LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 325.21*85 ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result In dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Tri 9 M.I Ml It w IJJOIr L161 O-1096 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS s THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS SURVEY OF THE PAST SEVEN DECADES BY ERNST W. OLSON WITH LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TOD A Y ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO, 1917 SWEDISH-AMERICAN BIOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY SWEDISH-AMERICAN BIOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION PRESS OF THE PETERSON LINOTYPING COMPANY HALFTONE WORK BY BLOMGREN BROS. AND COMPANY CONTENTS. PAGE Introductory 9 PART I. PAGE PACE The Pioneer Period 15-22 Earliest Known Swedes in Illinois Earliest Known Swedes in Illinois 15 Jonas Hedstrom, Methodist Pioneer 16 Senator Raphael Widen 15 Swedish Pioneers in Chicago 19 Doubtful Swedisli Names in Early Rec- Christian Benson, Pioneer Farmer 21 ords 16 PART II. The Period of Settlement and Founda- The Bishop Hill Colony tion 25-94 New Religious Activities 55 The Beginning of Swedish Immigration. . 25 Civil War Service 56 The Earliest Settlers at Andover 27 Recent Anniversaries 56 Victoria, the Cradle of Swedish Methodism 28 Prominent Descendants of Bishop Hill Col- Co-laborers of Jonas Hedstrom 29 onists 58 Early Methodist Communions o3 Early Lutheran Pastors and Churches 61 The Bishop Hill Colony 37 Relations with American Lutherans 70 Origin of the Janssonist Movement 37 The Scandinavian Professorship and Emigration of the Janssonists 41 Early Educational Work 70 Founding of the Community 42 Lars Paul Esbjorn, Pioneer Lutheran Devotional Life 43 Churchman 73 Material Development 44 The Swedish Protestant Episcopal Church Methods of Labor 46 of Chicago 77 The Mode of Living 47 Gustaf Unonius, Pioneer and Pastor .... 79 Ravages of the Cholera Plague 48 The First Swedish Baptist Church in Amer- Tragic Result of Marriage Regulation... 49 icn Founded at Kock Island 81 Erik Tansson Slain 50 Gustaf Palmquist's General Career 83 Incorporation of the Colony 51 Life Sketch of Anders Norelius 84 Decadence of the Colony 53 Religious Controversy 85 Dissolution of the Colony 54 Founding of the Swedish Publishing Busi- Thc Colony Case in Court 55 ness 91 PART III. The Period of Growth and Establish- Religious Activities ment 97-179 . \ugustana College and Theological Sem- Illinois Swedes in the Civil War 97 inary 120 Company C, Forty-third Illinois YoKui- Dr. Tuve Nilsson Hasselquist 127 teers 99 The Swedish Theological Seminary of the Company D, Fifty-seventh Illinois Yolun- Methodist Church 131 teers 99 The Swedish Baptist Seminary ami Its Col. Oscar Malmborg, Fifty-fifth Illinois Founder 135 Volunteers 101 The Church of the New Jerusalem 139 Brigadier-General Charles John Stcl- The Mission Friends, an Outgrowth of brand, Chief of Artillery and Inventor. 105 Lutheranism 142 Battery II, First Artillery, Captain Silf- The Mission and Ansgarius Synods 143 versparre 109 Publishing Activities 145 Sundry Officers of Swedish Descent Ill The Swedish Lutheran Publication So- Swedes in Political and Civic Life 113 ciety 145 Lincoln Park Laid Out by Swedish Land- Anders Richard Cervin. Editor and scape Gardeners 117 Teacher 147 Religious Activities 118 Erland Carlsson, Churchman and Fi- Founding of the Augustana Synod 118 nancier 149 6 CONTENTS PAGE PACE Publishing Activities A Swedish- American Industrial Center Representative Secular Journals 151 John Nelson and the Knitting Industry. . 163 Journalists and Writers of Note 152 The Furniture Industry 167 beginnings of Swedish-American Art 155 Affiliated Industries 170 Some Early Swedish Artists 155 Early Fraternal and Insurance Societies. . . . 174 Music and Musicians of the Period 158 TheSvea Society 175 A Swedish-American Industrial Center 162 The Scandinavian Mutual Aid Associa- Early Swedes in Rockford 162 tion 177 PART IV. The Period of Cultural Progress 183-362 Commercial Institutions and Enterprises. . .296 The Cultural Movement 183 State Bank of Chicago 296 Publishing and Printing- 185 John R. Lindgren, Banker and Philan- Augustana Book Concern 185 thropist 301 file Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Co. . .190 The Union Bank of Chicago 302 The Peterson Linotyping Company 193 Other Swedish Bankers 303 Blomgren Broi. and Company 193 Scandia Life Insurance Company 303 Literature, Education and Science 196 The Rose Hill Nursery 306 Learned Societies 211 The Oak Hill Cemetery 307 The Swedish Historical Society of Hospitals and Benevolent Institutions 309 America 211 Augustana Hospital 309 The Society for the Advancement of The Old People's Home at Evanston 315 Scandinavian Study 213 The Englewood Hospital 315 Institutions of Learning 214 The Washington Park Hospital 317 North Park College 214 The South Shore Hospital 317 Broadview Swedish Seminary 218 The Swedish-American Hospital of Rock- Scam'.ia Academy 219 ford 317 The Fine Arts 220 Beneficiary and Technical Societies 318 Music 220 The Independent Order of Svithiod 318 The American Union of Swedish Sing- The Independent Order of Vikings 322 ers 221 The North Star Benefit Association. . 327 Augustana Conservatory of Music.... 225 The Swedish Engineers' Society 329 Gustav Stolpe. Composer and Virtuoso. 231 Political Activities 333 The Svea Male Chorus of Moline 233 The Swedish-American Republican Svea Siiner of Rockford 234 League 333 The Lyran Singing Society of Rockford. 235 Swedish-Americans in Public Life 341 Svithiod Singing Club 238 The Swedish Consular Service 345 The Swedish Choral Club 238 Swedes in the Spanish-American War. . .346 The Swedish Club 239 Religious Activities 347 Robert Lindblom A Man of Mark.... 246 The Mission Covenant 347 Swedish-American Composers of Note. 248 Carl August Bjcirk, a Leader in the Noted Artists, Teachers and Directors. 251 Mission Covenant 353 Painting and Sculpture 259 Sv.inmary of the Churches 355 Swedish-American Art Exhibitions. .. .261 The Swedish Lutheran Church 355 Prominent Painters and Sculptors ...265 The Mission Covenant 358 Resumg of Exhibitions 292 The Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church. 359 The Linne Monument 292 The Swedish Baptist Church 361 Architecture 293 The Swedish Protestant Episcopal Church.362 Life Sketches of Men of Today ...365 General Index ggg Biographical Index 599 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE PACK The John Ericsson Banquet, 1912, the Fif- Edward A. Wimmerstedt 159 tieth Anniversary of the Battle Between Anna Frederika Magnusson Jewett 160 the Monitor and the Merrimac Rosalie Magnusson Lancaster 161 Frontispiece Factory of the Forest City Knitting Corn- Swedish Pioneers of Illinois Jonas Heel- pany 166 Strom, Olof Gottfrid Lr.nge, Polycarpus The Co-operative Furniture Company's von Schneidau, Jonas Olson, Gustaf Plant 168 Unonius, Lars Paul Esbjorn 17 P- A. Peterson ...172 Rev. Sven Bernhard Newman 31 Nels Nelson 178 Rev. Victor Witting 32 Dr. S. P. A. Lindahl 186 Capt. C. M. Lindgren 36 Augustaria Book Concern Publishing Old Colony Church, Bishop Hill 40 House of the Augustana Synod 188 Ola Colony Building 44 Andrew G. Anderson 189 The Steeple Building 48 The Peterson Building Monument to Bishop Hill Soldiers 52 Edward C. Westman Facsimile of Eric Janson's Handwriting... 60 Charles J. Stromberg Rev. Lars Paul Esbjorn 62 1)r - L - G - Abrahamson 198 Early Swedish Lutheran Churches 64 Monument to Dr. Carl Swensson on the Rev. Tuve Nilsson Hasselquist 66 Bethany College Campus 201 Communion Service Donated to the St. Ans- Dn - Tohn A - Udden garius Church by Jenny Lind 76 Dr " J osua Lindahl 204 Gustaf Unonius 78 Dn Jakob B "Sg re 206 Gustaf Palmquist 80 Oliver A " Linder 208 Col. Hans Mattson 82 Dr ' 1)avid N ^' a11 216 Antler, Norelius . ..84 American Union of Swedish Singers 22 r -c- -KT i- IT- i. r ii A John R. Ortengren 224 Dr. Eric Norelius, Historian of the Augus- c , , Dr. Gustav Stolpe 226 tana Synod 86 . . ., i r> Mrs - EJla Lund 228 Hasselquist s House and Printing Shop 111 -,,,, Galesburg, 1855, with Facsimile of the " ,, " TJ n Y> i < i Svea Music Hall, Rockford 234 First Swedish Newspaper 92 .. , . ., .-., ^ Swedish Singers at the Olympic Games, Swedish Commanders in the Civil War Ch'caeo 19H 236 Col. Oscar Malmborg, Capt. Eric Forsse, Clubhouse of the Swedish' Club of Chicago. 239 Brigadier-General Charles John Stol- T , )e Swedish Glee Club, Under the Direc- brand, Capt. Axel Silfversparre, Capt. tion of Qrtengren 240 Andrew Stenbeck 100 Frhz Schoaltz 241 Olof Benson 117 Charles S. Peterson 242 Laymen Founders of the Augustana Synod. 119 Magnus Olson 243 Augustana College Buildings at Paxton...l22 Swedish Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the Augustana College General view 124 Swedish Club in 1912 244 Dr. Olof Olsson 126 \yilliam Dahlen 245 Dr. Gustav Andreen 128 Robert Lindblom 247 Swedish Educational Institutions Augustana Prof. J. Victor Bergquist 249 College, Rock Island; Fisk Hall, Home ot Gustaf Holmquist the Swedish Institute of Chicago Theo- Nicoline Zedeler 256 logical Seminary; North Park College, Art Exhibition at the Swedish Club, Chi- Chicago; Swedish Theological Seminary, cago 260 Evanston 132 Nyholm "Home from the Market" 262 Dr. William Henschen 134 Nyholm "The Novelette" 264 Dr. Johan Alexis Edgren 136 Nyholm Portrait of Himself 266 Dr. C. G. Lagergren 138 Hallberg "After an Atlantic Storm" 268 Mrs. M. B. Ogden 140 Charles E. Hallberg 269 Jonas Engberg 144 Sandzen "Lake Shore in Vestergotland".270 G. A. Bohman 147 Lindin "Twilight" 27: Rev. Erland Carlsson 148 Grafstrom "Silver Lake, Washington" 275 Frans Albin Lindstrand 152 Jansson "Country Home" 276 Job. A. Enander 153 Haag "Emigrants" 278 Carl Fredrik Peterson 155 Edstrom "Clouds" J. F. Ring. . 158 Gustafson "Excelsior" 280 8 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE PAGE Chicago Architecture Apartments Designed The Viking Valhalla at Gurnee, 111 325 by Andrew Sandeg-ren 282 Staff of Thorsten Lodge, No. 19, Joliet, 111. .326 The Gas Building, Erected by Andrew John Ericson 330 Lanquist 284 Guests of Honor at the John Ericsson Day The Robert Lindblom High School, A. Banquet, 1912 Gov. Charles S. Deneen; F. Hussander, Architect 286 Gov. A. O. Eberhart; President William Fromen -Dancing 1 Figure 287 H. Taft; Congressman George E. Foss; Chicago Architecture Twentieth Century Hon. Charles F. Hurburgh 332 Building, Erected by Henry Ericsson ... .288 Henry Reuterdahl "Battle Between the Axel Elias Olsson 289 Monitor and the Merrimac" 334 The Linne Monument in Lincoln Park 290 Committee of Arrangements for the John Henry Ericsson 294 Ericsson Day Celebration in 1912 John John R. Lindgren 298 E. Ericsson, Alfred A. Norton, Edward C. State Bank of Chicago Interior of the Westman, Edwin A. Olson, Henry S. Commercial Department 299 Henschen 336 Henry S. Henschen 300 Portrait of John Ericsson, by Arvid Ny- N. A. Nelson 304 holm, Presented to the National Gallery, Edwin A. Olson 305 Washington 339 Pehr S. Peterson 307 Presentation Committee of the League. Pho- Covenant Hospital, Chicago; Augustana tographed in Washington, Together with Hospital, Chicago; Lutheran Hospital; Officials of the National Museum 340 Moline; Swedish Societies' Old Peoples' Facsimile of Letter from King of Sweden.. 342 Home, Evanston; Augustana Home for Rev. J. M. Sanngren, First Mission Church the Aged, Chicago 308 Preacher in Chicago 347 Dr. M. C. Ranseen 310 The New Tabernacle Church, Chicagj 348 Theodore Freeman 311 Rev. Carl August Bjc'irk 349 Lutheran Hospital, Moline Present Build- Humboldt Park Mission Church, Chicago. . .350 ing; Lutheran Orphans' Home, Andover.314 Rev. John G. Princell 351 Swedish-American Hospital, Rockford ....316 Mission Church in Galesburg 352 Simon Hallberg; John Sandgren 319 Rev. Eric Gustaf Hjerpe 353 Verdandi Hall 320 Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Chicago 354 Officers of Military Council, Uniform Rank, Salem Lutheran Church, Rockford 356 I. O. S 321 First Lutheran Church, Rockford 357 Officers of the Grand Lodge. I. O. V. Sharon Lutheran Church, Chicago 358 Oscar Hanson, Nils J. Lindskoog, Alfred Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, Ev- Hult, Henry Lind 323 anston 360 The Viking Temple 324 Rev. Eric Wingren ...361 INTRODUCTORY Our danger is not so much from the man who loves two countries as the man who loves none. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the man who has a lingering affection for the fatherland no matter where his fatherland may be is a true nationalist and a true patriot. It is the man who believes that his own passions and his own desires are superior to those of the state, who would destroy nationalism just as he would destroy the family, who is the real menace to the nation. Here, and not with the one who would clasp hands across the sea, we find the man who is to be watched as a possible viper in the bosom of America. Charles Warren Fairbanks. There is a certain sense in which we do America an injustice by classifying ourselves as native-born .and foreign-born. And I have always pleased myself with the idea that America in 'some degree exists in spirit all over the world and that there are men coming to these shores who have displayed their force in our affairs, who bring to America a more vivid conception of what it means than those of us who were born and bred here ourselves entertain If I go to a country reputed to be a country of equality and liberty I must expect to find constant, visible and open signs of liberty and equality; and there- fore I carry to that country a demand which that country must satisfy. But I carry it only on one condition, namely, that I have gone to America because I was really, without knowing it, an American. Woodroiv Wilson. "Some day a new Scandinavia will flourish in the Mississippi Valley." On her visit to America and the West, Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish authoress, made this prediction in the year 1850, when as yet but a few Swedish and Norwegian settlements, hundreds of miles apart, dotted the western plains. The author of "The Homes in the New World" proved to have the true vision of a seeress, for well within the next fifty years her prophecy was amply fulfilled. The immigrants from the North soon furnished armies for the peaceful conquest of the West and the Northwest. They turned the glebe of the prairies, and the clearings in the woods resounded with the stroke of their axes. In less than twenty-five years the territory com- prised within the boundaries of the four states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa was studded with Swedish and Norwegian agricul- tural colonies, which grew prosperous in time and under favorable con- ditions. This Scandinavian winning of the West presents points of material difference from the form of conquest commonly met with in the various histories of the United States. The ordinary mode of civilizing the wild West, we find, was to press into the interior, build forts and 10 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS establish trading posts. By depleting the country of its fur-bearing fauna, large fortunes were amassed by individuals, while the government was put to great expense protecting the traders and getting little or nothing out of the trade. The Yankee usually got the better of the bargain with the Indians, and when the savages rose in armed protest, the little army post on the frontier ofttimes got the worst of it. This was not developing the new territory in the true sense of the term, rather quite the reverse. True development could not come with- out the cultivation of the soil. And it was here the Scandinavian, like the German element, performed its first great service to the American nation. They came to the new territory, not for love of adventure or with mercenary motives, but intent on making the very soil their own. Agriculture did not interfere with the rights and privileges of the aborigines to the same extent as did the encroachment of trappers and frontiersmen on their hunting grounds. It is safe to say that fewer forts would have been needed if the advance guard of civilization had carried more hoes and scythes and fewer guns. The Swedish colony on the Delaware furnished the first evidence on this point. The benefits derived by the entire country from the extensive tilling of the soil by the western pioneers entailed no direct outlay by the government. It \vas the Scan- dinavians and Germans who, by settling up the great West, built and filled the granaries of the country and of the world. On the heels of cultivation followed culture. The schoolhouse and the church were built as soon as the dugout, the log cabin, or the sod house had been completed to provide a dwelling for the settler and his family. Newspapers were published to disseminate knowledge of the new country and its political institutions ; books were published as means of religious instruction and edification and as a medium for conserving the cultural heritage from the mother country. Higher institutions of learning were planted on the prairies, first, to provide teachers and pas- tors for the newcomers, in the second place to impart a knowledge of the mother tongue of the settlers to their children and their children's chil- dren. Next followed eleemosynary institutions of various kinds. Until recently, all these institutions were, without exception, the fruits of religious activity, secular organizations being the outgrowth of a later period. The entire Upper Mississippi Valley was being flooded with immi- grants from the North of Europe, and yet there was no "foreign prob- lem" to puzzle over. The formula, foreign birth -j- American citizenship = sedition, had not yet been invented. It remained for the political wiseacres and the ripe scholars of the science of government in a much later era to discover a divided allegiance and a national peril in the citi- zenship of those who have come to this country so recently that they still cherish their old name and think tenderly of their old home. The new- comers of those days were Americanized to a certain degree before they reached the American shores. The impulse which started them across INTRODUCTORY 11 the sea was not the consideration of material welfare alone; their com- ing was induced by a distaste for certain conditions under which they had been living and by a keen desire to live under the freer institutions of the American republic. The words of Governor Arthur Capper, spoken of the foreign-born element in the State of Kansas today, would have as truly described the immigrants that came to Illinois in the forties and fifties : No one in Kansas doubts their Americanism any more than he doubts his own. They and their children own more of Kansas than any other like number of citizens. We have no finer, more useful, more law-abiding, more God-fearing people. They came here with little. But they have been thrifty, honest and indus- trious. Now they are property owners, famous farmers, home-builders, .sehool-cnd- church-builders, bank depositors, taxpayers. Never tax-dodgers. In thrift and industry, in whatever they undertake, they have sot us all a most eloquent and striking example of persistent, intelligent, successful endeavor. Their family and religious life is nearly ideal. Their children are carefully reared and invariably well educated. They produce no loafers, no physical or moral weak- lings. Their contribution to the criminal class is the smallest. How can anyone doubt the patriotism of such citizens? They live it! As far back as the earliest history of Kansas, during the border war for human freedom that preceded the Civil War, and in that greater conflict, our citrons of German birth and those from Sweden, Norway and Denmark marched shoulder to shoulder with the American born and pledged their lives as freely, as frequently, as gladly and as unquestionably as we did, that the nation might live and be free. How can anyone doubt the loyalty of these citizens to the home and country they have made their very own? In Kansas we do not and we never have. We concede to them an Americanism as strong and deep and true and virile as our own. Our flag is their flag and ever will be. It is their flag as much as it is ours. They have toiled or shed their blood for it and they will defend it just as devotedly in time of trial or need. In the words of Governor J. A. A. Burnquist, the fourth Swedish- American to be elected chief executive of the State of Minnesota, we find another close parallel with Illinois conditions : "The Americanization of our foreign-born population has never been a serious problem in our. State. The great majority of them very soon after their arrival learn our language, become citizens and send their children to our schools. They bring with them and retain the best of their traditions, their art, literature and music, but their loyalty to the United States cannot be questioned. It is significant that, according to United States census figures, of the children of foreign or mixed parentage, 89.2 per cent attend school, a slightly better proportion than the children of native born parents, of whom 88.8 per cent attend." The new citizens of the early settlement period in Illinois and adjacent states were soon to have their American patriotism put to the test. How well their loyalty stood the ordeal is recorded in the annals of the great civil conflict of 1861-1865. Those who would question the devotion of the newcomers to the country of their choice will find a com- plete answer in the muster rolls of Co. C of the Forty-third 111. Volun- teers, Co. D of the Fifty-seventh, Battery H, First 111. Light Artillery, 12 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Col. Hans Mattson's company of Minnesota Volunteers, and the famous Fifteenth Wisconsin, or in the military records of Brigadier-General Stolbrand, Colonel Malmborg, Majors Forsse and Bergland, and Cap- tains