Thesis (doctoral)--Uppsala universitet, 1991. / Added t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Abstract and summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-246) and index.

This thesis presents how the American race issue was depicted in Sweden during the 1960s until the early 1970s by studying the work of Sven Öste in Dagens Nyheter. Sven Öste was Dagens Nyheter’s Washington correspondent between 1963-1966 and 1968-1971, where he did prize winning reporting on the Vietnam war and covered the American race issue. Previous research has shown that the race issue was one of the key factors that changed Sweden’s perception of America. Despite this, there is a lack of research on how the American race issue was depicted or discussed in Sweden. This is important to remedy. Providing an understanding of how the American race issue was depicted will improve our knowledge of the Swedish image of America at this time. I will explore how Öste wrote about the Black liberation movement, the white resistance and how we are to understand his reporting. The results show that Öste contributed to a negative image of America through his reporting on the race issue. Öste supported the Black liberation movement, as shown through his emotional and moral writings. Furthermore, Öste compared the race issue to the struggles in the Third World, which contributed to the negative image of America. In doing this, Öste became a transnational actor. With these results, new insight is provided into how the American race issue was depicted in Sweden.

Abstract Title: Den mångtydiga svenskheten: En studie av det svensk-amerikanska föreningslivet i Kalifornien utifrån en etnisk aspekt 1910 & 1915. (The multiplicity of Swedishness: A study of the Swedish-American society’s associations in California from an ethnic point of wiew 1910 & 1915. Author: Joakim Fransson Master Thesis in History (10p) Växjö University The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish-American associations in San Francisco and Los Angeles and how they withheld or/and formed a Swedish or American ethnic identity. The primary source for obtaining that objective is the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad were the announcements from the associations are analysed. The thesis main questions are as following: Which ethnic aspects appears in the announcements from the Swedish-American associations in the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad 1910 and 1915? And What similarities and differences in the ethnic expressions appears in the primary sources during these periods? The conclusions can be briefed as there was a great variety of Swedish-American associations during the examined periods, there was a frequent occurrence in both religious and secular movements. The activities arranged by the societies can in general be divided into groups, for example dance masquerades and theatre or literature and lectures. The purpose of these gatherings were mainly ethnic, the Swedish population were often gathered at these activates to take part of for example lectures of Swedish heroes, kings like Gustav II Adolf or when Sweden was a great power. Thus, there is evidence in the material that indicates that the Swedish associations also get hold of American influences which indicates that the formation of a Swedish-American identity was an integration of partly Swedish and partly American cultural heritage. There is also debated in the empirical study that an ethnic identity not necessarily have to be the main reason for attending to the Swedish-American association activates, there is argued for that the individual or the group in the first hand identify themselves on gender, working, age or class basis. There is also of importance that the primary sources, the Swedish newspapers was an ethnic institution in the Swedish-American society and had a great influence on the Swedish population.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: Den mångtydiga svenskheten: En studie av det svensk-amerikanska föreningslivet i Kalifornien utifrån en etnisk aspekt 1910 & 1915. (The multiplicity of Swedishness: A study of the Swedish-American society’s associations in California from an ethnic point of wiew 1910 & 1915.</p><p>Author: Joakim Fransson</p><p>Master Thesis in History (10p)</p><p>Växjö University</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish-American associations in San Francisco and Los Angeles and how they withheld or/and formed a Swedish or American ethnic identity. The primary source for obtaining that objective is the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad were the announcements from the associations are analysed. The thesis main questions are as following: Which ethnic aspects appears in the announcements from the Swedish-American associations in the newspapers Vestkusten and California Veckoblad 1910 and 1915? And What similarities and differences in the ethnic expressions appears in the primary sources during these periods?</p><p>The conclusions can be briefed as there was a great variety of Swedish-American associations during the examined periods, there was a frequent occurrence in both religious and secular movements. The activities arranged by the societies can in general be divided into groups, for example dance masquerades and theatre or literature and lectures. The purpose of these gatherings were mainly ethnic, the Swedish population were often gathered at these activates to take part of for example lectures of Swedish heroes, kings like Gustav II Adolf or when Sweden was a great power. Thus, there is evidence in the material that indicates that the Swedish associations also get hold of American influences which indicates that the formation of a Swedish-American identity was an integration of partly Swedish and partly American cultural heritage.</p><p>There is also debated in the empirical study that an ethnic identity not necessarily have to be the main reason for attending to the Swedish-American association activates, there is argued for that the individual or the group in the first hand identify themselves on gender, working, age or class basis. There is also of importance that the primary sources, the Swedish newspapers was an ethnic institution in the Swedish-American society and had a great influence on the Swedish population.</p>

This thesis investigates the notion, perception and mediation of whiteness in the Swedish-American immigrant newspapers coverage of lynchings of African-Americans between 1900–1922 and how the editors, of both the larger bourgeois and the smaller socialist and communist press, deployed it in the construction of the racial Swedish-American identity to mirror the contemporary American racial hierarchy.  A main departure point is that the Swedish-American identity, in part, was constructed in relation to other racialized groups in America but also to already existing groups in the American society such as the Anglo-Saxons, as the hegemon of what constituted whiteness, but also the descendants of African slaves as the polar opposite.  A crucial claim is that the Swedish-American immigrant group were socialized into the racial hierarchy of the contemporary American society by the Swedish-American newspapers. This was possible due to the Swedish-American bourgeois press normalized the victimization of the African-American community in regards to the practice of lynchings, both by how they reported on lynching cases but also by the very placement of news articles.  This study has shown that, with the exception of the communist press, the Swedish-American press participated in the practice of lynchings by reproducing and mediating different aspects of African-Americans Otherness and blackness to their readers by creating a color line between white and non-white Americans.

