Unto a Good Land (3 page)

5
. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,”
Berättelser ur min levnad,
292.

6
. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 293, 298.

7
. Moberg, “Romanen om utvandrarromanen,” 294. For similar comments in English, see: Moberg, “Why I Wrote the Novel About Swedish Emigrants,”
Swedish Pioneer Historical Quarterly
17 (Apr. 1966): 63.

8
. Gunnar Eidevall,
Vilhelm Mobergs emigrantepos
(Stockholm: Norstedts, 1974), 19–20.

9
. For discussions of Moberg’s research methods, see Philip Holmes,
Vilhelm Moberg
(Boston: Twayne, 1980), 110–32; Ingrid Johanson, “Vilhelm Moberg As We Knew Him,”
Bulletin of the American Swedish Institute
(Minneapolis), no. 11 (1956); Bertil Hulenvik,
Utvandrarromanens källor: Förteckning över Vilhelm Mobergs samling av källmaterial,
ed. Ulf Beijbom (Växjö: House of Emigrants, 1972).

10
. Don Josè [pseud.], “Vilhelm Mobergs arnerikabagage nära att gå till Europahjälpen,”
Svenska Dagbladet,
June 4, 1948, p. 11.

11
. Sven Åhman, “Vilhelm Moberg ser på USA,”
Nordstjernan,
May 26, 1949.

12
. Gustaf Lannestock,
Vilhelm Moberg i Amerika
(Stockholm: Zindermans, 1977), 36. Much of our knowledge of Moberg’s life in America is derived from the two men’s correspondence and from this volume.

13
. For works in English detailing Moberg’s impressions of America, see Moberg,
The Unknown Swedes: A Book About Sweden and America, Past and Present,
ed. and trans. Roger McKnight (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988); McKnight, “The New Columbus: Vilhelm Moberg Confronts American Society,”
Scandinavian Studies 64
(Summer 1992): 356–88. Moberg expressed many of his opinions in letters to Lannestock; these letters are now in the House of Emigrants in Växjö, Sweden, and are referred to in “The New Columbus.” See also Lannestock,
Vilhelm Moberg i Amerika
(in Swedish). My comments here and five paragraphs below are based on these works.

14
. Moberg,
Min svenska historia
(Stockholm: Norstedts, 1971), 1:14.

15
. Sigvard Mårtensson,
Vilhelm Moberg
(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1956), 202.

16
. Sven Delblanc, “Den omöjliga flykten,”
Bonniers litterära magasin
42, no. 6 (Dec. 1973), 267.

17
. Rochelle Wright, “Vilhelm Moberg’s Image of America,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1975), 34–40.

18
. McKnight, “The New Columbus,” 384.

19
. Gunnar Brandell,
Svensk Litteratur 1900–1950: Realism och Symbolism
(Stockholm: Förlaget Örnkrona, 1958), 261.

20
. Gunnar Heldén, “Vilhelm Mobergs lyriska resurser,”
Emigrationer: En bok till Vilhelm Moberg 20-8-1968
(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1968), 215–29.

21
. Delblanc, “Den omöjliga flykten,” 266.

22
. Holmes,
Vilhelm Moberg,
126.

Introduction to
Unto a Good Land

Moberg finished the second volume of the Emigrant Novels in 1952 in Carmel, California. The Swedish original bears the title
Invandrarna
(The Immigrants). The English-language version,
Unto a Good Land,
followed in 1954. The English title is taken from the Old Testament, Exodus 3:8, a passage absent from the beginning of the Swedish edition.

A novel of passage,
Unto a Good Land
carries the immigrants to the margins of American settlement areas. Their first period in Minnesota consists of an elemental encounter with nature on the one hand and the difficulties of dealing with a new language on the other.

The distance the immigrants have traveled and the strangeness of their new environment make their sense of isolation more intense. At the same time, they are delivered, as in the Old Testament story, into virgin territory, a land of milk and honey, where the promise of freedom becomes a reality.