Silfversparre, Eric Johnson, Edvall, Arosenius, Wickstrum, Warner, Stenbeck, Sparrestrom, and others. Having received their baptism of blood, the Swedish-Americans of Illinois returned from the battlefields of the Civil War to serve their state and its local municipalities in public office and to help build up the communities by private pursuits. The Swedish- American of the earlier period was rarely an office-seeker, and his services for several decades were rendered almost exclusively in his capacity of private citizen. His rise to conspicuous public station is of comparatively recent date. Literary activity on broader lines than mere journalism of a religious or secular character began to develop in the eighties, as also the higher cultivation of the musical art, painting and sculpture being the most recent flowers to spring from the creative energy inherent in the Swedish blood. In educational work and in the various learned professions Illinoisans of Swedish extraction are coming to the front in ever increas- ing numbers. We find them at the head of many large industrial estab- lishments of their own, while furnishing much of the brain and the sinew in a number of the great manufacturing plants of the state not under their control. In all mercantile pursuits they are meeting with success, and strong financial institutions are being built up with Swedish-American capital. The new Scandinavia seen in the vision of sixty odd years ago is a reality, not as a foreign sphere of political influence, but as a component part of the commonwealth, a vital organ in the body politic. For seven decades Swedish blood has been coursing through the heart of the country. It is now pretty well mingled with the general mass, yet blood will tell, and the following pages are part of its story. PART I THE PIONEER PERIOD PRIOR TO 1846 PART I THE PIONEER PERIOD EARLIEST KNOWN SWEDES IN ILLINOIS. SENATOR RAPHAEL WIDEN. By an accident of history, a man of Swedish origin and birth came to play an important part in the civil life of Illinois for several years prior to the admission of this territory to the union of states. That there were others of his countrymen among the settlers of the territorial period admits of little doubt. In the case of Raphael Widen the record is indisputable, while in certain other instances the nationality of pioneers of supposedly Swedish extraction does not admit of historical proof. It is noted in the Territorial Records that Widen was appointed jus- tice of the peace of St. Clair county Jan. 12, 1814, by Norman Edwards, the territorial governor. He lived at Cahokia, the county seat, where in the year 1818 he married into a French family. Upon his removal to Kaskaskia, Randolph county, he became one of the fourteen justices who conducted the affairs of that county from December, 1818, to May, 1819. Widen was still serving as justice in the year 1831. He was a man of more than local prominence. In the second and third General Assemblies he represented Randolph county ; in the fourth and fifth he was a member of the Senate, serving during the second session in 1826 as president of the Senate. His legislative career was coincident with the period of heated debates on the slavery question. Widen took a stand by which he earned lasting honor and respect. When in February, 1823, a motion was made in the House of Representatives to submit to a popular vote the question of call- ing a convention to revise the constitution in the interest of the slave- holders, he spoke fearlessly and voted resolutely against the measure. He was one of two representatives from the middle and southern sections of the state who opposed the proposition, which, after barely passing the Legislature, was defeated by the popular vote. When General Lafayette visited Kaskaskia April 30, 1825, Widen lived there, and a mention at the time of "Edward Widen, the polished gentleman and enterprising merchant," as having been present at the reception given to the French hero, may refer to a relative or to Raphael Widen himself under a wrong name. The year and place of Widen's birth are not known, but it is a mat- ter of record that at the age of eight he was brought from Sweden to 15 16 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS France, where he was educated for the priesthood. The year of his com- ing to this country is unknown. In 1833 he passed away at his home in Kaskaskia, a victim of the cholera. His civil and political record is a distinguished one, placing him well to the front in the annals of Illinois, while he takes first place in the list of notable Swedish-born citizens of the state. DOUBTFUL SWEDISH NAMES IN EARLY RECORDS. In the earliest annals of Illinois names with a Swedish ring are often met with. One Paul Haralson (also written Harrolson and Harelston) is said to have settled west of Kaskaskia River, near the mouth of Camp's Creek, as early as 1802. He was a man of some consequence in the com- munity, serving as county commissioner and also as county clerk of Ran- dolph county in the period of 1803-09. He is reported to have held the office of sheriff for a short time ; of this there is no public record, but in the list of county surveyors the name of Paul Harrolson is third in order, the appointment by Governor Edwards being dated April 7, 1814. It is a fair conjecture that his name originally had the Swedish form Haraldson. In the lists of the members of the Illinois militia who served in the War of 1812-14, a number of names have a Swedish appearance. One is Bankson, an Americanized form of Bengtson common among the Swedish colonists on the Delaware, one of their eminent men being Andrew Bankson. Here we find one Andrew Bankson as a lieutenant of the Second Regiment, from St. Clair county, before the war. Having appar- ently served during the war as a private in a troop of mounted riflemen, he was subsequently promoted second lieutenant under the name of Bankston, manifestly misspelled. April 5, 1817, Andrew Bankson was appointed major of the Second Regiment of militia by Governor Edwards, and March 3, 1818, he was made colonel of the Tenth militia. He resigned shortly afterwards, but the name of Col. Andrew Bankson reappears in the old records ten years later, in the list of regents of McKendree Col- lege, elected in 1828. In the military lists we find also James Bankson, sergeant of Capt. Nathan Chambers' infantry company, and his brother, Patton Bankson, a private. A third brother was Elijah Bankson. The probability that all these may have been of Swedish colonial stock is not strengthened by the known fact that they came to Illinois from Tennessee. Among the comrades of Andrew Bankson was one David Eckman, and among the privates of Capt. Dudley Williams' company of the Fourth 111. militia were John and Andrew Hallin, all of whose names betray Swedish descent. JONAS HEDSTROM, METHODIST PIONEER. As Raphael Widen gained prominence in the early political life of Illinois, so Jonas Hedstrom became renowned as a pioneer in the religious field in the young state. He was the first man to preach the Gospel in c, THE PIONEER PERIOD 17 the Swedish language here and is the acknowledged founder of Swedish Methodism in the West. Urged hy his older brother, Olof Gustaf Hedstrom, who visited Sweden in 1833 after having lived in the United States for seven years, Jonas Hedstrom accompanied him to this country on his return voyage the same year. Jonas was then a youth of twenty, having been born Aug. 13, 1813. During a storm at sea he was converted, doubtless through the instrumentality of his elder brother, who was a devoted member of the American Methodist Church since his marriage to a young woman of that faith in New York City in 1829. The elder Hedstrom remained in New York, laboring as itinerant preacher in the Catskill circuit for ten years and subsequently as Swedish seaman's missionary on the Bethel ship in New York harbor until 1875, and passing away May 5, 1877, at the age of seventy-four. The younger brother drifted out west in 1837 or the year after, leaving to join his affianced, Diantha Sornberger, the daughter of a family who moved to Knox county shortly before. A blacksmith by trade, Hedstrom, after his marriage, located in Farmington, Fulton county, and opened a shop. He was licensed to preach, which he did as vigorously as he sledged. He later located in Knox county and became one of the founders of the town of Victoria. By plying his trade he acquired the means to build a comfortable home, where many a poor immigrant in succeeding years enjoyed his hospitality. He preached in Fnglish in the schoolhouses about Victoria, and also in Lafayette, Knoxville, and else- where. When about the year 1845 groups of Swedish immigrants began to arrive at New York, Olof Hedstrom in his capacity of seaman's mis- sionary met them not only as spiritual adviser but also as counselor in temporal matters. With his knowledge of conditions in Illinois he was in a position to recommend that region to prospective settlers, and thus numbers of his countrymen were directed to Victoria, where Jonas Hed- strom was prepared to render further assistance. He now brushed up his mother tongue, which had fallen into disuse, and on Dec. 15, 1846, he preached his first sermon in the Swedish language. On that occasion he organized, in a small blockhouse about three miles from Victoria, the first Swedish Methodist Episcopal church in the United States. The little congregation of five members here formed was the first Swedish church founded on American soil since the time of the Swedish settlements along the Delaware River, a fact which made the little log cabin in the woods an historic landmark. Hedstrom from now on conducted vigorous missionary work among the newcomers and organized several other com- munions in the next few years. Owing to restless endeavors and the strain and hardship of constant travel Hedstrom's health broke down early, compelling hir retirement in the fall of 1857. He passed to his reward May n, 1859, in his forty-sixth year. A monument in the Victoria cemetery marks the last resting place of the father of Swedish Methodism in Illinois. Jonas Hedstrom has been very differently judged, depending on the SWEDISH PIONEERS OF ILLINOIS JONAS HEDSTROM OLOF GOTTFRID LANGE POLYCARPUS VON SCHNEIDAU GUSTAF UNONIUS JONAS OLSON LARS PAUL ESBJORN THE PIONEER PERIOD 19 viewpoint of those making the appreciation. Both his friends and his religious antagonists appear to have exaggerated his personal traits. Dur- ing these early days the lines of demarcation between the different religi- ous groups were very sharply drawn, and the border warfare known as proselyting was hotly waged. Hedstrom was intensely devoted to his church and did all in his power to bring his countrymen of other religious affiliations into its fold. He worked alike among Lutherans and the fol- lowers of Erik Jansson, who at this time established the Bishop Hill colony, and his excess of zeal frequently gave rise to serious controversies with other believers, themselves intolerant and lacking in spiritual moderation. That he worked with the laudable motive of promoting the Master's cause and the interest of his church as he saw it there is no one to gainsay. SWEDISH PIONEERS IN CHICAGO. The earliest known Swedes locating in Chicago were Olof Gottfrid Lange, Gustaf Flack and Polycarpus von Schneidau. Lange was a native of Goteborg, born 1811, who first reached Amer- ican shores in 1824, as a sailor on an American brig. After serving on American and British ships for more than ten years, he abandoned the sea in 1838, and came to Chicago (September 30). He did not find any of his countrymen there ahead of him, but met a number of Norwegians, whom he is said to have given instruction in English, meeting his adult pupils in old Fort Dearborn. He later located in Milwaukee and in the year 1841 welcomed the immigrant party conducted by Gustaf Unonius, the founder of the Swedish settlement in Pine Lake, Wisconsin. On her visit to the United States Fredrika Bremer, the Swedish authoress, was a guest in the home of Lange in September, 1850. Her host subsequently accom- panied her to the Pine Lake settlement. After several changes of residence and occupation Lange in 1856 started a foundry in Kenosha, Wis., which four years later was removed to Chicago and located at Kingsbury and Michigan streets. On his return from a visit to Sweden in 1866, Lange brought with him a library of 500 volumes and a number of art portfolios for the Svea Society, a large part of the collection being the gift of King Charles XV. of Sweden. Lange is said to have tempted fortune on the Board of Trade, with what success we do not know. He was engaged in writing life insurance during the last twenty-five years of his life. "Captain" Lange, commonly so called, doubtless by reason of his early seafaring career, was a man of culture and public spirit. It was he who, prompted by the 25oth anniversary of the landing of the Swedish colonists on the Delaware, commemorated in the fall of 1888, proposed in 1889 an annual celebration of "Forefathers' Day," a suggestion which was car- ried out in a number of Swedish localities in the next few years. This venerable Chicago pioneer passed away at his home, 292 Irving avenue, 2() THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS July 13, 1893, at the age of eighty-two years. His likeness was preserved in a bust which is to be seen in the hall of the Svea Society. In the early forties Gustaf Flack, of Alfta, Helsingland, was found among the settlers of Victoria, 111., and in 1843 ne was conducting a small store in Chicago, near the Clark street ferry landing. The year of his arrival in Illinois is not known. He returned to Sweden in 1846 and died suddenly on his way from the city of Gefle to his native place. The laudatory letters he wrote to friends at home, giving glowing descrip- tions of the new West, are supposed to have influenced Erik Jansson and his followers in their choice of location for the future Bishop Hill colony. Flack thus shares with Jonas Hedstrom the credit for directing the cur- rent of Swedish immigration to Illinois. In 1845 Polycarpus von Schneidau removed to Chicago from the Pine Lake settlement. He was born 1812, at Kisa, Ostergotland. the son of Major von Schneidau of the Swedish army. Having risen to the rank of lieutenant in the Svea Artillery, the son put himself in bad odor with his family and his fellow officers by wedding a woman of Jewish blood. To escape the odium of social ostracism he emigrated in 1842, joining the settlement founded by Unonius, with whom he had an early acquaintance. His wife and her mother followed later. After enjoying hospitality in the log cabin of his friend, the young army officer moved with his famliy to a tract of land purchased by him and went to farming. For this occupa- tion he was incapacitated by an injury to his leg received on shipboard, and with hired help to till the little farm the family fared but ill. The plight of the invalid farmer and his Jewish wife has become historic. Thus we read in Fredrika P>remer's ''The Homes of the New World" a pathetic description of their hardships. She says: "Margaret Fuller (later Marquise Ossoli) was making a tour of the western states. Chance brought her to the Pine Lake settlement. Captain Schneidau for several months back sat on his sick bed with a severe injury to his leg. His beautiful young wife during the hard winter had been compelled to perform all manner of hard labor, and had seen her first born die from cold in its bed, in a room where rain and snow penetrated the walls. They were alone in the wilderness. They could not afford to hire help expensive as that was in these parts. The maid employed by them for some time past had just left them, and their neighbors were too far distant, or possibly subjected to like hard- ships. Then came Margaret Fuller from Boston. In her 'Summer on the Lakes' she describes the visit to the Schneidau cabin in these words : 'In the inner room sat the man of the house. . . . His young and pretty wife nursed and waited upon him, while managing the house and farm. How well she performed these unaccustomed duties the objects of her ,care bore testimony. Everything in the house, however rough- hewn and plain, was neat and in order. The invalid, sitting in an uncom- fortable wooden chair (they had been unable to get anyone to bring a more comfortable one from town), looked well-dressed and elegant, as THE PIONEER PERIOD 21 though groomed by a duke's valet. He was of northern blood and type, with large, clear, blue eyes, calm features, combining in his appearance the soldier, the student, and the man of the world. He contrasted strongly, but pleasingly, with his wife, whose warm color and soft, dark eyes bespoke descent from a land more favored by the sun. He looked as though he might be able to sit there yet a long time containing his soul in patience and biding the time ; she, as if she might bear every- thing for love's sake, yet made to feel the full weight of every passing moment. " 'When I saw an album full of little paintings and verses that bore testimony of a circle of intimate friends of tine accomplishments, left behind in the fatherland, I could not but see that the young wife stood in need of a sister and the husband a friend, who might enliven their solitude by the association of kindred souls.' "Margaret Fuller does not speak of it, but I have heard here of the practical benevolence exercised by her and her friends in behalf of the ill-fated Swedish settlers and whereby they soon brought about a com- plete change in their condition. From the solitary cabin in the woods the family was transferred to Chicago. Schneidau received skilled med- -ical aid and was cured, and he is now a most accomplished daguerreotypist, probably the foremost in all Illinois, enjoying as such a very considerable income. He is generally liked here. His vivacious and pretty little wife now between tears and laughter tells of her experiences in the wilderness, in a ludicrous mixture of Swedish and English." It was in 1845 Schneidau moved to Chicago. Being a skillful civil engineer he soon obtained profitable employment. In 1848 he was made superintendent of construction on the first railroad out of Chicago the Chicago & Galena Railway. A statement that Jenny Lind, on her tour of America in 1850, furnished Schneidau the means to set him up in the daguerreotype business is corrected by Miss Bremer's assertion that he was already at that time the leading man of the state in that branch. After Scandinavian immigration to Chicago and vicinity had acquired greater proportions Schneidau was appointed Swedish-Norwegian vice- consul in 1854, being the first to hold that office in Chicago. He resigned the position, owing to failing health, and was succeeded by his friend Unonius. On Dec. 28, 1859, Schneidau passed away, aged forty-eight. CHRISTIAN BENSON, PIONEER FARMER. With one Captain Baxter, who on a visit to the West had been favorably impressed with the country, Christian Benson, a Swedish ocean pilot, came to Western Illinois in the year 1835, locating in Portland township, four miles south of present Erie, Whiteside county. He was born in Goteborg in 1805, the son of a vessel owner engaged in lumber shipping on Lake Vanern. The boy went to sea at the age of thirteen, and served for seventeen years on American vessels, visiting 22 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS many of the world's foremost seaports, including those of far-off China. From 1825, for ten years, he served as pilot on a line of vessels plying between New York and Providence, R. I. In 1827 he was married to Maria Brotherson of the latter city, a lady of Scotch descent. A disaster to a vessel belonging to Commodore Vanderbilt caused Benson, at the earnest entreaties of his wife, to quit the sea. He then came to Illinois, followed by his brother in 1840. In 1849 both went to California, but by different routes, and the brother was never heard from again. Christian Benson did not go into the gold diggings, but located in San Joaquin Valley, at the junction of the Overland Trail and the route from San Francisco to Sacramento. There he conducted a resthouse for travelers and maintained horses and men to go out in the desert a hundred miles or more eastward and assist tired and famished parties in reaching their destination. The place is known as Benson's Crossing to this day. Christian Benson lived in Illinois for fifty years, passing away in 1885, at the age of eighty. He left two children, with whom he lived in his old age. His grandson, R. C. Benson, resides in Rock Island, where he conducts a grain and feed business. His recollections supplied the data for this sketch, amplifying and correcting in part what information is contained in an earlier work. 1 1 C. F. Peterson and Eric Johnson, "Svenskarne i Illinois," 1880. PART II THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 18461860 PART 11 THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION THE BEGINNING OF SWEDISH IMMIGRATION. The general emigration from Sweden to the United States in modern times began when Gustaf Unonius came over with a small party in the year 1841. These were the first emigrants permitted to leave the country to settle in foreign lands without special privilege granted by the King, a requirement under the old emigration law. The Unonius party located at Pine Lake, Wisconsin. In 1845 Peter Kassel followed with a party from the province of Ostergotland who founded the settlement of New Sweden, Iowa. The following year saw the advance guard of the influx from Helsingland province, composed of the adherents of Erik Jansson, a leader in a movement of dissenters from the Church of Sweden. Other followers of this religious leader came in successive parties, most of them arriving during the next five years. These formed the largest group of newcomers from Sweden, soon numbering at Bishop Hill, Illinois, a community of