This thesis is a case study of the Swedish American Bibliography (SWAM), a special subject database in the Swedish Royal Library’s library information system, LIBRIS. The research intentions are to explore and define the bibliography, and, by resolving issues concerning the responsibility for the bibliography, to fulfill the broader intention of clearing the way for its continuation. During the academic year 2006/2007 the qualitative methods of literature analysis, website analysis, email interviews and correspondence were used for investigating the bibliography. Results of research question one showed the SWAM bibliography’s beginnings and its basis in Swedish cultural heritage. Results of research question two showed the bibliography’s relationship to the Royal Library’s duties and instructions. Results of research question three showed the organization of knowledge in the bibliography’s scope, its digital structure and its accessibility. Results of research question four compared the bibliography to similar Nordic bibliographies. Results of research question five covered the Swedish and North American institutions collaborating on the project to keep the bibliography going and addressed the project member institution representatives’ ideas for the bibliography’s future. In addition to the bibliography material’s significance for Swedish cultural heritage, the conclusions revolved around the need for a combination of open communication channels among the member institutions, a sound financial base of operations and strong leadership and around the Royal Library’s ultimate head responsibility for the SWAM bibliography’s continuation. / Uppsatsnivå: D

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 1994. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement and English abstract inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-213) and index.

In the late 1800’s, Sweden was undergoing a population growth and had experienced several crop failures. With the majority of the population being farmers, the migration to North America gave Swedish emigrants an economic opportunity that wasn’t available in the homeland. This resulted in a mass exodus. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, around 1.25 million Swedes left their home country in search for a better life in the United States of America. In the year of 1890, around 478,000 Swedes had moved across the sea in search for better yields and economic prosperity.There is no exact number of how many Swedish-language newspapers that were published in North America to cater to the large number of Swedish immigrants, but an estimate says that between 600 and 1,000 Swedish language newspapers were published in the United States. The aim with this thesis is to analyze the representation of Sweden to Swedes who emigrated to look for a better life in the USA. The purpose of the study was to research how Swedish poverty was represented in the news. The research questions focus on how Sweden is represented in the Swedish American Post in 1887; how Swedish poverty is described and represented in the news and what representations of poverty can be seen in the material. The study was conducted through a qualitative text and thematic analysis of 48 newspapers from the Swedish emergency year of 1887, when the emigration hit its peak. The analysis of the data draws on theories of representation and social change, and the theoretical concepts of how the media can influence people’s lives and perceptions. The study found that the newspaper presents a somewhat simplified picture of poverty that rarely goes into underlying factors or societal structures but represents poverty mainly through personal stories of private individuals. The thesis also reveals that the image of Sweden is based on nostalgic, often fictional features of the homeland and news that often focused on accidents and deaths. This is interpreted as that the newspaper, on the one hand, gave the readers a relaxing read which spoke to their possible homesickness, and also contributed to confirm the decision to emigrate to the USA as something positive.

This Bachelor thesis aims to uncover the main reasons the Swedish emigrants stated for migration during the mass migration to North America during 1840 to 1914. The research material used for this thesis is a mix of Swedish emigrant letters, letters to the Swedish government’s report on migration (Emigrationsutredningen) and letters to the editor of the Chicago based Swedish-American newspaper Svenska Amerikanaren. By using quantitative content analysis I got results that are presented in this paper through different categories of stated reasons. The distribution of the categories in the different kinds of material and how the distribution of stated reasons changed over time is presented through charts. Results show that the by far most stated main reason for migration during all the periods of the mass migration was to improve the economic situation of the Swedish emigrant. The results also show that the stated reasons for migration confirms a lot of the ideas and research presented by earlier studies on the subject of the Swedish migration to North America during 1840-1914.

The study centers around The Scandinavian Socialist Federation and its newspaper based in Chicago called Facklan. This newspaper and its association has not been thoroughly researched before in a qualitative manner and existed in a time when communism started to spread around the world which makes them both interesting to research. A qualitative text analysis will allow a study that aims to examine how the newspapers content built or strengthened a feeling of fellowship within the federation. This will be researched through three aspects – communist, swedish and as a federation. With a contextualizing chapter the study is set into a historical period. This enables the reader to understand the context around the federation and its newspaper. Furthermore the study uses Benedict Anderssons idea of imagined communities. The source that has been used to enable this study is a digital archive made by Minnesota historical society, in which Facklan is included. The results show that Facklan indeed did build or strengthen a feeling of fellowship amongst its readers. It did this primarily by connecting the Comintern´s ideas and values with the news around Sweden and the federation. It is difficult to point out how deeply this affected the federation but it most likely brought the divided federation closer together and possibly enabled the merging with another American-Scandinavian socialist federation.