The narrative moves at a leisurely pace between New York and Minnesota. This pace gives Moberg an opportunity to depict the immigrants’ amazement at the bustle and perils of city life in America as well as the miracle of rail travel, Both of these aspects have historical validity. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Sweden was still largely agricultural and lacked an urban culture. Stockholm, the capital, was an ethnically homogeneous town of barely one hundred thousand inhabitants. In addition, most Swedes of the 1840s and 1850s would never have seen a train before. Even though the steam engine was pioneered in Sweden, construction of the Swedish national rail lines lagged behind that of Britain and the continental European countries and was not completed until the 1880s.

Other aspects of Moberg’s narrative are also based on historical fact. Olof Hedström (1803–77) was an early Swedish immigrant who converted to Methodism and became a minister to seamen around midcentury in New York. As Moberg writes, he ran the Bethel ship in New York harbor. There he took in newly arrived Swedes and helped them with advice about America. Hedstrom’s brother Jönas (1813–59) was also a Methodist, a resident of Victoria, Illinois. He worked with the church and in real estate in western Illinois. The brothers were instrumental in guiding many Swedish immigrants to areas settled by their countrymen in downstate Illinois, where the newcomers often bought farmland.
¹

Swedes traveling to Minnesota before 1870 typically came up the Mississippi River from Illinois or Iowa. They arrived by steamboat at St. Paul or in the Stillwater area, as does Moberg’s fictional group. In the nineteenth century Minnesota had several areas of strong Swedish rural settlement. Among those were Red Wing–Vasa in the southeast and New Sweden–Bernadotte in Nicollet County. Most typical of all, however, were Washington and Chisago counties. While Stillwater was the region’s English-speaking trade center, the countryside surrounding it was Swedish in culture and language. Karl Oskar’s land-taking near Chisago Lake is in line with actual settlement patterns.

The fact that Moberg’s characters have several of their most problematic encounters with Stillwater tradesmen and residents reflects historical differences between town and country in that part of Minnesota. In the nineteenth century, areas of Washington and Chisago counties were so totally Swedish speaking that contacts with English speakers occurred only when immigrants needed to carry out legal proceedings, make registrations at city hall, or trade in local stores.

Unto a Good Land
introduces literary motifs common to the American segment of the novels. First is that of letter writing. Karl Oskar’s exchange of letters with Sweden foreshadows the correspondence that brings the final novel,
The Last Letter Home,
to its poignant close. Second, Kristinas homesickness becomes more pronounced in this novel, especially in the chapter “At home’ Here in America-.” Her sense of isolation eventually leads to the planting of the imported apple tree, a symbol of her lasting ties to Sweden and her difficulty in adapting to new ways.

This aspect of Kristina’s experience suggests an important theme in the literature of immigration. Dorothy Burton Skårdal has described this as the Divided Heart theme. Many immigrants found themselves in America more in body than in soul. While they may have succeeded materially and learned many American habits, they could never conquer their longing for home. In a sense, they found themselves half-American and half-European. For Kristina, finding a way to accept her fate in America but still remain Swedish becomes a prime spiritual concern.
²

As in other things, Karl Oskar stands in contrast to his wife in this regard. He ignores his father’s earlier warning that seeking so much land in America is an example of overweening pride. Instead Karl Oskar looks with satisfaction at his ownership of land in the New World. Unconcerned in the beginning that the land was taken from Native Americans and unaware of changes eventually to take place in his own identity, he marks his place by carving his name in the Minnesota forest: K. O. Nilsson, Svensk.

The image of the immigrant husband looking expectantly to the future while his wife longs for the old ways is a common motif in American immigrant fiction, also employed by, among others, Ole Rølvaag in
Giants in the Earth.
It is a striking motif, one full of potential for mischance and ironic results.

R. McK.

NOTES

1
.
Svenska män och kvinnor
(Stockholm: Bonniers, 1946), 3:374.

2
. Dorothy Burton Skårdal,
The Divided Heart: Scandinavian Immigrant Experience through Literary Sources
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1974).

Bibliography for the Emigrant Novels

Compiled by Vilhelm Moberg

Pehr Kalm: En resa i Norra Amerika. I–III. (1753–1761.)

Carl Aug. Gosselman: Resa i Norra Amerika. (Stockholm 1835.)

Hans Mattson: Minnen. (Chicago 1890.)

Johan Bolin: Beskrifning öfwer Nord-Amerikas Förenta Stater. (Wexiö 1853.)