several hundred souls. The floodtide of immigration from Sweden to this country was now on, and within a few years it assumed dimensions compared to which the earlier influx in colonial times shrank into insignificance. The idea having been suggested by the first sporadic pioneers in letters to their friends at home, and the way opened by the removal of legal restraint, the exodus was led by the first small emigrant parties, group after group following from various parts of the old country. There being no mutual connection, they were led entirely by circum- stances and settled in localities far apart. An early settlement sprang up in Sugar Grove, Pa., and Jamestown, N. Y. Thus the first comers were scattered about from the boundaries of New York and Pennsylvania to the woods of Wisconsin and the plains of Iowa and Illinois. It was in this state, however, that these settlements first began to group themselves together and centralize for mutual contact and inter- course. Prior to 1850, Swedish settlements or colonies had grown up in Andover, Chicago, Galesburg, Victoria, Moline and Rock Island, Princeton, and elsewhere, while the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa settlements still remained in isolation. In the summer of 1853 immigration increased materially over former years. While in previous years the greater number of newcomers were Erik Janssonist dissenters, many remained true to the faith of the 25 26 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS established church, and their number constantly increased while the inflow of dissenters practically subsided after the arrival of the last party of Janssonists in 1854. The American Methodist Episcopal church had established a sea- man's mission in New York in charge of a Swedish pastor, Olof Gustaf Hedstrom by name. When immigration from Sweden began, his zeal naturally led him to extend his pastoral work so as to embrace also the newcomers passing through the city. His efforts, though not entirely disinterested from a denominational point of view, were most laudable under the circumstances, and should not be despised, as has been done :n the heat of partisan discussion. Through cooperation the brothers Hedstrom built up a settlement at Victoria, where Jonas Hedstrom established a Swedish Methodist congregation. At Chicago the Protestant Episcopal church through Gustaf Unonius conducted Swedish missionary work, and at an early date Swedish Baptist missionaries appeared among the settlers. These circumstances furnish the groundwork for a true understanding of the intense church rivalry carried on among the settlers for a decade or two before the various denominations became properly organized and established each in its own field. The story of the first settlements in Illinois soon became the story of the earliest churches planted on the plains of the Prairie State. It is worthy of note that the first properly organized or mother churches of no less than three distinct Swedish denominations were founded in this state prior to the year 1853, exclusive of the religious communion headed by Erik Jansson. In more recent times the first church of what is now known as the Mission Covenant was added, and also a congregation of the New Church, Swedenborgian, so far as known the mother church of Swedish-Americans of that faith. Inasmuch as the cohesive factor and the bond of union in the new settlements was everywhere a community of religious faith, although the motive for emigration from Sweden was not by any means a religious one as a general rule, there is little to relate of them up to the point where the church organizations began to make history and record it. These first churches were organized in the following order: Meth- odist Episcopal, at Victoria, 1846; Protestant Episcopal, at Chicago, 1849; Baptist, at Rock Island, 1852; Lutheran, at Andover, 1850, the second in the United States, the first having already been organized by the settlers in New Sweden, Iowa, in I848. 1 In the fifteen years from 1846 to 1860 the prairies of Illinois were literally studded with new Swedish settlements located in a belt running in a general direction west and southwest from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. Among these, aside from those already mentioned, were the following, being partly new and independent settlements, partly Swedish communities in older municipalities: Princeton, St. Charles, 1 This corrects an erroneous statement in "History of the Swedes of Illinois,** P. 430. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 27 Geneva, Orion, Knoxville, Wataga, Swedona, Altona, Rockford, Geneseo, DeKalb, Galva, Batavia, Monmouth, Kewanee, Elgin, Aurora, Lafayette, Henderson Grove, Beaver, Pecatonica, Wyanet, New Windsor, and others. While bits of interesting information relating to the pioneer days may be gleaned from the early records of all these places, the chief points of activity and achievement by the Swedish people in the state are less in number. Their centers of population and the nuclei of their influence are found in Chicago, Rockford, Rock Island and Moline, Galesburg, and in Henry, Kane, and one or two other counties, Chicago claiming at least half of our attention and the other communities. combined the other half. THE EARLIEST SETTLERS AT ANDOVER. The first Swedish settler at Andover was Sven Nilsson, a sailor, who located there as early as 1840. In 1849 ne wedded a woman known only as Stigs Lena, recently arrived from Hassela, Helsingland, Sweden, with a party of Erik Janssonists. He lived here in almost perfect seclusion for almost forty years, dying in the late seventies. In 1847 Johanna Sofia Lundquist came there from Bishop Hill and took a place as domestic in an American family. Her father, J. E. Lundquist, a paper mill proprie- tor, of Forssa parish, became an adherent of Erik Jansson, and emi- grated in 1846, after his wife had been fined for taking part in a demon- stration antagonizing the Church of Sweden two years before. She mar- ried P. W. Wirstrom, a retired sea captain, the two founding the first Swedish family in the settlement. Wirstrom, born at Vaxholm, 1816, came to this country prior to 1846 and sailed on the Great Lakes. He conducted a party of immigrants from Buffalo to Bishop Hill, and served as interpreter and also as medical adviser, having some little knowledge of the curative art. In 1847 ne located in Andover. Shortly after their marriage, Wirstrom and his wife went to New Orleans, where the for- mer captain hired out as overseer of a plantation. The business of slave driving was not to his taste, and the couple returned to Andover in 1849. Smitten by the prevalent gold fever, the Wirstroms joined a California party in April, 1850. After spending some years as proprietor of a hotel, Wirstrom, with broken health, returned to Illinois in 1854, and died at Bishop Hill, Feb. 25, of the following year. His wife then re- turned after having closed out the hotel business, yielding a sum given variously as $3,000 and $8,000. In 1856 Mrs. Wirstrom became the wife of M. B. Ogden, of Galva, and the pair located on a farm in the Victoria settlement. After more than twenty years they removed to Riverside, Cal., where Mrs. Ogden died June io, 1904. Mrs. Ogden did not adhere to the religious views held by her parents, but was a devoted disciple of Emanuel Swedenborg, being one of the first adherents of the New Church among the countrymen of the Swedish seer living in the West. A younger sister, Mathilda Gustava Lundquist, who came over in 28 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS i8=;o. married ]. W. Florine, the two locating in Andover, in 1855, where her husband became the first physician, druggist and photographer (daguerreotypist) in the settlement. Florine served in the first year of the Civil War, as second lieutenant in Company H, Forty-third Illinois Volunteers, then asked for his discharge and died in 1862. Mrs. Florine, like her sister, embraced the New Church faith. In 1849 tne Andover settlement received a substantial addition to its population, when in the summer the bulk of an emigrant party of 300 located there, and in the fall a party of 140 arrived under the leadership of Pastor Lars Paul Esbjorn, who there founded the first Swedish Lutheran church in Illinois. Other early settlements will be spoken of only in so far as they have played a part in the subsequent history of the Swedish element in the state of Illinois. VICTORIA, THE CRADLE OF SWEDISH METHODISM. In a little blockhouse in the woods, about three miles southwest from the present Victoria settlement, Jonas Hedstrom preached his first ser- mon to the Swedish settlers on December 15, 1846. The Swedish Method- ist Episcopal congregation or class formed then and there was com- posed of five members, Hedstrom and his wife, Andrew Hjelm and wife, and Peter Newberg. These constituted the first Swedish Methodist Epis- copal church in the West. During the ensuing Christmas holidays sev- eral others were added to the group. For some time Hedstrom continued to minister to their spiritual wants while still following the blacksmith's trade, but as his flock grew he gave way to the urgings of the members to devote his whole time to the gospel work. He was duly appointed missionary to the Swedish settlers upon being received on probation into the Rock River Conference in August, 1848, after almost two years of independent work in that field. From now on he devoted himself exclusively to preaching. He labored with untiring energy and within the next year he founded churches at Andover and Galesburg. To the conference of 1849 ne was ao ^ e to report no less than six charges at Victoria, Galesburg, Andover, Lafayette, Moline, and Rock Island, a total of sixty members in full connection and thirty- three on probation. About this time Hedstrom received an assistant in the person of John Brown, and late in 1849 a second assistant in C. P. Agrelius, sent him from New York by the elder Hedstrom. The follow- ing year new reinforcements were received Andrew Ericson and A. G. Swedberg. In May, 1850, a new field was taken up among the settlers of Jefferson county, Iowa, where the founder of New Sweden embraced the Methodist faith and himself became the preacher. The records of the 1850 conference showed its Swedish missions to comprise four circuits with six preachers and 195 church members. Two other men were added in 1852, namely, Peter Challman (Kail- SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 29 man) and Eric Shogren (Sjogren), who returned from a gold-seekers' expedition to California in 1851. They were not received on probation until 1853, when S. B. Newman, who had served two years as seaman's missionary with Hedstrom on the Bethel ship in New York, also was added. In December, 1852, the first church was organized in Chicago, and Newman became its first pastor the following month. Peter Newberg, Hedstrom's former helper in the blacksmith shop, in 1854 left the anvil for the pulpit. The following year added to the field forces a very valu- able man in Victor Witting. In spite of reinforcements, the labors of Hedstrom himself were increased rather than lightened, the enlargement of the field necessitating frequent long journeys to the widely scattered settlements in order to exercise supervision. His field now extended from Chicago to New Sweden, Iowa. The progress of Methodism among the Swedish settlers was continuous. In 1856 all the Swedish churches in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana were combined to form a special district with Jonas Hedstrom as presiding elder. His health having been undermined, he was compelled to retire after one year, and on May u, 1859, death ended the career of the founder of Swedish Methodism in Illinois and the West Jonas Hedstrom. CO-LABORERS OF JONAS HEDSTROM. John Brown ( 1813-1875) was a Danish sailor, who came to New York in 1843 an( l thence drifted to Bishop Hill. With a number of other deserters of Erik Jansson, he soon located at Lafayette, Stark county, eight miles east of Victoria. He there embraced Methodism and, yield- ing to Hedstrom's promptings, engaged in missionary work, preaching first in Lafayette and later with marked success in Rock Island county. He was later sent to labor among the Norwegians around Leland. Brown is described as a preacher of zeal, energy and a warm heart, and a very successful revivalist. When he got warmed up by his text and the sum- mer heat on the prairies as well, he would throw off his coat and neck- wear, and sometimes his vest, and go on preaching with a vim that was overpowering. Carl Peter Agrelius (1798-1881) had prepared at Upsala Univer- sity, and was ordained to the ministry in the Church of Sweden, probably in 1822. After twenty-six years of service he was prompted to emi- grate, coming to New York in 1848. After an unsuccessful attempt to found a Swedish Lutheran congregation there, he went over to the Bethel ship communion, where he served for a year as assistant to Hed- strom before going to Victoria, in October, 1849. After preaching in Illinois for six months, he was sent to Wisconsin. He labored in that state and in Minnesota until 1867. Agrelius was a man of tractable and peaceful disposition, hospitable almost to a fault, thoroughly educated bu<- lacking in practical ability. 30 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Andrew Ericson (1815-1878) came over in the Esbjorn party in 1849, w i tn hi s w if e > anc l was one f a numD er whom Hedstrom soon in- duced to leave Andover to settle in Victoria, where Ericson began preaching. He preached in Illinois until 1856, when he was stationed at Swede Bend, Iowa, where a church had been founded two years before. He labored there until 1860, then returned to Illinois, and labored in Leland and Andover, retiring in 1863 to his farm in Swede Bend. Anders Gustaf Swedberg, born at Hudiksvall, in 1827 or 1828, was also of the Esbjorn party of immigrants. He located in Galesburg. In Sweden he had been one of the so-called "Luther Readers," or Hedberg- ians, and occasionally appeared as exhorter at their meetings. Now he joined the Methodist flock in Galesburg, and in 1851 became local preacher there. He was but twenty-one years of age, possessed a good education, was a fluent speaker and promised well for the Methodist church, when in 1853 he was suddenly converted to the Baptist faith and placed in charge of a new church of that denomination at Village Creek, Iowa. Peter Challman (1823-1900) joined the Janssonist movement in Helsingland, in 1844, and served as one of Erik Jansson's so-called apos- tles. He came over with a party of Janssonists in 1846, but finding conditions in Bishop Hill not to his liking, he located first at Lafayette and then at Galesburg, where he plied the carpenter's trade and preached occasionally to the Methodists. In January, 1850, he led a California party, in which were also Erik Shogren and Victor Witting. Returning to Victoria after a year in the diggings, Challman, who had not yet joined the Methodist church, was induced by Hedstrom to take up preach- ing. Having joined the Victoria church, he became local preacher, being ordained deacon by the conference in 1853. He traveled the circuit for a year, then served the churches in Andover and Rock Island, and later in Victoria and Galesburg. In 1857 he succeeded Hedstrom as presid- ing elder, on recommendation of the retiring officer, and served until 1865. In 1867 he joined the Free Methodists and now began to work the same fields again in behalf of that group of believers. At Center Prairie, near Victoria, he gathered a flock and built a house of worship at his own expense. This flock disbanded after four years, and Challman himself gradually transferred his interests from the mission field to the corn- field, and in the seventies acquired large land holdings. After his removal to Iowa in 1884, he sought to correct his misstep in 1867, by joining the American M. E. church. Among the Illinois churches stories are still being told of the revivals that followed on Challman's powerful preach- ing. He is said to have won 800 converts to Methodism in a single year. Erik Shogren (1824-1906) was instrumental in gaining large numbers for his church during a long period of activity. An adherent of the group of believers in Helsingland called Readers, or Devotionalists, he felt strongly drawn to Methodism when, upon landing in New York in 1849, ne attended services on the Bethel ship, and Hedstrom easily per- suaded him to join his brother at Victoria. Disappointed with the place, SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 31 he located in Galesburg, joining the Methodist church there early the following year. Returning from his trip to California in 1851, he located at Victoria and began to conduct meetings throughout the circuit. He was ordained deacon in 1854 and made elder the year after. From that time on he labored in many fields, including the following in Illinois : Chicago, 1855-59 an d I 64-65; Bishop Hill, 1870-76; Galesburg, 1883-84; Rockford, 1884-85. He served as presiding elder of the Chicago district in 1885 and 1886, and afterwards as pastor in South Chicago, retiring in 1889. Shogren was a self-taught man, who, by assiduous study fitted himself well for the pastoral calling, in which he evinced remarkable power and exerted wide influence. In January, 1845, Sven Bernhard Newman (1812-1902), a young Swede, preached in faltering English to an American Methodist audi- ence at a place near Mobile, Alabama. A brother of his had emigrated and located at Mobile and Sven followed in 1842. Through his brother he was brought in contact with the Method- ists and joined them after two years. In Alabama he was ordained deacon in 1847 an( l made elder in 1849. After two years in New York (1851-52) as assistant seaman's mis- sionary, Newman was assigned to Chicago in 1853, to gather the scattered members of the church organized there the year before. In 1855 ne was again assigned to New York, four years later to Jamestown, and was returned to Illinois in 1866 on assignment to Galesburg. Two years later Newman was appointed pre- siding elder of the Chicago district. While serving as such he raised a considerable fund for the seminary at Evanston. He subse- quently served at Rockford, Wataga-Peoria. Batavia-Geneva, Evanston, Moline, Chicago, Evanston, Ottawa. He was placed on the superannuated list in 1890. At the request of the Swedish Northwestern Conference, Newman, in the early nineties, published his autobiography, a minute account of the life and labors of this frontiers- man of Swedish Methodism. Peter Newberg (1818-1882) was a ship's carpenter, on a vessel which brought a Janssonist party across the Atlantic in 1846, and ac- companied the immigrants inland. Disappointment with Bishop Hill soon brought him to Victoria, where he became one of the five organizing members of the Methodist church. Newberg helped Hedstrom make plows that winter, then went to Peoria and worked for a Swedish archi- tect and contractor named Ulricson, who is said to have lived there long enough to have entirely forgotten his mother tongue. Newberg and Peter Challman were in partnership as house builders for two years until J 853, when the former continued as building contractor on his own ac- REV. SVEN BERNHARD NEWMAN. REV. VICTOR WITTING. