section of the state, Bremer lodged at humble farmhouses and boarding rooms, met literary and political figures, and beheld the vast, glorious landscape of Wisconsin’s forests and prairies. Her letters to a sister back home offer insights into the Swedish immigrant experience and reveal how early Wisconsin appeared to a Swedish visitor.