Ole Rynning: Beretning om Amerika. (Kristiania 1838.)

Gustaf Unonius: Minnen från en sjuttonårig vistelse i Nordvestra Amerika. I–II. (Uppsala 1862.)

Emeroy Johnson: Early Life of Eric Norelius. 1833–1862. (Rock Island 1934.)

Oscar N. Olsson: The Augustana Lutheran Church in America. Pioneer Period 1846–1860. (Rock Island 1934.)

N. Lindgren: Handlingar rörande åkianismen. (Wexiö 1867.)

E. Herlenius: Åkianismens historia. (Stockholm 1902.)

———. Erik Janseismens historia. (Stockholm 1900.)

M. A. Mikkelsen: The Bishop Hill Colony. (Chicago 1892.)

George M. Stephenson: The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immigration. (Minneapolis 1932.)

L. Landgren: Om Sectväsendet. (Härnösand 1878.)

Joh. Schröder: Vägvisare för Emigranter. (Stockholm 1868.)

H. Hörner: Nyaste Handbok för Utvandrare. (Stockholm 1868.)

A. E. Strand: A History of the Swedish-Americans of Minnesota. I–III. (Chicago 1910.)

Theodore C. Blegen: Building Minnesota. (Minnesota Historical Society. 1938.)

———. Norwegian Migration to America. (Northfield 1940.)

———. Land of Their Choice. (Minneapolis 1955.)

Lawrence Guy Brown: Immigration. (New York 1933.)

W. J. Petersen: Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi. (Iowa City 1937.)

Herbert and Edward Quick: Mississippi Steamboating. (New York 1926.)

Joseph Henry Jackson: Forty-Niners. (Boston 1949.)

———. Gold Rush Album. (New York 1949.)

Henry K. Norton: The Story of California. (Chicago 1923.)

G. Catlin: Nord-Amerikas Indianer. övers. från eng. (Stockholm 1848.)

Colin F. MacDonald: The Sioux War of 1862.

I. V. D. Heard: The History of the Sioux War. (New York 1863.)

J. F. Rhodes: The History of the Civil War. (1917.)

C. Channing: A History of the United States I–VI. (1925.)

Edvard A. Steiner: On the Trail of the Immigrant. (New York 1906.)

Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail. (New York 1950.)

Oscar Commetant: Tre år i Förenta Staterna. lakttagelser och skildringar. (Stockholm 1860.)

Clarence S. Peterson: St. Croix River Valley Territorial Pioneers. (Baltimore 1949.)

John R. Commons: Races and Immigrants in America. (New York 1907.)

A. W. Quirt: Tales of the Woods and Mines. (Waukesha 1941.)

The Frontier Holiday. A collection of writings by Minnesota Pioneers. (St. Paul 1948.)

Robert B. Thomas: The Old Farmers Almanac. First issued in 1792 for the Year 1793. (Boston 1954.)

Minnesota Farmers Diaries: William R. Brown 1845–1846.

———. Y. Jackson 1852–1863. (The Minnesota Historical Society. St. Paul 1939.)

Swedish-American Historical Bulletin. 1928–1939. (St. Paul.)

Year-Book of The Swedish Historical Society of America. 1909–1910. 1923–1924. (Minneapolis.)

G. N. Swahn: Svenskarna i Sioux City. Några blad ur deras historia. (Chicago 1912.)

Roger Burlingame: Machines That Built America. (New York 1953.)

Railway Information Series: A Chronology of American Railroads.

———. The Human Side of Railroading. (Washington 1949.)

Andrew Peterson: Dagbok åren 1854–1898. En svensk farmares levnadsbeskrivning. 16 delar. (Manuskript i Minnesota Historical Library. St. Paul.)

Mina Anderson: En nybyggarhustrus minnen. (Manuskript tillh. förf.)

Alford Roos. Diary of my father Oscar Roos. (Manuskript d:o.)

Peter J. Aronson: En svensk utvandrares minnen. (Manuskript d:o.)

Charles C. Anderson: Levernesbeskrivning. (Manuskript d:o.)

Eric A. Nelson: My Pioneer Life. (Manuskript d:o.)

V. M.

Locarno, June 1, 1959.