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 33 count. He erected the Swedish Methodist church dedicated at Victoria, in 1854. Having been converted in 1853, Newberg began to make preach- ing tours. While on probation he served at New London, la., Andover, and Galesburg. Ordained deacon in 1857, he was promoted to the office of elder. His subsequent stations in this state were: Victoria, Rock- ford and Swedona. He retired to his farm at Victoria about 1873. Victor Witting (1825-1906) was destined to play an important part in the Swedish M. E. church of America. He was born in Malnio, the son of a captain of artillery, and educated in the higher educational institu- tions of Landskrona and Malmo. His early longing for America was finally fulfilled in 1847, when he served as steward on a vessel bringing over a party of Erik Jansson's adherents and accompanied them westward. Two years before, he had been deeply impressed with the religious zeal of a similar party on board a ship on which he was then serving. In Bishop Hill Wetting remained only about a year and a half ; then obtained a position with a pharmacist in Galesburg. Witting and his wife soon joined the Methodist church there. Returning from the aforesaid trip to California in 1852, Witting, together with Erik Shogren, started cultivat- ing medicinal herbs at Victoria. After two years it had proved a losing venture. While in New York to dispose of a shipment, he met Hed- strom, and that proved the turning point in his life. On his return home he began to preach in Victoria, and was soon appointed class leader. While employed later in Peoria he preached to a handful of Swedes then found in that city.. From 1855 he devoted himself exclusively to the work of the church. He was stationed at Victoria and later at Rockford, where he became editor of the denomination mouthpiece Sandcbudet. As such he wrote and campaigned for the founding of a seminary, a project real- ized in 1869. Witting went to Sweden in 1867 to preach Methodism in that Lutheran country, and succeeded so well that he resolved to remain there. After the passage of the Dissenters Law of 1873, extending free- dom of belief, his work was no longer hampered by restrictions, and in 1875 the Methodist church of Sweden, largely the fruit of his labors, was organized by Witting and nine other ministers. After ten years he returned to the United States, only to be returned shortly after as super- intendent of the churches in Sweden. His term of service was cut short by his leaving the Methodist church and coming back to America in 1879. He published Stilla Stunder, a devotional monthly, for two years in Chi- cago, whereupon the breach between himself and the church was healed, and he again became editor of Sandebudet, serving for six years. After 1889 he labored in the East, where he edited another church paper. His memoirs published in 1901 constitute his chief literary work. EARLY METHODIST COMMUNIONS. Victoria was from the outset a Swedish Methodist settlement and has so remained. Among its earliest settlers, prior to 1850, were many who either moved there of their own accord from Bishop Hill or were won 34 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS over by the zealous missionary labors of Jonas Hedstrom. Such were Olof Olson from Ofvanaker, Helsingland, and Jonas Hellstrom, the latter a tailor, who plied his trade there for many years and then enlisted for service in the Civil War, and one Beck from Bollnas, Helsingtand. An- other Olof Olson, from Alfta ; Helsingland, and later of Bishop Hill, also located there. After these came in rapid succession, Hillberg, Hans Hansson, Carl Magnus Peterson, Sven Larson, Lars Larson, Charles Peterson from Csterunda, Upland, John E. Seline, who had been one of Erik Jansson's apostles in Sweden, but later in life became an agnostic of the Ingersoll type. Another Janssonist deserter was Peter Dahlgren, and from Esbjorn's party one Peter Skoglund, a tailor, settled in Vic- toria. The large settlement of which Victoria was the center, early grew to be one of the most flourishing localities in the state. The Swed- ish Methodist church is the only one there, and most of the population of the settlement have been affiliated with it from its earliest period to the present time. No other denomination has gained entrance to this stronghold of Swedish Methodism. After two years this church had grown to number ninety members, mostly people well informed in re- ligious matters and holding deep convictions. The old church edifice, erected in 1853, still remains a landmark in the place. In 1857 the large Victoria circuit was divided into three, Andover and Galesburg forming independent congregations. The following year new fields were taken up in Kewanee, Nekoma and Oneida. The mother church at Victoria in recent years has had an average membership of one hundred. The foundation for the Andover congregation was laid by Hedstrom in 1848 some say the year before, others the year after when on Sun- day, Aug. 26, he followed up his sermon by organizing a class of twelve. A year later the flock numbered seventy-four. A church edifice was built in 1854. In Andover the first Swedish Methodist camp meeting was held the following year. The Galesburg church was organized by Hedstrom in September, 1849, anc l is classed as the third oldest. That city was a field for much denominational strife in the early period. Hedstrom met with indiffer- ence as well as direct opposition. In 1852 came the rivalry of the Swed- ish Lutheran church and in that same year a powerful Baptist propa- ganda shook the little Methodist church in its very foundations. Several of its members were re-baptized, including the young pastor, Anders Gustaf Swedberg. The movement was of short duration and so super- ficial was the conversion that several converts to the Baptist faith soon returned to their former church. The Swedish and American Methodists in 1851 united on a common house of worship, which the latter subse- quently claimed as their exclusive property, despite the contributions of the Swedes to the building fund. This was looked upon as sharp practice and stirred up much bad blood in the community. Late in the year 1856 a small edifice was erected, and the church, then numbering sixty-nine members, was made independent. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 35 At Moline Hedstrom had preached from the time the first few Swedish settlers could be brought together for divine services, and pre- sumably in September, 1849, ne organized the class that became the foun- dation for the independent church established in 1862. Seven persons joined at the organization, and in 1855 the number barely reached twenty, the majority of the settlers of religious convictions joining the Lutheran church then in charge of the energetic Pastor O. C. T. Andren. From 1852 to 1855 there existed in Rock Island a small but vigorous Methodist congregation, which was later almost depleted by removals, the remaining members going over to the neighboring Moline church. Swedish Methodist activity in Chicago dates from 1852, when the Hedstrom brothers, after a season of preaching in the Bethel Chapel of the Seaman's Mission, in December, formed a class part Swedish, part Norwegian. The membership at first is said to have approximated sev- enty-five, many subsequently joining the Swedish Lutheran church, or- ganized the following month. By united effort Newman and Jonas Hed- strom again recruited the flock to sixty-five, and in September the Chi- cago, St. Charles and Poolsville, Ind., classes of probationers totaled 123 members. The chief pillar and support of the Chicago church was C. M. Lind- gren, a sea captain. Born at Dragsmark, Bohuslan, in 1819, he went to sea at fourteen, and in 1849 he was in California, first as a goldwasher, and later engaged in the freight traffic. After a number of business ventures he purchased a couple of freight vessels and engaged in ship- ping lumber from Michigan to Chicago. The failure of a timber com- pany entailed heavy financial loss to him. After 1860 he again engaged in shipping with a larger vessel. This enterprise proved fortunate, and vessel after vessel was added until in 1870 he owned a fleet of six. with a combined tonnage of 4,500. He had three more large freighters built in 1871, one being named Christina Nilsson in honor of the Swedish singer, who at that time visited Chicago. Captain Lindgren in 1877 re- tired from business. He was a man of philanthropic bend, and showed particular liberality toward the struggling church in Chicago. He gave generously to the fund for the theological seminary opened in January, 1870. Capt. Lindgren passed away Sept. i, 1879, leaving a son, John R. Lindgren, who grew wealthy as a banker and manifolded the benefactions of his father. In the Beaver settlement, in Iroquois county, a Swedish Methodist church was established May 4, 1854, with nine members. A church was built there in 1860. A rival Lutheran congregation was started there in 1870, but later surrendered the field to the earlier church which in recent years has grown prosperous and became the center of a populous circuit. Work iii Rockford was taken up in 1854, by Newman, who organized a class which was left in charge of one of its members, Mr. Westergreen, father of N. O. Westergreen, who began preaching the following year. After two years the class disbanded, but was reorganized by Witting in CAPT. C. M. LINDGRES. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 37 1 86 1, with twelve members. The Hock grew larger by degrees, thanks to the efficient work of Pastor Witting, carried on under difficulties and against opposition. In 1863 the flock numbered forty-three adults, and was strong enough to undertake the erection of an edifice. THE BISHOP HILL COLONY. 1 ORIGIN OF THE JANSSONIST MOVEMENT. About one hundred and fifty miles southwest of Chicago, in the southeastern part of Henry County, Illinois, there is a little village by the name of Bishop Hill. This rural community has several large brick buildings, the reason for whose presence in such a small town one might be disposed to ask. But when the fact is ascertained that these buildings were once built and occupied by a good-sized communistic settlement which laid the foundations of the town and made it their principal scene of activity for about fifteen years there appears to be an answer. The history of the social organization which existed at Bishop Hill more than fifty years ago takes us back into the first half of the last century and across the ocean to the Kingdom of Sweden. We shall learn that there was, at the bottom, a religious motive the pursuit of which culminated in a colony on the prairies of Illinois. On the i Qth of December, 1808, there was born in one of the parishes of central Sweden a boy who in his manhood years was to become the most important individual in the founding of the Bishop Hill Colony. His name was Erik Jansson. 2 At his confirmation at the age of fifteen he showed marked ability in dealing with religious subjects. As he became older his interest in matters theological increased and he employed his spare moments, when he was not attending to his farm duties, in studying devotional books by Luther, Arndt, Nohrborg, and others. At the age of twenty-two he wrote poems and short compositions. He discarded, presently, all religious books except the Bible. He declared that the Bible is all-sufficient for study and meditation and that it alone is the guide to salvation from sin. He held that belief in God and Christ led to a complete forgiveness of sins. In the beginning of January, 1843, he made his first journey to the distant province of Helsingland to look up others of a like devotional turn of mind ; for men and women lived here and there who revolted against the low morality practised by many of the clergy of the Established 1 In order to have the story of Erik Jansson and his colony presented from a new viewpoint and with added details not familiar to outsiders, Mr. PHILIP J. STONEBERG of Bishop Hill, the son of one of the prominent colonists, was asked to write on th subject for the present work. 2 While noting that in this country the owner wrote his name Eric Tanson, we prefer to use the form in which it is known to Swedish church history. 38 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Lutheran Church. These men and women sought a life of conscientious morality by private devotions and a frequent study of the Scriptures in their homes, receiving thereby the nickname of "devotionalists." Jansson stopped one night at the farmhouse of Jonas Olson who, with his brother Olof, was an ardent devotionalist. Jansson attended a gathering of spiritually minded men and women and made a deep and favorable impression. A number of places were visited by Jansson upon this journey. He started out on his second trip towards the end of February and did not arrive home until the close of April, visiting upwards of a dozer parishes. He then remained at home for about two months, attending to his family affairs, whereupon he made a third trip to Helsingland. This time he met with considerable hatred on the part of the clergy who had combined to drive him out. Near the close of 1843 ne made his fourth journey northward and settled in that region with his family in April, 1844. The number of those who believed in the doctrines and ideas preached by Jansson steadily increased. Several men who had the gift of exhorta- tion conducted meetings in private houses in various parishes in central Sweden; and such persons as believed in the principles expounded were urged to practise them in order that pious lives might be the result. In the eyes of conservative laymen and clerics of the Church the new movement was fanatical and ought to be suppressed. The name of Janssonism was given to it, and that of Janssonists to the believers themselves, on account of the important part taken by Erik Jansson in the revival. The Janssonistic disbelief in the use of books other than the Bible was emphasized before long as strongly as it could well be done. In a certain village, on the nth of June, 1844, a large number of religious books excepting the Bible, the hymn-book, and the catechism were thrown into a heap and ignited. The fire consumed one book after another, so that in a few minutes a few charred scraps fluttering about on the blackened ground were all that was left. In October of the same year a similar event took place in another parish, when not even the hymn-book and the catechism were spared. And still a third bonfire of theological tomes was brought about in December, as if the passion for such deeds was becoming insatiable. If the religious views of the Janssonists were provoking opposition, if the simple devotional gatherings in private houses were regarded by the church authorities as unseemly, with what feeling of horror must the burning of religious books have been viewed by the conservative as well as the ultra-orthodox ! For these bold acts the perpetrators were visited by the law and required to pay fines. It would be natural to suppose that the leader in the new religious movement would be subjected to a great deal of persecution. And so he was. Jansson was placed under arrest six different times within the space SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 39 of two years. His first taste of the prison was in the parish of Osterunda. Shortly after, he was set free by the court. But it was not long before he was again placed in bonds and transported, this time, to the prison in the city of Gefle, whence he was removed to another place. Through the intercession of four of his devoted co-workers at the royal court, Jansson was set free once more. In September, 1844, he was arrested for the third time but was released, though he was taken in custody soon after for his part in burning devotional books. After another brief interval of freedom Jansson found himself within the prison walls on Christmas Day. Here he remained for nearly four months, whereupon he was set free, in April, 1845, through a petition to the King. But because of his bold utterances and increasing popularity he seemed to be a target for the police authorities. He was in hiding for fifteen weeks when he decided to give himself up voluntarily to the court in the parish of Delsbo. Here he was put on trial. After the arguments in the case were over, the judge concluded to acquit the prisoner; but because of the bitter opposition to Jansson, it was thought best to conduct him to the prison at Gefle. While he was being conveyed thither he was rescued in a daring manner by three or four of his faithful brethren, after which he made good his escape, wandering from one parish to another, hiding in this farmhouse and that, until at length he crossed the mountains and came to one of the ports of Norway whence he embarked for America in January, 1846. The party consisted of himself, his wife and two children, and three other persons. Meanwhile, what befell some of Jansson's co-workers? In the sum- mer of 1844 a complaint was lodged by a parish priest against a number of persons because of their religious faith and each one was fined a considerable sum of money. In December of the same year the brothers Olof and Jonas Olson were arrested for preaching in the open air but were released when it was learned that they were summoned to appeal- before the church authorities at Upsala. A man high in judicial circles kindly helped them out of their dilemma. On New Year's Eve Jonas Olson was arrested and brought to Gefle where he was incarcerated among prisoners whom he himself as an officer of the crown had formerly sentenced. He was shortly released. Some time afterwards the two brothers, Olof and Jonas Olson, were summoned, for the second time, to appear before an assembly of the clergy at Upsala. They were now threatened with banishment if they persisted in conducting devotional gatherings. On one occasion Jonas Olson was fined for reading a passage from the Scriptures and reciting the Lord's Prayer in a private house. In a certain parish his brother Olof was fined one hundred crowns for a similar proceeding; and since his conduct was regarded by the authorities as "Sabbath-breaking" he was fined ten crowns more ! On the forenoon of May 12, 1845, a devotional meeting was in progress in a private house in the parish of Osterunda. While one of the 40 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS guests, Olof Stoneberg, was reading a portion of Scripture several men forced their way in and assaulted him. On the next Sabbath the same Stoneberg was reading from the Bible to a gathering in another house, when a mob of men appeared in the yard, including the priest. Only after repeated orders of the crown officer present did the crowd disperse. From the instances given it is evident that the Janssonists were subjected to persecutions. Furthermore they were denied participation of the Eucharist. They were also deprived of the right to testify in the courts of law, being thereby rendered defenseless in legal actions against them. In view of all this, it appears that these men and women were OLD COLONY CHURCH being shorn of those old-time rights, privileges, and pleasures to which they as well as their forefathers had been accustomed. Two courses remained open to them : the one, to renounce their newly-begotten ideas on religion and dwell unmolested among the lakes and mountains of their childhood clays ; the other, to adhere to their beliefs and leave their native land. They chose the latter course. Before he left Sweden, Erik Jansson with some friends had deter- mined upon a plan for the emigration of the Janssonists to America, the land known to be a haven for the persecuted and oppressed. It was thought best for all to live together in one community in the western world, for spiritual as well as economic benefit. Jansson, it should be added, had developed exalted notions of himself since he first began to preach. He now was coming to regard himself as the representative of Christ in the New Jerusalem which he and his followers would build in the New World. He compiled a hymn-book and wrote a catechism which were to be used in the new community, both published in Soderhamn in SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 41 1846. Thus, from a spiritual viewpoint the establishment of a colony was manifestly desirable. From the economic standpoint it was believed that one social organi- zation would be necessary and that this must be based on a community of property. Some of the Janssonists were penniless, others had but small means, while some were well-to-do. In order that all might obtain transportation across the ocean and to their ultimate destination it would be necessary for all to put their means into a common fund. The welfare of every individual in the new home would further require a common treasury out of which to pay for the necessaries of life until the people could obtain food and raiment through their o\vn labors. Mindful of the apostolic plan, Erik Jansson appointed seven men as leaders of the emigration, among whom were Jonas Olson, Andrew Berg- lund, Olof Johnson, and Olof Stoneberg. These were to have charge of a common fund out of which should be paid all debts which rested upon any individuals who were anxious to join in the emigration. The trans- portation of every emigrant was also to be paid out of this fund, while the surplus was to be used in the establishment of the new colony. The common treasury was created by the contributions of the Janssonists who sold their houses, lands, goods and chattels to that end. EMIGRATION OF THE JANSSONISTS. There being upwards of a thousand persons desiring to emigrate, the undertaking was no small affair for those days. Passes had to be obtained from the authorities, a difficult matter in some cases. Furthermore, an ocean voyage in those days was fraught with hardship. The vessels were at best small and uncomfortable, some old and unseaworthy. The emigrants assembled in the ports of Goteborg, Soderhamn, Stockholm and ( iefle and from these points the ships for America made their departure. The first shipload of emigrants that left Soderhamn suffered shipwreck on the Swedish coast. One ship with half a hundred passengers was lost without a trace. Another was wrecked on the coast of Newfound- land. One vessel was five months on the voyage, six or seven weeks being spent in England to repair the vessel. As early as 1845 Olof Olson had left for America with a commis- sion to find a locality suitable for a settlement. In New York he became acquainted with a countryman of his by the name of Olof Hedstrom, a Methodist minister, who preached regularly in an old discarded ship fitted up into a meeting-house. Hedstrom's brother, Jonas, lived at Victoria a small village in Knox County, Illinois. Olof Olson was persuaded to visit the latter and examine the Illinois country, which was receiving considerable attention at that time because of its agricultural possibilities. He came to Illinois, he saw the rich prairies and he was conquered. In July, 1846, Erik Jansson together with a few followers, arrived in the village of Victoria. After further prospecting, a piece of property 42 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS was bought in the next county on the north. This property was bought for $250, on the first day of August, in the name of Olof Olson, and consisted of sixty acres of land. On August 21 the party purchased in the same county for a consideration of $1,100, a farm of one hundred and fifty-six acres with buildings, live stock and grain. Hither moved Jansson, Olof Olson and the rest of the party. After a further examina- tion of the neighborhood a location for the colony was picked out. This site was secured on September 26, 1846, when four hundred and eightv acres of government land were bought at $1.25 per acre. The new settlement was called Bishop's Hill an exact translation of the name of the Swedish parish where Erik Jansson was born, but the !