Historicity:

[jrittenhouse]

Yes, I know I’m considered to be a real bug about such things, especially in alternate history fiction….

For my Swedish and Swedish-American readers in particular: Does THE EMIGRANTS / THE NEW LAND (Utvandrarna / Nybyggarna) strike you as real, as something that sounds/feels/is right in regards to the Swedish emigration to North America? (Others

Comments

[kalimac]

All I can contribute is a long-ago history professor's recommendation of the novel Giants in the Earth by Ole Rollvaag, about Norwegians in the Dakotas. Norwegians are of course not Swedes, but if the book is as good as I was told (I read it, but have no independent means of judging it), it may have some use as an orientation point.

[pompe]

I guess it'd be okay. It is a classic, after all, Moberg came from a part of the country with extreme emigration patterns and it was written while a good deal of emigrants still must have been alive.

[jrittenhouse]

The notes on the movie said that he demanded that the two leads have a strong Smålander accent, but not so much from the rest; I only heard the Swedish version once (the versions available in America are all dubbed, and the leads have perfectly presented is general-Swedish accented English), and I couldn't tell you if this is true or not. (Heck, I can't discern a Welsh accent...)

[pompe]

Swedish movies often have the wrong accents. As a capital native, I generally ignore it, but I imagine the farmers get mad.

[jrittenhouse]

Well, that accent was supposed to be the local authentic one, etc.

[jcw_da_dmg]

All I have to add is more curiosity: I'd be interested in finding out more about Germans and Prussians who came to America in the 18th century (1700s). Evidently there were quite a large number of them, including (apparently) some of my relatives.

[kalimac]

Many indeed. Enough settled in southeastern Pennsylvania to form a distinct subculture. "Pennsylvania Dutch" = actually "Pennsylvania Deutsch."

[jcw_da_dmg]

All I know about my great-great-grandfather's youth is that he was born in Philadelphia in 1803. Don't know his father's name or where they came from. His oldest son (not my ancestor) was the editor of a Cincinnati German-language newspaper.

[jrittenhouse]

Being Dutch/German from Ohio, I'll point out the following

[bigbumble]

My mother's grandparents came over in the late 1800's. That was after the time portrayed in the movies.

As an ethnic group, the Swedes in particular and Scandinavians in general are among the fastest to assimilate into American culture. My mother told of her mother saying not to worry about the old country, we are in America now. My mother was actively discouraged from learning Swedish. Needless to say, she had little personal knowledge to validate the movie.

[bigbumble]

That said, from some cultural aspects of the film, it rang reasonably true.

assimilation..

[jdonat]

My parents got this from both sides...
My mom is Swedish-American, my dad Norwegian-American.
My great-grandparents on both sides did not speak much English, and commented the same way "we're in America now, you don't need to know (Swedish/Norwegian).. So my Mom and Dad know very little of the language. Some of the cultural stuff, like the food, stuck. The only time that the Swedish/Norwegian connection set off a confict was on the 17th of May, Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution Day), which was their declaration of Independance from... the Swedes. My dad would sing Norwegian songs on that day, and my mom would contemplate Dad sleeping on the couch that day! :)

Re: assimilation..

[jrittenhouse]

*deep chuckle* on that.

My ex's family were VERY Irish Catholic, and a non-Catholic was bad enough, but an Anglophile? I dunno...

Susan's family is Danish/Norwegian with some British Isles scattered in there; Petersen / Johnson (you can't fling a cat in Sioux Falls SD without hitting a Johnson) and so on.

I got a real appreciation of Scandinavian culture and cuisine because a lady who lived next to us in Dayton when I was a kid was VERY Swedish and liked to give the little neighbor boy treats, etc (me, of course).

[jrittenhouse]

I saw it in the theaters when they came out originally in the early 1970s. I don't *expect* anyone to have seen them, but if they had, I thought I'd ask.