The front page of Hem-Vännen, Saturday 25 June 1887. The Swenson Swedish American Research Center is pleased to announce the launch of the Swedish American Newspapers Project. In collaboration with the Minnesota Historical Society, Kungliga Biblioteket (the National Library of Sweden), and the American Swedish Institute, 348 Swedish-American newspapers totaling more than 1.3 million pages have been fully digitized and made searchable online. Many of the original newspapers re
The Swedish American Historical Society will host a special evening honoring the Swenson Center's Director, Dag Blanck, celebrating the festschrift Migration, Modernity, and Meaning: Studies of Sweden and America, Essays in Honor of Dag Blanck. Location: Swedish American Museum, 5211 N. Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60640. Date/Time: Saturday, October 3, 2026. 5pm. The evening will bring together friends, colleagues, and members of the SAHS community to reflect on Dag's
The Swenson Center wishes to congratulate the two scholars chosen to receive the 2026 Dagmar & Nils William Olsson Visiting Scholars Award, Magdalena Naum and Christine Ekholst! Magdalena Naum is an Associate Professor of Historical Archaeology at Lund University, Sweden. Her research focuses on Swedish and Danish colonial history, with particular emphasis on colonial collecting and the production of knowledge, settler colonialism and settler interactions with Indigenous peop
For a long time, we sought help finding our ancestors in Sweden. My father's dream was always to visit them, experience his mother's culture, and maybe find some relatives. Time passed without luck until he reconnected with a childhood friend who gave us information about Jill Seaholm and the Swenson Center. Jill had helped her find her family in Sweden, so we contacted her. We were so happy to have given my father the opportunity to visit his family's village for his 80th birthday. Thank you!