\'in:e was afterwards spelled without the "s." In the fall of the year a number of emigrants arrived in New York. Thence the journey was continued up the Hudson River to Albany, and on the Erie Canal to Buffalo. After that the travelers took steamboats on the Great Lakes to Chicago, whence many of the early emigrants went on foot to their destination, while wagon transportation was obtained for the luggage and for those unable to walk. Other bands of emigrants went from Chicago by water to La Salle, or Henry or Peru, whence they walked or rode. Those who came in 1854 traveled by rail the whole dis- tance from New York to Galva, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad being then completed to that point. The journey from New York before the days of the railroads required about three weeks. FOUNDING OF THE COMMUNITY. A few loghouses and tents accommodated the first arrivals. But when the colonists came in large numbers in October, 1846, dugouts were made in the sides of the ravine passing north and south through the set- tlement. The rear wall of a dugout, as well as the rear parts of the side walls, were of earth, but the front parts and the front wall were of logs, there being a door at the front flanked by two small windows. The roof was of rails, sod and earth. A dugout was ordinarily about eighteen feet wide and twenty-five or thirty feet long. There was a fireplace in the back wall. Usually two tiers of berths ran along the side walls, accom- modating about twenty-five or thirty persons. Before the close of the year there were about four hundred persons in the colony, including seventy who made their abode at Red Oak Grove, a few miles northwest of the main settlement. In the following February there came to the colony a company of twenty-one men, and a woman who served as cook. These had left New York the month before and traveled across the country by boat, rail, stage and on foot. In June, 1847, there came about four hundred additional emigrants, who had reached New York by various ships during the winter and spring, those coming to that port in the winter being obliged to remain there and in Brooklyn until the water- ways were again open. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 43 DEVOTIONAL LIFE. Attention to their spiritual wants was naturally uppermost in the minds of the colonists. To this end they erected a church in the autumn of 1846. It was built of logs, in the shape of a cross, and covered with canvas, whence it was called "the tent church." At the north end was the pulpit and at the south end a gallery and a fireplace. It is said that this structure seated about eight hundred persons. At first two services were held each week-day in the tent church and three on Sunday. Every morning Jansson roused the people early for a service in the church before breakfast. At Christmas time, 1846, a bell was procured, which throughout the colony period served the double pur- pose of calling the people to worship and to their meals. It now hangs in the cupola of the village schoolhouse, calling the children to school. The second service was held in the evening and some years elapsed before candle light was displaced by oil lamps. During the first two summers services were held in the grove in the north part of the settle- ment, usually only at noon, when work in the fields was pressing. Jansson, wearing a cloak of black, conducted the services and preached frequently. Others who served as preachers were : Jonas Olson, Olof Stoneberg, Nels Hedeen and Andrew Berglund. Still others would be called upon, sometimes at a moment's notice. As time went on the week-day morning services were discontinued, while the evening services became less fre- quent, and one of the three Sunday services was eliminated. During all this time, however, the place of worship was not the same. The tent church was destroyed by fire in 1848, along with some log- houses, when a pile of chaff from flax was set on fire by a man smoking a pipe. A frame building was erected that year, the basement and first story containing living rooms, and the second story the church proper. Siding and finishing lumber were hauled from Peru, while pews of walnut were made in the colony. Erik Jansson's own hymn-book, printed in Sweden in 1846, was used in the church services. Besides hymns, it contained several prayers. Later on a choir led the singing and an organ was introduced, which was played by Swan Bjorklund, a musician who came over in 1852. A revised edition of the hymnal was printed at Galva in 1857. It was part of Jansson's plan to send out twelve men to spread the faith in this country. To that end the men selected began to receive instruction in English in a dugout. A small English-Swedish word- book had been printed in Sweden in 1846, which contained the principles of English pronunciation. In 1848 the missionaries were sent out by twos, being required to earn their own support on their tour. Two of them, Olof Stoneberg and Andrew Blomberg, visited the Shakers at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, a colony then numbering about three hundred. The missionary scheme, however, proved a failure. In order that the children of the colonists should be brought up 44 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in the same faith as their elders instruction was given in Swedish in Jansson's catechism of 1846. The Swedish school, however, was not regularly kept up. MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT. The colonists who arrived during the first two or three years met with considerable hardships. The accommodations were not the best, the food supply was often scant, fasting was made compulsory, and so malaria and dysentery attacked the enfeebled settlers, and the death toll was heavy. There was no supply of sawed lumber to make coffins for the dead during the first winter, and sheets alone had to suffice. Sometimes one OLD COLONY BUILDING grave was made to serve for several bodies. Funeral services were dis- pensed with and the place of burial was not always known. It is said that a number were thus buried in a large grave in the west part of the settlement near the southern edge of the grove, but the exact spot is unknown. At the east edge of Red Oak Grove, where fifty colonists were buried in 1846 and 1847, a monument was erected in 1882. These hardships proved too much for some of the settlers, who ac- cordingly went to other places to seek a more congenial environment. Some settled at Lafayette, others at Victoria, and a few went to Gales- burg. But if some removed to other localities, the ranks of the colonists were filled up by the arrival of other bands, especially in 1849, I &5> and 1854. The material welfare of the community also improved in consequence. In 1858 the membership of the colony consisted of 655 persons, of whom 147 were men and 258 women over twenty years of SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 45 age, 78 boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 20, and 172 boys and girls under the age of 15 years. Following the increase in population and in material prosperity, bet- ter and larger buildings were erected. At first small houses made of sod and rails were used for kitchen and dining room purposes. In 1847 a few houses were built of clay mixed with coarse grass, which stood for several years. In that year the first frame house was built, part of which was occupied by Erik Jansson and his family. A sawmill was early se- cured by the colonists, then exchanged for another, and in 1848 a third one was bought, the colonists thus making their own lumber. But as not enough timber could be obtained from the neighboring woods, some finished lumber had to be hauled long distances from the nearest towns, as Peru and Rock Island. In 1848 the making of kiln-dried brick was begun. Both men and women were engaged in this work. The kilns were fired a short distance west of the village, where suitable clay was obtained. During the first month 100,000 brick were made. It is said that in all five million brick were manufactured, both for the market and for home use. Of this material a number of substantial buildings were erected, some of the bricklayers being women. From the chalk-stone in the ravine cement was manufactured and sand was procured in the neighborhood. A four-story brick building forty-five feet wide and one hundred feet long was begun in 1849 an d finished in the next year. The first story became the kitchen and dining hall. In 1850 the work of extending this building another hundred feet on the south was begun, the new part being completed in 1851, and the common kitchen and dining hall were extended to occupy the entire first floor, the dining hall in the north part being then used for the children and that in the south part for the adults. This structure, called the kitchen building, later came to be designated the "big brick." The three upper stories were partitioned off into six halls with four dwelling rooms opening into each hall on each floor. After the colony had disbanded, the first story was likewise fitted up into dwelling rooms, making a total of ninety-six rooms, ex- clusive of the six halls. Another of the more important brick buildings was the steeple building erected in 1854, and designed for a hotel, but finally converted into dwelling rooms. Some of the rooms were used for school purposes until the present schoolhouse was built. In the tower a clock was in- stalled in 1859, made by three of the colonists, Lars Soderquist, P. O. Blomberg and Swan Bjorklund. It was modeled after a hall clock brought from Sweden. Since the day it was first set running, this old clock has been performing its duty of telling the time and striking the hours. A short distance east of the kitchen building was erected another building of brick the bakery building. Here was baked Swedish hard- tack, with a hole in the center, to be hung up on poles. Here, too, was 46 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS brewed small beer, a Swedish non-intoxicating drink. Another brick building was used for the storage of meat. Still others were erected for industrial purposes, one being used as a wagon shop and paint shop, another as a blacksmith shop. At first the colonists ground their corn on hand-mills, which had to be worked night and day to supply the need. To get wheat ground into flour it was necessary to go twenty-eight miles to Green River, or else to Camden, now Milan. But in 1847 a grist mill run by water was erected on the creek. When the water was low the men who were study- ing to prepare themselves as missionaries for Janssonism sometimes trod the wheel. In 1848 a wind-mill was built. This was succeeded by a four-story brick steam mill completed in 1851. Here a hundred barrels of flour could be turned out in a day. Much flour was marketed and there was a large custom trade. A fourth mill, driven by water power, served for various industrial purposes. After the dissolution of the colony the old steam mill was torn down. The majority of the colonists were from the Swedish province of Helsingland, famous for its flax culture and linen textiles, so they trans- planted this industry to the new settlement. At first the flax was pre- pared by hand, but afterwards water power was used. All spinning and weaving was done by hand. Coarse and fine goods, linens, w r oolens, and carpets were made. The largest production for the market for a single year was in 1851, when 28,322 yards of linen and 3,237 yards of carpets were produced. From 1848 to and including 1860 the manufacture of textiles appears to have reached a total of 169,386 yards. Clothing was made by the colony's own tailors. A home tannery prepared the leather for its shoemakers. Brooms were manufactured. There were carpenters to make the furniture and some artisans to help the blacksmiths make agricultural implements and wagons. Every de- partment of the colony's industries had its overseer, and each member belonged to some department, according to inclination or aptitude. METHODS OF LABOR. The colonists had been farmers for the most part in the Old World and this occupation they retained. With the increase in material re- sources more land was purchased until the total holdings are said to have been 10,857 acres. In the busy season of farming the shops had to yield their workmen, both men and women, who then labored in the fields and meadows. At certain places distant from the village there were buildings for the ac- commodation of laborers and animals employed on the outlying tracts far from home. Both horses and oxen were employed at first, the latter being gradually replaced altogether by horses. It was the duty of the men and boys to care for the horses and oxen, while the women and girls milked the cows and fed the calves and hogs. When prairie land was first broken, a thirty-six-inch plow, pulled SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 47 by eight yoke of oxen, was used. Later a smaller plow was used, drawn by three yoke of oxen. In the plowing of cultivated land horses were usually employed. For several years Indian corn was planted according to this method : Two men stood at opposite ends of a field, or part of one, each with a stake to which was fastened a long rope stretched out between them and marked off every four feet by a piece of ribbon. At each ribbon was posted a woman with a hoe, and some seed corn in her apron, who planted a few kernels in each hill. When the operation was completed the men moved the rope forward the proper distance, followed by the women, and another row of hills was planted. After a time corn was planted in another manner. A wooden marker constructed with runners was driven over the field twice, at right angles, and where the lines crossed girls dropped the kernels, after which women, carrying hoes, covered up the seed. Wheat and oats were cut with a plain scythe at first, but in 1848 the cradle appeared, which was a hand implement consisting of a handle, a scythe-blade and above the latter a light frame of wooden prongs which caught the grain and laid it evenly in a swath. Then the grain was bound into sheaves, mostly by women, and boys and girls carried the bundles into piles, while men made the shocks. Sometimes at the close of a harvest day the laborers would form in line and march to the village, singing the songs dear to them. THE MODE OF LIVING. In the early clays of the colony the colonists were often compelled to fast, but changes soon came for the better. While a greater variety of food was prepared for breakfast and dinner as time went on, the regular article of food for supper \vas mush made of corn-meal or mid- dling, and served with skim-milk or a beverage consisting of small beer and molasses. Hard-tack was the principal kind of bread used during the whole period of the colony. Butter was used only at Sunday break- fast at first, but oftener at later stages. Coffee was served only at break- fast, as a rule. At first, however, there was but little genuine coffee, a kind of roasted bread, made of corn-meal or middling with some potato flour and molasses, being used as a substitute. Sometimes wheat was roasted and mixed with the coffee. Milk and molasses took the place of cream and sugar. The usual beverage was small beer. Being ac- customed to fish in their lake-dotted home land, the colonists made spe- cial efforts to secure their favorite food. For several seasons fish were . obtained from the Mississippi River, a fishing cam]) being maintained on the present arsenal island at Rock Island. Henry and Chillicothe were also visited to secure fish from the Illinois River. Refreshments between meals became a custom as the times bright- ened, bread, cheese or meat, and small beer being distributed to the laborers. 48 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS RAVAGES OF THE CHOLERA PLAGUE. In the summer of 1849 a P art y f Norwegian immigrants brought the Asiatic cholera to the colony. The disease spread quickly among the colonists. Strong men fell a prey to the grim disease. Jansson ordered a number of the people who were well to hurry off to the farm operated by the colony east of La Grange, now Orion, and remain there until the cholera was stamped out at Bishop Hill. But it was all in vain, for on the day they arrived at the farm the first case broke out among them to be followed quickly by others. Physicians prescribed, but the disease held sway. THE STEEPLE BUILDING At the farm near La Grange the deaths were most numerous. Trenches were dug for the dead, no coffins being used. At Bishop Hill the number was less, the burials were in the village cemetery opened in 1848, and coffins were used. Some who stayed at a place near Cam- bridge were attacked by the disease, and fatalities occurred there also. Jansson took his wife and two of his children to the fishing camp on the government island at Rock Island but it was of no use, for she and the two little ones succumbed to the terrible disease and were buried there, the location of the graves being unknown today. The cholera ran its course in about three weeks, claiming over a hundred victims. Seventy died on the La Grange farm, where a mon- ument was erected in 1882, on section 36, Western township. In 1850 a company of emigrants bound for the colony were attacked by the cholera on the Great Lakes, and a number died en route. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 49 TRAGIC RESULT OF MARRIAGE REGULATIONS. Owing to the strained economic circumstances in the first few years Jansson discouraged new marriages, but the restriction proved irksome and in 1848 the ban was removed. Immediately, it appears, a number of the men and women were paired off regardless of personal likes or dislikes. Nevertheless, obedience had been a cardinal virtue and re- mained so in this case. The weddings took place on Sundays. Ac- cording to the marriage records of Henry County, Jansson joined four couples on June 25, 1848, three on July 2, four on July 9, and five on July 16. On July 23 he married twenty-four couples and on July 30 six- teen couples. Two couples were married in August and seven in Sep- tember, showing the marriage epidemic to have subsided. Among those who were married in 1848 were John Root, a Swede who came to the colony in that year, and Charlotta Jansson, a cousin of Erik Jansson. An agreement was entered at the time of the marriage that if the husband should ever decide to leave the colony he should obtain a divorce and let his wife remain. In his absence his wife gave birth to a son; the father on his return decided to take his wife and child away, but Jansson interposed, nor did Mrs. Root desire to leave. One day in 1849 Root came to get his family. In the carriage with him was a man named Stanley from Cambridge. Mrs. Root and the child were taken into the buggy and they were off. But the act was soon dis- covered and several men who started in pursuit on horseback succeeded in overtaking the carriage and in bringing back Mrs. Root "and the child. Later Root got his wife away to Chicago, where she had a married sis- ter and a brother-in-law, but she and the child were again brought back to Bishop Hill by colonists. Deprived of his wife a second time, Root is said to have gone to the Green River neighborhood whence he brought a number of men with him to Bishop Hill to search for his wife and for Jansson and his principal agents. The destruction of the place being threatened, Jansson and family, Mrs. Root and child, Jonas Olson, and a few others got away and went to St. Louis. About this time the California gold fever had reached the colonists as it had reached so many others. Their finances being at a low ebb the colonists decided tq send an expedition to the distant El Dorado. Some of the men implicated in the Root affair joined the expedition. The party set out in March and consisted of nine men, Jonas Olson being one of the number. Three of them started overland by way of Rock Island, while the others went by way of St. Louis and the Mis- souri River, all meeting in the region of Council Bluffs. In August they reached Placerville, California, where they located, fifty miles from Sacramento. Gold was hard to find and living was expensive. Some of the men were taken sick with mountain fever and one of them died. On April i, 1850, Root came with a second company of men to Bishop Hill to demand the surrender of his wife to him, but she was 50 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS still absent. Settlers in the Red Oak neighborhood dissuaded the com- pany from violence. ERIK JANSSON SLAIN. Jansson returned from St. Louis on Saturday, May n, 1850. On the following Monday he went to Cambridge to attend the circuit court, the May term of which opened that day. Jansson was the defendant, as the head of the colony, in a number of cases. Root also, it appears, had a case, being the plaintiff in a trespass case against a certain Peter W. Wirstrom, continued since 1848. At the noon recess, while Jansson was in the court room, Root appeared in the doorway and with a re- volver fired two shots at Jansson, killing him instantly. Root was placed under arrest, was arraigned and pleaded not guilty. His case was taken up the next day and continued. It was again con- sidered at the November term of court in 1850 when his plea of not guilty was withdrawn. The case w r as up again at the May and October terms of 1851. The defendant secured a change of venue to the Knox County Circuit Court, where his case was taken up at Knoxville at the April term, 1852, and continued till the September term. That year a jury of twelve men was finally impaneled after ten panels had been ex- hausted. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against the de- fendant and fixed his period of imprisonment in the state penitentiary for two years. The court then ordered the defendant brought to the state penitentiary at Alton, the first five days of his imprisonment to be in solitary confinement and the rest at hard labor, the defendant further to pay the cost of the prosecution. At the end of a year Root was par- doned by Gov. Joel A. Matteson, on petition. Root's last days were spent in Chicago, where he died not long after his release, Rev. Eric Shogren, a Swedish Methodist preacher, officiating at his funeral. The death of Erik Jansson was naturally a great shock to the col- onists. The body lay in state for a few days. The funeral sermon was preached by Andrew Berglund. The remains were then laid to rest in the village cemetery, where a wooden slab marked his grave until re- placed by a marble monument, the gift of some of his friends. After the death of his first wife Jansson had married again the same year. His second wife was a Mrs. Gabrielson, a woman of varied experiences. It is said that she had been left an orphan at an early age in Sweden and adopted by a family in Goteborg. At fifteen she ac- companied this family to New York in 1832. There she is said to have married a sailor who went to sea and never returned. She next married a teacher named Pollock, who gave her an education while she in turn assisted him as teacher in a private school of which he was the principal. She went to hear Rev. Olof Hedstrom at the Bethel Ship mission, who considered her one of his most earnest hearers. On the Bethel Ship she heard Erik Jansson when he arrived in New York in 1846. Jansson also called upon her and won her over to his belief. She then decided SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 51 to accompany Jansson and his party to Victoria. Mr. Pollock tried to persuade her to return to the East, but to no avail, and he died, broken- hearted, at Victoria. At Bishop Hill she married Lars Gabrielson in July, 1848. A son was born in this marriage. Mrs. Gabrielson exer- cised quite an influence in the colony, having become the head teacher for the children's English school, a position which she held for some time. Her third husband, Mr. Gabrielson, died of the cholera in 1849. Upon her marriage to Erik Jansson she became superintendent of the work of the women. Jansson is said to have asserted on various occasions that the leader- ship of the colony was to be hereditary within his own family. He had a son and a daughter by his former marriage, and it was his wish that the son should become his successor. At the funeral of the departed leader Mrs. Jansson, by virtue of her position, appointed Andrew Berglund guardian of her stepson and leader until the boy should attain his majority. Meanwhile the news of Jans- son's death reached the Bishop Hill gold seekers in distant California. In November, 1850, Jonas Olson started back alone by way of Central America and New Orleans and arrived home the following February. Of the seven remaining miners all but one eventually returned to Bishop Hill. Jonas Olson before long took the reins of government in the colony, and Berglund had to step aside. The idea that the control of affairs should remain in the Jansson family came to naught. INCORPORATION OF THE COLONY. Up to this time the property of the colony had been held in the names of various individuals. Upon the death of any one of these his estate was sold by order of the county court and purchased for the benefit of the colony. As the wealth of the colony became greater the system was found unsatisfactory. Accordingly, by an act approved by the legislature on January 17, 1853, the colony was incorporate:! under a state charter. The number of trustees was fixed at seven and the fol- lowing were by this act constituted trustees : Olof Johnson, Jonas Olson, Jonas Ericson, Jacob Jacobson, Jonas Kronberg, Swan Swanson and Peter Johnson. The last named was a brother of the founder. He re- signed January 10, 1859, and was succeeded by Olof Stoneberg. The charter provided that the trustees should hold office during good behavior, but that they were liable to removal for good cause by a vote of the majority of the male members of the colony. Vacancies in the office of trustee were to be filled in such manner as should be provided by the by-laws. The trustees were to have the power of making con- tracts, purchase real estate and again convey the same whenever they thought it proper to do so. The business of the corporation should be manufacturing, milling, all kinds of mechanical work, agriculture, and merchandising. The by-laws were adopted May 6, 1854. In the course of time the 52 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS total number of adult signers grew to more than 500. The by-laws provided that any person of good moral character might become a mem- ber of the colony by transferring to the trustees thereof all his real and personal property and subscribing to the by-laws. On the withdrawal or discontinuance of membership a person was entitled to no compensa- tion for any services or labor performed while a member. The trustees might, however, at their option, give to such person whatever they MONUMENT TO BISHOP HILL SOLDIERS deemed right and proper. Any member guilty of disturbing the peace and harmony of the colony by vicious and wicked conduct or by preach- ing and disseminating doctrines of religious belief contrary to the doc- trines of the Bible as generally understood and believed by the colonists might be expelled. The by-laws further stated that it was the duty of the trustees to regulate and direct the various industrial pursuits and business of the col- ony in person or by such agents or foremen as they might see fit to ap- point from time to time and to require such agents or foremen to account to them in such manner as they should deem proper. Annually on the SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 53 second Monday of January a meeting of the adult members was to take place, when the trustees were required to make a complete report of the affairs of the colony for the past year. It was further provided that the property and industries and the pro- ceeds thereof belonging to the colony should constitute a common fund from which the trustees were required to provide for the subsistence, comfort and reasonable wants of every member of the colony ; for the support of the aged and infirm ; for the care and cure of the sick, and the burial of the dead ; and for the proper education of the children and the transaction of all business necessary to the prosperity of the colony. At the death of Erik Jansson the colony was in debt to the extent of $8,000 and affairs were not in the best shape, but after its organiza- tion under the charter the colony grew more prosperous and continually increased its property. More land was purchased and paid for, new buildings were erected and various improvements were made. The colonists did much to build up the town of Galva, which was laid out by J. M. and W. L. Wiley in 1854. In the first place they graded a portion of the roadbed of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad which passed through the new town. Then they bought fifty town lots and built the first house and dug the first well there. They also erected a brick warehouse and used the new railroad in marketing their surplus products. For a short time they published a Swedish weekly newspaper in the town. One of the trustees, Olof Johnson, had much to do with the affairs of the colony at Galva and was given the privilege of naming it. He named it Gefle, from a Swedish seaport, the name being subse- quently corrupted into the present Anglicized form. At a meeting of the trustees August 16, 1854, Olof Johnson, Jonas Olson and Jonas Ericson were appointed general agents and were author- ized to buy, sell and convey real estate and all kinds of property and to sign any instrument in writing. The following January the trustees made their first report, stating that the colony owned 8,028 acres of land, 50 town lots in Galva, ten shares in the Central Military Tract Railway, 586 head of cattle, 109 horses and mules, 1,000 hogs and other assets such as wheat, flax, broom-corn, provisions and general merchandise. DECADENCE OF THE COLONY. The colony soon entered upon business ventures which proved dis- astrous in the panic of 1857. The need of funds having become press- ing, the trustees at a meeting December 30, 1857, empowered Olof John- son to procure a loan for the colony of $50,000 or upwards, on real estate security. In 1858 the sum of $40,000 was borrowed of Alex- ander Studwell, of New York City, and a mortgage executed for the same. The business reversals which hit the colony produced strife and discord. The old-time religious ardor, which had caused the early col- onists to submit without murmur to many hardships, had abated. The 54 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS principle of celibacy held by the Shakers was introduced at one time, while connubial abstinence on the part of the married was propounded, to the chagrin of many and causing the departure of several from the colony. Contact with the outside world revealed the possibilities of individual profit from individual labor. The rising generation was not swayed by the power of religious enthusiasm such as had actuated their parents in the days of persecution and material hardships. During the closing years of the colony two factions developed the liberals, led by Olof Johnson and others, and the conservatives, led by Jonas Olson and others. This was shown in the matter of education for the children. The conservatives were of the opinion that only so much schooling should be given as was required by law in order to obtain a share of the school fund. When the proposition of building a brick schoolhouse was being considered the liberal side succeeded in having a plan drawn for a school building of two stories. The work was begun and the walls of the first story were almost completed when a bolt of lightning struck one corner and turned the scale in favor of the con- servatives. DISSOLUTION OF THE COLONY. As a result of factions, discontent, and disappointment with the management of the financial affairs, a division of the property was finally decided upon. Proceedings were instituted on February 14, 1860, looking to a final distribution of the property after the corporate debts and obliga- tions had been discharged. The property was divided into two large subdivisions, the Olson party representing 265 shares and the Johnson party 150. The subdivi- sion was made in a general meeting of the members. A full share ap- pears to have consisted of about twenty-t\vo acres of land, the number varying according to value. There was also a timber lot of nearly two acres, one town lot, and an equal share in all barns, buildings, domestic animals, farming implements and domestic utensils. The smallest frac- tional share in the realty was about eight acres. Committees were appointed to apportion the real and personal prop- erty. A surveyor surveyed and allotted to each individual member the share of his or her real estate by metes and bounds. All the colony lands were then platted by authority of the county surveyor, accord- ing to the surveys made and the plates recorded in the county recorder's office. In the case of a family the property which fell to its members was deeded to its head. The real estate subject to distribution consisted of 10,857 acres, while the personal property was of considerable value. The members were not to receive deeds to their lands until the debts were paid or until the individual shareholders had paid their own pro- portion. In 1860 the debts of the colony amounted to about $112,000. In the spring of 1861 the Johnson party perfected the individualization of its property. In the same year the Olson party was subdivided into SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 55 three subdivisions, headed respectively by Jonas Olson, Olof Stoneberg and Martin Johnson. Later these subdivisions also effected a complete individualization. In August, 1865, the trustees made an assessment of $200 per share to be applied on the payment of debts. Deeds were made out and left in escrow for the members who should pay their assessments. But the response was not satisfactory. A second assessment was levied in March, 1868, account being taken of the amount each member had paid on the first assessment. But believing that the majority of the members were unable to pay their respective assessments, the trustees thought it advisable to find a capitalist who would advance moneys or assume lia- bilities for such members. The trustees secured Elias Greenbaum of Chicago to perform this service. The trustees claimed that all of the debts might have been paid by the autumn of 1868 if this plan had been followed by all. THE COLONY CASE IN COURT. In July, 1868, a bill of complaint was filed in the Henry County Circuit Court by six colonists as complainants, with the Bishop Hill colony and its seven trustees as defendants. Because of this lawsuit thousands of dollars were spent in paying the attorneys in the case, while the special master in chancery, W. H. Gest, of Rock Island, alone received $9,000 in fees for his services in the case. In 1879 the case was ended by an agreement between the attorneys concerned. The year last named many tracts were sold by the special master in chancery. Among the lands sold was that of John Root, which had been bought for the benefit of C. C. Bonney, who was one of the com- plainants' attorneys in the colony suit. A writ of assistance having been granted, directing the sheriff to put the petitioner, Lyman M. Payne, acting for Bonney, in possession of the land, Root appealed the case to the Appellate court, where the judgment of the lower court was reversed. Payne carried the case to the Supreme court, w r here the judgment of the Appellate court was affirmed in 1887. The law had thus been deter- mined in cases of this kind. The original Bishop Hill case was then abandoned and was omitted from the docket of the Henry County Cir- cuit Court for the February term, 1888. The legal troubles which had dogged the colonists after the individualization of the property were thus at an end. NEW RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES. With the change in the economic life which accompanied the dis- solution of the colony came a change in the religious life. Some, em- bittered by the life in the colony, became indifferent to religion. Others became affiliated with other movements. Thus a Methodist organization was formed in 1864, in a living room in the Colony church building, a hall was secured temporarily, and a church was erected in 1868. Andrew 56 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Berglund and Olof Stoneberg became local preacbers in this denomina- tion. Today the Methodist is the only active church organization in the community. In 1870 the Seventh Day Adventists effected an organ- ization and took possession of the colony church. Jonas Olson became allied with this sect, and he and another colonist, Olof Osberg, served as its ministers until the infirmities of old age overtook them. A society of the Mission Friends existed at one time, but its church edifice was sold some years ago. CIVIL WAR SERVICE. When the Civil War broke out a company of men at Bishop Hill had been drilling for some time under the command of Eric Forsse, formerly of the Swedish Army. The Bishop Hill Company ultimately became a large part of Company D, of the Fifty-seventh Regiment, Illi- nois Volunteer Infantry, which was mustered in Dec. 26, 1861. Eric Forsse was the first captain of the company, was then promoted major, but resigned after the fall of Atlanta in 1864. He subsequently went west and became one of the founders of Falun, Kansas. The next captain was Eric Johnson, the son of the founder of the colony, who was promoted to this position from a lieutenancy, but resigned in 1862 and was succeeded by Peter M. Wickstrum. One of the original sec- ond lieutenants was Eric Bergland, son of Andrew Berglund. He was promoted first lieutenant in 1862. In the autumn of 1864 ne received an appointment as cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, entering July i, 1865. Four years later he was graduated at the head of his class, having the further distinction of being the first Swede to be admitted to West Point. Commissioned second lieutenant in the army, he was successively promoted first lieutenant 18/2, captain '84, and major '95. Retiring in 1896, he has since resided at Baltimore. In July, 1862, Company D took part in a competitive drill for a beautiful silk flag offered by the colonel of the Fifty-seventh regiment to the best drilled company in the regiment. Company D was com- manded by Lieutenant Eric Bergland. This company won the flag as the result of this competition, a German company standing second. RECENT ANNIVERSARIES. The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Bishop Hill colony was celebrated on September 23 and 24, 1896. A granite monument consisting of a single large shaft was then unveiled. The address of welcome was given by Rev. Axel Gabrielson, the then pastor of the M. E. church at Bishop Hill, and the response was by John Root of Galva. Addresses were given by Capt. Eric Johnson, who then resided at League City, Texas, and by Jonas W. Olson of Galva. An historical sketch was given by Philip J. Stoneberg of Bishop Hill. Songs were sung by a mixed chorus and by a quartet. In the Steeple building two SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 57 rooms were devoted to relics. A considerable number of the old col- onists were still living, among them two of the trustees, Jonas Olson and Swan Swanson. Ever since 1896 annual reunions have been cel- ebrated. The seventieth anniversary of the founding of the colony was cele- brated Sept. 23, 1916. This proved to be the best attended of any of the reunions so far. It was estimated that between three thousand and four thousand persons were in attendance. John Root of Galva, the president of the Bishop Hill Old Settlers' Association, presided. At the forenoon service an address of welcome was given by Philip J. Stone- berg and a response by Capt. Eric Johnson of Clearwater, Calif. At noon the crowd was reinforced by the arrival of 126 persons from Chi- cago, who had journeyed to Galva that morning in a special train char- tered by the Swedish California Club. The first address of the afternoon was by Henry S. Henschen of Chicago, whose grandfather, Judge Hen- schen, befriended the Janssonists in Sweden by issuing a writ of man- damus whereby they were able to secure emigration passports. Capt. Eric Johnson was the next speaker. Edwin A. Olson of Chicago, whose parents were colonists, spoke and was followed by Congressman Edward J. King of Galesburg. The musical numbers were by a mixed double quartet which rendered Swedish songs ; Jacobson's Orchestra of Galva, which rendered the instrumental selections, while Mrs. Florence Chaiser- Hendricks of Chicago, whose father was a colonist, sang several solos. Casten's band of 40 boys from Cambridge played during the day, while the Galva band accompanied the Chicago delegation from Galva and played at the noon hour. There was a large collection of relics on exhibition at the Colony church. Here could be seen letters by Erik Jansson and a part of his autobiography in his own handwriting, letters written by Jonas Olson in Sweden, a contract between the captain of a vessel and a party of Jans- sonists made in 1850, Jansson's hymn-book, original edition, 1846, re- vised edition, 1857; Jansson's Catechism, 1846; English-Swedish word- book, 1846. There was also a number of copper utensils and a variety of tools and implements, baskets, lanterns, many of which were made by the colonists. There was also colony paper money on exhibition and several pieces of Swedish plate money. The prize silk flag won by Company D, 57th Regiment, was shown ; also the hall clock from which the clock in the Steeple building was modeled. The large collection of portraits of colonists painted by the late Olof Krans of Altona, him- self a colonist, had been hung from the walls of the church. His paint- ings of industrial scenes in the colony, buildings, etc., hung on the walls of a room on the first floor near the entrance. A few of the original colonists of 1846 still survive. When the last of them shall be gone the memory of the Bishop Hill colonists will still be cherished by their descendants and by all who take an interest in the early Swedish pioneers of Illinois. 58 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS PROMINENT DESCENDANTS OF BISHOP HILL COLONISTS. JONAS W. OLSON was born in Soderala parish, Sweden, June 30, 1843. H G was a son f Olof Olson, who arrived in New York in 1845 as the agent of the Janssonists, sent here to secure a location for the pro- posed colony, which materialized in the Bishop Hill settlement. Jonas was brought to this country by his aunt some time after the emigration of his parents. He was soon orphaned and left alone except for his aunt, who had married Peter Dahlgren and was residing in Galesburg. Being obliged to provide for his own support after having been given some schooling, he learned the shoemaker's trade at Lafayette, and earned funds that enabled him to continue his education in the Galva high school. When his money gave out he returned to his trade, and so worked and studied alternately for some time. Later he devoted his spare time, when not plying his trade, to the study of law, and in 1869 he passed the required examination for admis- sion to the bar. In 1870 he was elected a representative from Rock Island and Henry counties in the twenty-seventh general assembly. A short time before his election a large number of Swedish immigrants working on the Rock Island & Peoria Railroad had been swindled out of their wages through the insolvency of the contractors. To remedy such evils as this one Mr. Olson procured the passage of a law, of which he was the author, giving to laborers who work for railway contractors or subcontractors, a lien upon all property of the railroad corporation to secure their wages. In 1880 and again in 1884 Jonas Olson was the democratic candidate for the office of state's attorney in Henry county, but could not over- come the strong republican vote. He was postmaster at Galva during Cleveland's first and second administrations. At the end of his second term as postmaster he was nominated by the democratic party of his district as its candidate for rep- resentative in congress, but suffered defeat. He was married to Miss Carrie Matteson in 1869. In 1912 his lower limbs were paralyzed, rendering him a helpless invalid. But his wife and three daughters have cared for him most nobly during his years of affliction. JOHN ROOT was born at Bishop Hill, 111., Oct. 25, 1849. His father, John Root, came to this country from Sweden and served in the Mexican war. He later reached Bishop Hill, where he married a cousin of Eric Janson. The father died in the early 5o's in Chicago, while the mother lived until 1905. The son spent his boyhood and youth in the Bishop Hill colony When the colony was dissolved he began farming near Bishop Hill. He established his title to his land in the supreme court of Illinois, after the SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 59 financial difficulties of the colony had caused holders of colony lands con- siderable expense and trouble in securing their lands. In 1872 he became a student at Knox College and he later studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1880. In the meantime he taught a country school during the winter months for some years. In 1888-89 ne took a course in the Union College of Law, connected with the North- western University. In 1893 he removed to Galva. For a number of years he was master in chancery of Henry county. In 18/4 he was mar- ried to Miss Betsy Ogren. Capt. ERIC JOHNSON, son of the founder of the Bishop Hill colony, was born in Westmanland, Sweden, July 15, 1838. He accompanied his parents to America in 1846. Mr. Johnson grew to manhood in the colony. He received instruc- tion in the English language of Mrs. Pollock, who with her husband, accompanied the family from New York to the west, and who became his stepmother in 1850. He attended the village school in 1856 and the next year became a clerk in the colony store, remaining till 1858. He enlisted in the Union army Sept. 16, 1861, and when Company D, 57th Regiment Illinois Volunteers, was organized, largely of Bishop Hill boys, he was made lieutenant. He participated in the siege of Fort Don- elson and was promoted to be captain of his company after the battle of Shiloh. At Corinth, Miss., he was seized with illness and upon medical advice resigned from the service. In 1864-65 he was editor and publisher of the Galva Union at Galva. In 1866 he removed to Altona, where he was a clerk in a store, and in 1868 bought the Altona Mirror, which paper he issued together with the Galva Union, now renamed the Galva Republican. In 1869 he~~founded the Illinois Swede, thus publishing three news- papers simultaneously. In that year he received as partners Andrew Chaiser and C. F. Peterson, in the publication of the Illinois Swede. The name was changed to Nya Vcrldcn and when the paper was moved to Chicago in 1871 Johnson withdrew from it. This paper was afterwards consolidated with a couple of other papers under the name of Svenska Trib unen. In 1870 Capt. Johnson was nominated for representative in the state legislature, but had to withdraw, not having resided sufficiently long in the district to be eligible. He was, however, made journal clerk of the Illinois house of representatives in 1871. In 1873 he removed to White City, Kan., engaging in business, but drouth and grasshoppers played havoc with the prospects and in 1876 he came back to Illinois and began a hardware and lumber business at Nekoma. In 1879 he gathered the material for a work entitled "Svenskarne i Illinois," which was published by him and C. F. Peterson in 1880. In the same year he began the publication in Moline of The Citizen, with J. E. Osborn as co-partner. After two years he sold his interest and held 60 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS a clerkship in the war department at Washington, D. C, until 1885. For one year he edited the Republican at Stromsburg, Neb., and then was in the newspaper business at Holdrege, Neb., until 1891. In 1888 he was elected a member of the Nebraska legislature. In 1891 he was chosen chief clerk of the house, and was unanimously re-elected in 1893. The next year he moved to Texas and was engaged in the land busi- ness till 1896, when he returned to Nebraska and became editor of the Wahoo Nczv Era. In 1906 he sold this paper and issued the first number of The Viking, the last number of which was published in August, 1907. He moved to California and settled at Clearwater in 1907. In 1909 he devoted a part of his time to gathering material for Ernst Skarstedt's book, "California och dess Svenska Befolkning." In January, 1913, he was chosen assistant clerk in the California legislature. In 1863 Capt. Johnson was married to Miss Mary Octavia Troil, who died in 1890. Miss Georgia A. Tillinghast in 1902 became his second wife. FACSIMILE OF ERIC JANSON'S HANDWRITING Major ERIC BERGLAND, son of Andrew Berglund, one of the preach- ers in the Bishop Hill colony, was born in Alfta parish, Helsingland, Sweden, in 1844 and accompanied his parents to Bishop Hill in 1846. He received his elementary schooling at Bishop Hill and in 1856 became an apprentice in the printing office of Svenska Rcpublikanen at Galva, taking charge of this office when S. Cronsioe, the publisher of the paper, moved his publication to Chicago. He belonged to the military company at Bishop Hill commanded by Eric Forsse, who had been a sergeant in the Swedish army, and enlisted as a volunteer in the Union army Sept. 16, 1861. He became second lieutenant in Company D, 57th Regiment Illi- nois Volunteer Infantry on Dec. 26, 1861, and first lieutenant the fol- lowing year. While still in the army he was appointed a cadet at the U. S. Mili- SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 61 tary Academy at West Point, N. Y., in the autumn of 1864, and entered in July, 1865. In the interval he was ordered to Johnson's Island, O., for duty as assistant to Captain Tardy's Corps of Engineers. He was the first native of Sweden to enter West Point. In June, 1869, he was graduated with the highest honors in a class of thirty-nine. He should have been appointed to the engineer corps upon his grad- uation in view of his high rank. But the staff was then closed by act of Congress, and he was given a place in the artillery, being commissioned second lieutenant of the Fifth Artillery and stationed at Fort Warren, Mass. ; next at Fort Trumbull, Conn., and in 1870 in the field on the Canadian boundary during the Fenian raid. In 1872 he taught in the artillery school at Fort Monroe. The engineering corps being again open for appointments, he was transferred to that branch in 1872, with the rank of first lieutenant. He was ordered to Willet's Point on Long Island, where he remained till April, 1873, when he became instructor in military engineering and math- ematics at West Point for two years. He then became assistant engineer on western surveys in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, being engaged in this work for three years. In 1878 he again became a teacher at West Point, being assistant professor of ethics and law for three years. He was promoted to the rank of captain on January 10, 1884, and to that of major Oct. 12, 1895. In addition to the services aforemen- tioned he was subsequently engineer in charge of river and harbor improvements in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. He was also in command of Company C, Battalion of Engineers, and instructor in civil engineering at the U. S. Engineer School at Willet's Point, N. Y. He was ordered to Johnstown, Pa., a week after the great flood there, in charge of a detachment and bridge train and ordered to replace by pontoon bridges those which had been swept away by the flood. In 1891 he was ordered to Baltimore as engineer of the 5th and 6th Lighthouse Districts and during four years' service built lighthouses at various points on the Atlantic seaboard. Bergland retired from active service March 31, 1896, on his own application after more than thirty years of service in the military branch of the U. S. government. Since his retirement he has resided at Balti- more. In 1878 he married Miss Lucy Scott McFarland, of Kentucky, a cousin of the wife of President Hayes. EARLY LUTHERAN PASTORS AND CHURCHES. Lars Paul Esbjorn was the first missionary from the Church of Sweden to seek out his scattered countrymen in the far West in order to minister to their spiritual wants. As the father of the present Swed- ish Lutheran church in America his title is clear. Leaving his pastorate REV. LARS PAUL ESBJORN SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 63 at the Oslattfors Iron Works in the province of Gestrikland, he came over in the summer of 1849, with a small missionary allowance from the Swedish Missionary Society. With him came his own family and a large party of other emigrants from the same locality. After a voyage fraught with hardships, including the loss of a child by death, and a difficult journey inland, Esbjorn, with his party, finally reached Andover, where they located. In his isolated position, antagonized by the Janssonists on the one side and Jonas Hedstrom and his zealous new converts to Methodism on the other, Esbjorn at first turned to the American Board of Home Mis- sions (Congregational) for aid. This was granted on certain conditions. He was to be a member of the Central Association and responsible to that body, and the field assigned to him embraced Andover and Gales- burg, with 1 80 and 100 Swedes in the respective settlements at that time. Esbjorn was to labor as a Lutheran missionary, no condition of mem- bership in the Congregational church being imposed. He was granted the sum of $300 for work in Galesburg for the twelve months of 1850. Esbjorn soon extended his work also to Swedona, then Berlin, and Rock Island. In February, 1850, he was able to report that the people in Galesburg had begun to build a Swedish Lutheran meeting-bouse, with a fund of $550 already subscribed. He complained, however, of the gen- eral poverty among his people, causing them so great worry over the question of earning a livelihood that their minds were not open to the truth of the gospel. He also touched on the exodus of goldseekers to California, a movement causing such a stir that few took time to think of their spiritual welfare. In the early part of March, Esbjorn was able to report an average attendance at services as follows : Andover, 70 ; Galesburg, 80 ; Rock Island, 30; Berlin, 12; also that a temperance society of forty-three mem- bers had been formed at Andover. On March 18, Esbjorn organized the Swedish Lutheran Church of Andover, the first of its kind in Illinois and the second in the United States. The meeting took place in the home of Mrs. Anna Lovisa Gustafson, otherwise known as "Captain Mix's Place." The first mem- bers were ten in number, viz.: Esbjorn and his wife, Jan Anderson, Mats Ersson, O. Nordin, Sam. Jansson, And. Pet. Larsson, Mrs. Jansson, Christina at Knapp's, and Stina Hellgren. The names are given as jotted down on a slip of paper. Esbjorn did not register them in his regular church record book for fear of the charge that he was here to retain the emigrants as members of the Swedish State Church, a thing resented by many newcomers of free church tendencies. On March 23, there was an accession of more than thirty members, and at the end of the year the church numbered forty-six members, with an average of fifty to sixty at divine services. A number of immigrants had settled in Moline, first among whom were Olaus Bengtson, who came from Sweden in 1847 and located on a EARLY SWEDISH LUTHERAN CHURCHES, INCLUDING IMMAXUEL. CHICAGO (upper right), AND ANDOVER CHURCH (below). SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 65 farm near Rock River, and Carl Johanson, a tailor, who came there from Andover the following year. They were soon joined by many of their countrymen, including Sven Jacobson, Carl Peter Anderson, Gustaf John- son, Eric Forsse, Jonas Westberg, M. P. Peterson, Peter Soderstrom, Sven J. Johnson, who for thirteen years ran a ferry between Rock Island and Davenport, and Abraham Anderson of Gnarp, Helsingland, who, after a few years willed to the local Swedish Lutheran church a house and lot to be used as a parsonage. Eric Forsse served in the Fifty-seventh Illinois in the Civil War, and rose to the rank of major. In 1850 came Jon Olsson, from Stenbo, Helsingland, a man reputed wealthy, and whose son Olof Stenberg, later known as Stoneberg, became one of the leading men in Bishop Hill. With Olsson in Moline lived Per Anderson from Hassela, and Per Berg from Hog, Helsingland, both of whom went to Minnesota in 1851, and there founded the Chisago Lake settlement. After preaching repeatedly to his countrymen in Moline, Esbjorn founded a church there in 1850, the first Swedish organization in the com- munity, known today as the First Swedish Lutheran Church. The congre- gation was organized in the home of Carl Johanson, the second Swedish settler, where divine services had been conducted by Esbjorn. Shortly after, Jonas Hedstrom began to hold meetings in the home of Olaus Bengtson, the first settler, and as a result a Swedish Methodist Episcopal church was founded late in the same year or early in 1851. Soon the question of a church building arose. The members were all poor settlers, unable to meet the cost without aid. After the manner of the early missionaries the pastor was obliged to start out on a soliciting tour. In April, 1851, he left for an extended trip to the East, visiting Columbus, O., New York, Boston, and other points, to solicit aid from brother Lutherans toward the erection of churches in the Swedish settle- ments served by him. In Boston he was fortunate to meet Jenny Lincl, then on her American tour, and received from the noted Swedish singer a donation of $1,500. This was not the first time the devout young artist acted as the angel of her Christian fellow countrymen, she having already donated an equal amount to the building fund of the Ansgarius Church of Chicago. In eleven weeks Esbjorn raised a total of $2,200, which, after his return, was divided between Andover and Moline, two or three hundred dollars being also appropriated to the church in New Sweden, Iowa. In Galesburg Swedish newcomers had begun to locate in the middle forties. As far as known the only Swedes living there in 1847 were: John Youngberg and family, who had moved in from Bishop Hill ; Nels Hedstrom, a tailor by trade; Anders Thorsell from Djurby, \ r estmanland, who came over with a party of Janssonists in 1846, but did not join their colony ; a family by the name of Modin ; Kristina Muhr, a widow, and Olof Nelson, a shoemaker. Thorsell plied the same trade. No great number was added prior to 1854. After laboring among them for about a year, Esbjorn in 1851 gathered a small flock and organized it into REV. TUVE NILSSOX HASSELQUIST. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 67 a congregation, which exists today as the First Swedish Lutheran church of Galesburg. Esbjorn also extended his missionary work to Knoxville, Princeton, Burlington, and New Sweden. A church was organized by him at Knox- ville in 1853, and at Princeton the following year. Of Esbjorn's work as a pioneer missionary during these years Dr. Eric Norelius. the historian of the Swedish Lutheran Church in America, writes from personal observation: "He stood like a father among his fellow countrymen in dispersion, particularly those in Illinois and Iowa. He was tireless in traveling about among them, preaching the Word of God, administering the sacraments, and giving advice, aid and comfort to them in every way possible." Esbjorn soon realized that were the Lutheran churches founded by him to survive and grow, more pastors and a common organization was needed. He had found co-operation with the American Congregational- ists unsatisfactory, even on the liberal basis agreed upon. When a num- ber of American Lutheran churches organized the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Northern Illinois, at a meeting in Cedarville, Stephenson county, 111., in September, 1851, he joined the other seven Lutheran pastors in that organization and entered his pastoral charges as members of the Synod. It was not without some hesitancy that he took this step, knowing that some of the brethren wavered in their allegiance to the Lutheran con- fession. But there was no other Lutheran organization in these parts, and when he joined it was in the hope of greater doctrinal stability in the future and with the reservation that he and his congregations were to abide by the pure and unaltered confession of the Lutheran church, a right never to be denied them by the synod. The first step taken by Esbjorn to secure more laborers in the new field was to issue a call to Pastor Tuve Nilsson Hasselquist of the diocese of Lund, Sweden. While waiting for assistants from the home church he looked about for young men who might be trained up as co-laborers. On his trip to the East in 1851 he took with him the aforesaid Norelius, then a young man, and placed him in the Capital University of Columbus, Ohio, to be educated for the ministry. In the summer of 1852 Hasselquist arrived and took charge of the Galesburg church. With his coming better times dawned for the strug- gling but rapidly growing churches, now constituting entirely too extensive a pastorate for one man. Hasselquist was gifted and strong, qualities fitting him well for the new field. In addition to his work in Galesburg. he visited the new Swedish communities springing up on every hand, organizing churches wherever the field was ripe. Early in 1853 he visited Chicago, where Swedish immigrants now be- gan to arrive by the hundreds and thousands, and organized the Im- manuel Swedish Lutheran church in that city. This was a most impor- tant point, where a capable man ought to be stationed. He turned to his old friend. Peter Fjellstedt, in Sweden, for aid, and Pastor Erland Carls- gy THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS son of the Vexio diocese was found willing to come. He arrived in 1853 and remained in charge of that church for nearly twenty-two years. Carlsson was energetic and zealous, and in the next few years he visited surrounding settlements and organized numerous churches, extending his missionary journeys to Minnesota and other states. The need of teachers grew apace. In 1854 and 1855 three young men who had studied in Sweden, and two of whom had prepared further in American schools, were ordained to the ministry in the Synod of Northern Illinois. These were P. A. Cederstam, Eric Norelius and A. An- dreen, the last named heing stationed in Rockford, while the other two took up work outside of the state. New calls were sent across the waters, in response to which, in 1856, two gifted clergymen came over O. C. T. Andren, from the diocese of Lund, and Jonas Swensson, from that of Vexio. The former took charge of the Moline church, and the latter also labored successfully in this state after having served the Sugar Grove- Jamestown field for a time. In the parochial reports published in the minutes of the Synod of Northern Illinois Esbjorn is credited with the charge of four churches till 1853, when Hasselquist had four, Carlsson two, and Esbjorn one. The total number of communicants under their charge was 541, distributed as follows: Esbjorn 210, Hasselquist 191, Carlsson 140. Hasselquist had received 165 new members and Esbjorn 55. The parochial report for 1854 showed 280 communicant members in the Andover church, new accessions, 62 ; 270, with 1 1 new members, in the three churches in Has- selquist's charge, and in Carlsson's three congregations 230, with an ac- cession of 117. In 1855 Esbjorn reported: i church, 358 members, 88 received ; Hasselquist : 3 churches, 290 members, 34 received ; Carlsson : 3 churches, 396 members, 166 received. Two Minnesota churches of the synod reported a membership of 300 and 307 respectively. These figures will serve to show the rapid increase in the new churches planted here, and. by inference, the rapid growth of the Swedish settlements with the constantly rising flood-tide of Swedish immigration from 1853 on. Norwegian churches had joined the synod as well, and the Scandi- navian members constituted two conferences in Illinois, the Mississippi Conference (Swedish) and the Chicago Conference (Norwegian), the Minnesota Conference being formed in 1858. These heM, alternately, separate and joint meetings. The Scandinavians soon grew dissatisfied with their churchly con- nection, the synod embracing a number of men with loose conceptions of Lutheranism. With increasing strength and influence, they eventually brought about a resolution imposing on all members of the synod strict adherence to the Augsburg Confession. But in the course of years a number of new Lutherans, so-called, joined, men who discarded all con- fessional books and would remove all strictures on individual liberty of teaching. When the Scandinavian pastors finally discovered that the SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 69 synod of which they constituted half the membership would not adhere to the Lutheran confession, despite its own resolution to that effect, the unavoidable breach took place, brought on partly by disagreement over the administration of the funds for the Scandinavian chair at the synod's theological seminary at Springfield and the incompatible position in which its occupant, Prof. Esbjorn, was placed. A complete secession from the Synod of Northern Illinois occurred and in 1860 the Swedish and Nor- wegian pastors and lay delegates met in the Jefferson Prairie church, near Clinton, Wis., and organized a new all Scandinavian church body, the Augustana Synod, a direct outgrowth of the Illinois churches. The situ- ation has been briefly described by Dr. Xorelius from whom we quote in part: "The directors of the institution could not tolerate the influence of Esbjorn's theological instruction on the Scandinavian students, yet they were loath to pronounce against it, as that would have too plainly betrayed objection to the purpose of the Scandinavian professorship. They con- sequently burdened him with the duty of teaching a number of subjects foreign to his department and interfering with the exercise of his proper calling. The Scandinavian members complained, and better conditions were promised, but matters grew worse instead. Finally the Scandinavian students at the Illinois State University the Lutheran Seminary was so styled and their teachers were forbidden to hold communion services in their own language. In consequence of all this, .Prof. KsbjY.m was constrained to resign his position as Scandinavian professor at the sem- inary, being no longer able to exercise his duties as professor of theology. This step created consternation among the American members of the synod, who looked upon it as an outright rebellion, denouncing the action in the sharpest terms as unconstitutional and unchristian. When the Scandinavians met in joint extra conference at Chicago, April 23-28, 1860, their most influential men in the synod and the institution 'appeared, partly to lay charges against Esbjorn, partly to exonerate themselves, and further to stave off the threatened withdrawal of the Scandinavian churches from the synod. Prof. Esbjorn submitted his report on all that had transpired at Springfield, giving his reasons for his resignation and personal with- drawal from the synod. After having listened for almost an entire day to the charges and innuendos against the Scandinavian professor offered by the American brethren and to the artificial justification of their acts, the joint conference unanimously endorsed Esbjorn's action and thanked him for it. Its next action was a unanimous resolution of secession taking immediate effect, followed by a decision to meet June 5 to organize an independent synod and establish a separate theological seminary. This decisive action formed an epoch in the history of the Scandi- navian Lutherans. They had passed through a period of trial which taught them the value of a pure and firm confession. They had learnt the impracticability of co-operating on a unionistic platform with com- 70 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS munions holding different religious views, and now rejoiced in the oppor- tunity to begin a new epoch of activity, untrammeled by brethren in the faith who were Lutherans in name only." RELATIONS WITH AMERICAN LUTHERANS. THE SCANDINAVIAN PROFESSORSHIP AND EARLY EDUCATIONAL WORK. Love of learning is a characteristic of the Swedish people. The very excellent and efficient system of public education in Sweden is too well known to require discussion. So likewise is the fact that illiteracy is al- most unheard of among Swedish immigrants who enter our American ports. The institutions of learning which have sprung into existence in the Augustana Synod within its first half century prove further that the Swedish immigrants who have become American citizens have abated nothing in their appreciation of sound culture. And yet for all this it was not their general appreciation of culture which led to the establish- ment of the first institutions of learning. More deep-seated even than their regard for learning was their veneration of God and the love of the Lutheran faith with which these immigrants were inspired. Thrown into the bewildering novelties of a new and cosmopolitan country, confronted by the relentless struggle for existence, and surrounded by influences which made for the undermining of their faith, these immigrants were chiefly concerned about their religion ; they were anxious to take measures by which the distinctive elements of their Christian faith might be safe- guarded and perpetuated for themselves and their children. They were Lutherans ; they lived in scattered communities most of them in the Upper Mississippi Valley; they spoke as yet chiefly or exclusively the Swedish language, and they had but few pastors or other spiritual leaders. They therefore felt the need of communion with others of the same faith; and so, as early as 1851, we find them beginning to affiliate with the Evan- gelical Lutheran Synod of Northern Illinois. 1 As an adequate supply of pastors for these pioneer congregations could not be obtained from the mother country, the idea was conceived of establishing a Scandinavian professorship in the so-called Illinois State University at Springfield. This was a college and seminary owned and controlled jointly by the Synod of Northern Illinois and the Synod of Illinois. It has been stated that the first step toward the establishment of such a professorship was taken by the Chicago and Mississippi Conference at its meeting in Waverly, LaSalle county, Oct. 2, 1855. The minutes 2 show no record of such an action, and the report made to the Synod three days later by its committee on the minutes of the Chicago and Mississippi Conference contains only this reference to the subject of educational work: 1 I. M. Anderson in "The Augustana Synod, 1860-1910." 2 As printed among other old documents in Tidskrift, 1899. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 71 "In view of the great want of ministers among our Swedish and Norwegian churches, and the time which must necessarily expire before any can be fully prepared at our University; therefore, "Resolved, That we bring before Synod for its consideration the sub- ject of sending one of our brethren to Sweden and Norway for the pur- pose of interesting our brethren in the faith there in our University, and in the upbuilding and general welfare of our Scandinavian churches." The Synod "deemed it of utmost importance that there should be established in our University at Springfield a professorship of the Scan- dinavian languages" and appointed the Rev. L. P. Esbjorn, and in case he should find it impossible to accept, the Rev. T. N. Hasselquist, to collect funds in America and Europe for the accomplishment of this object. In addition to the collection of funds for the endowment of the proposed chair, the agent "was desired to make efforts to obtain a number of faithful and devoted ministers in Europe to occupy important fields of usefulness in this country, and to induce pious students, who may have enjoyed some advantages of education, to come to this country and com- plete their studies in our University here, and thus be qualified for the work of the ministry among us." 1 The Synod elected Esbjcrn on the board of trustees for the University for a term of four years, but there were many more preliminaries to be gone through before the professor- ship was actually established. An extra session was held at Geneva, May 8 and 9, the following year, principally to consider matters relating to the Scandinavian pro- fessorship to be. President S. W. Harkey reported that Esbjorn in the two and one-half months devoted to the work had obtained in all, up to that time, subscriptions to the amount of $2,147.50, of which $878 had been paid. His trip abroad was postponed for one year by reason of "the present state of Europe." It was resolved that the new professor- ship should be a theological one, and, as the object contemplated was to qualify young men for the Gospel ministry among the Scandinavian brethren, such professor was also to give instruction in the Scandinavian languages and literature, while required, under the direction of the board of trustees, to render assistance in other branches of learning. The Synod reserved the right of nominating the incumbent of the chair, pro- viding always that such nomination be in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the Scandinavians represented in the Synod, the Swedes and Norwegians to have equal rights in all things pertaining to the pro- fessorship. The moneys collected were to be turned over to the treas- urer of the University for safe investment, the interest only to be used for the support of the Scandinavian chair. Another point, that of the doctrinal basis of teaching, was settled according to the expressed desire of the Scandinavian brethren, by a resolution stipulating that the Scan- dinavian professor be required solemnly to promise to teach according to the Word of God and the Augsburg Confession, before he should be 1 Minutes of the fifth session, 1855. 72 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS installed into his office. Before this matter was definitely settled doc- trinal differences as well as financial difficulties arose which soon caused a split in the young Synod of five years and disruption in the still younger institution of learning. As to the finances, we are told that the funds confidently turned in for an endowment were eventually used up among the current funds of the institution. At the regular session at Dixon, in October, 1856, the president reported that Esbjorn had raised $2,640 in subscriptions, $1,374 being paid in cash. The action of the special session with respect to the new chair was ratified by the passage of substantially identical resolutions. At Rockford, in September, 1857, the Chicago and Mississippi Con- ference deemed the time ripe for action and proceeded, without expressed authority from the Synod, to nominate the Scandinavian professor. Esbjorn, receiving all the votes but two, was declared its candidate, and he became the choice of the Synod at its meeting in Cedarville, when, on October i, a committee consisting of Hasselquist, Carlsson, and Andrew- son reported that Rev. L. P. Esbjorn had been unanimously x nominated. The professor-elect was continued as solicitor, pending his accession to the chair. He did not enter upon his duties at Springfield until October, 1858. For almost two school years he taught there. In view of the resolution recently quoted making his chair chiefly one of theology, it seems odd to read in the annual catalogue of 1858-59: "Rev. L. P. Esbjorn, Professor of Scandinavian Languages, Chemistry, Astronomy, etc." We find in the list of alumni and students of that year : Theological department Revs. Andrew Andreen and Lewis H. Xorem, '56 ; Rev. Peter H. Peterson, '58 ; Abraham Jacobson, John Pehr- son, '59. College department Amos Johnson, '59. Preparatory depart- ment Charles Anderson, John A. Esbjorn, Joseph Esbjorn, Gustavus R. lisping, T'engt M. Halland, Christian F. Hang. Thomas S. Holloque, Isaac Jensen (Jenson?), Sven G. Larson, John Nesse (Nasse?), George Olsen, Halvor H. Strand, Olof Suneson, all Swedish or Norwegian students. Professor Esbjorn here formed a personal acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln and taught his son Robert T., who was a junior in 1858. In another part of the catalogue it is noted that Esbjorn's appointment had strengthened the theological department recently, yet in the catalogue for 1859-60 he is designated merely as professor of Scandinavian lan- guages. That year the following Scandinavian students were added : Swedes John F. O. Duvell, C. Otto Hultgren, Andrew W. Dahlsten, Andrew Lindstrom. Norwegians K. Edward Ericson, Ole Ostroem Knud Olson. It appears from the records that during Esbjorn's incumb- ency there were twenty-four Scandinavian students at the institution, the total attendance being one hundred and twenty at the end of the second year. 1 The discrepancy between this report and the minutes of the Rockford conven- tion has not heen explained. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 73 A Tatters came to a crisis in the early spring of 1860, when, on March 31, Esbjorn resigned his professorship at the Springfield institution and at once removed to Chicago, followed soon afterwards by all but two of his Scandinavian students. This move Esbjorn had contemplated for some time. As previously decided the Scandinavian conferences of the Synod (the Chicago and Mississippi and the Minnesota) held a joint meeting in the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church of Chicago, April 23-27, when the whole matter was canvassed at length. Professor Esbjonrs resignation was approved ; a committee was appointed to draft a constitution for an independent Synod, and another to draw up a con- stitution for an institution of learning to be founded and maintained by the Synod about to be formed. The date of the appointment of these com- mittees, April 27, is held by some to mark the founding of the new school, but not the new Synod, and it is so celebrated by the institution, which at its formal organization was named Augustana Seminary. This was virtually a continuation of the Scandinavian department of the Springfield institution, a fact which makes the date of actual founding difficult of determination. We have traced the beginning of the school to the found- ing of Esbjorn's professorship by resolution adopted Oct. 6, 1855, at Waverly Station, LaSalle county. If an earlier date than June 6, 1860, is to be assigned, that, or the date in October, 1858, when he began teach- ing, would seem to be the correct one. The Augustana Synod was founded on June 5, 1860, a circumstance precluding the founding of the school by the Synod prior to that date. The action taken by the Synod at its organization meeting was, to recognize the fact that Esbjorn had resigned, that the Scandinavian professorship was not thereby abolished, but had merely been transferred ; to found a new school in Chicago, and to designate and appoint Esbjorn Scandinavian and theological professor. The general impression, as conveyed by the wording of a special resolution, that Esbjorn had continued to teach his students in Chicago until the end of the school year is removed by the statement of his son that instruction did not begin again until September i of the same year. 1 LARS PAUL ESBJORN, PIONEER LUTHERAN CHURCHMAN. The American career of Lars Paul Esbjorn spanned the years from 1849 to T 63, a period into which he crowded a mass of useful work as missionary preacher, pastor, writer, educator and leader of the church of his planting. His name is written large in the annals of the settle- ment period, which embraced his principal activities. His birthplace was the parish of Delsbo, in Helsingland, Sweden, and the date of his birth Oct. 16, 1808. His parents were Esbjorn Paul- son, a country tailor, and his wife Karin Lindstrom. Orphaned in early childhood, he was taken in hand by a faithful maidservant of the house- hold, who taught him the rudiments and entered him in a school at 1 C. M. Esbjorn's Anniversary Address, 1910. 74 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Hudiksvall in 1820 after having noticed in him more than ordinary aptitude for study. After five years the boy entered the college of Gefle, taking up astronomy, higher mathematics and navigation, along- side of the prescribed course. Owing to his predilection for mathematics, he was advised to join the corps of military survey in order to earn means for further study, but he was fixed in his purpose to prepare for the ministry. His inheritance of 300 crowns, eked out with means fur- nished by his self-sacrificing foster-mother, provided the necessary funds. At the age of nineteen, his college course completed, he entered the theo- logical department of Upsala University. Having finished the four-year divinity course, he was ordained to the ministry in 1832. He served as assistant pastor of Oster-Vahla parish, Upland, for three years, and as pastor at the Oslattsfors factory and school teacher at Hille for fourteen years. About this time Esbjorn's religious convictions were deepened, and he became an earnest pietist and zealous devotionalist preacher while still a strict conformist to the church. In the early forties he became a champion of temperance and contributed by speaking, writing, and form- ing societies toward that change in the public mind which ultimately resulted in the abolition of private distilleries and the lessening of drunk- enness. The exodus of Janssonists from his native district directed Esbjorn's attention to the western land of promise, and when other emigrants, who wished to remain true to the home church, began to voice their spiritual needs and deplore the lack of Lutheran pastors, Esbjorn's heart was touched. Promised some slight financial aid from the Swedish Missionary Society, he obtained leave of absence and embarked for America in June, 1849, at the head of a party of 140 emigrants from the provinces of Gestrikland and Helsingland. We have seen how, upon locating at Andover, he organized Lutheran churches there and in adjacent settle- ments. For three years he was alone in the Lutheran field, except as the Janssonists, the Methodists, and later the Baptists sought to assist him by reducing his flocks. In 1852 he received assistance in the persons of Pastors T. N. Hasselquist and C. J. Valentine, who took charge of his churches at Galesburg and Moline, respectively. In 1856 Esbjorn transferred from the church of Andover to that of Princeton, which he served until he assumed his professorship in Spring- field and subsequently in Chicago. Esbjorn as an educator and scholar has been thus characterized by his son, Dr. C. M. Esbjorn, himself for many years occupant of the chair of Christianity and Swedish at Augus- tana College : "As he had been the chosen instrument of God in the founding of the Swedish-American Lutheran Church, so he proved the right man for the place in his capacity as our first educator. Though primarily a pastor and theologian in head and heart he had urged a reform in the divinity SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 75 courses of Sweden whereby original research in church history, especially the study of the Church fathers, would be made an added requirement, his favorite study was mathematics, and he often quoted the saying of Charles XII., 'He who knows not mathematics is but half a man.' Other studies to his particular liking were astronomy, physics and chemistry, a fact quoted in rebuttal of the charge that at Augustana College the natural sciences have been looked upon as a peril to religion and theology. That man carried the germ idea of photography in his brain simul- taneously with Daguerre; defended Laplace at a ministerial conference; proposed the founding of an observatory under the equator and corre- sponded with the government of Ecuador on the project; devised a new system of counting time ; discovered erroneous computations in the official Swedish almanac all this while maintaining a lively conviction of the operation of dynamic and spiritual agencies in the directive forces of the world and a childlike belief that 'all things give us occasion to think of the King and Lord of nature and to see in Him the very life and innermost essence of nature's works.' Furthermore, he was thoroughly versed in navigation, surveying, meteorology, music and medicine. Only botany he detested on account of its wretched Latin, for, according to Prof. D. A. Sunden, 'he was fed fat on Latin;' Once at a place in Illinois he preached in Swedish, Norwegian, English and Swedish in close succes- sion. At our evening readings in the home I often heard him read in Swedish, off-hand, some interesting English or German book. There were few branches of learning with which he was not conversant. As an instructor he possessed the ability to present any subject in a simple .and lucid manner, and he knew the art of correcting without giving offense. It is said that after his withdrawal from the Augustana Semi- nary many a year elapsed before such instruction as he gave during its first years was again imparted at the institution." Prompted by a longing for his native soil, and his disapproval of the plan to locate the school at Paxton, Esbjcrn resigned in 1863 and returned to Sweden, to his early charge at Oster-Vahla, now as rector of the parish. His appointment had been made as early as 1862, notice of which reached him in October. In this quiet spot he rounded out his career with seven years of faithful pastoral work, ending with his death July 2, 1870. Esbjorn was the author of ten published books and tracts on a variety of subjects. Esbjorn was thrice married. In the first union were born six chil- dren, including Paul and Joseph, both of whom served in the Civil War, the former dying in 1861, the latter, Joseph Osborn, promoted to a cap- taincy, living in Minneapolis ; John, connected with the Swedish railway service and living at Karlskrona ; Maria (Mrs. Schnur), deceased; in the last union the children were: Constantin Magnus Esbjorn, Ph.D., pastor of the Augustana Synod, who died in 1911 ; Carl L. Esbjorn, pro- fessor at Augustana College, and Paul Oscar Esbjorn, M. D., deceased 1908. COMMUNION SERVICE DONATED TO THE ST. AUSGARIUS CHURCH BY JENNY LIND. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 77 THE SWEDISH PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF CHICAGO. Gustaf Unonius, founder of the Swedish settlement at Pine Lake, "Wis., after having been invested with holy orders by Bishop Kemper of the Protestant Episcopal Church at the theological seminary in Nashota, Wis., visited Chicago in 1848 and preached his first Swedish sermon to his fellow countrymen there. He was preceded in 1847 . v olie Gustaf Smith, who claimed to be a Lutheran clergyman, but turned out to be an adventurer and a religious renegade and freebooter. His attempt at gathering the Swedes and Norwegians into a common fold had pro- gressed to the point of building a church, when Smith absconded with some $600 of the building funds. The Norwegian Lutherans formed a congregation among themselves in 1848, but the Swedish settlers of religious convictions were still unorganized. On the advice of Schneidau, the influential man among them, the former members of Smith's church decided to call Unonius as their pastor. They reorganized as a Scandinavian Episcopal Church, named St. Ansgarius, 1 from the first Christian missionary in Sweden. The com- mittee which drew up the constitution met March 5, 1849, m Schneidau's home, and the organization was completed in May. The members of the committee were : Polycarpus von Schneidau, Anders Larson, Pehr Ersson, J. Fr. Bjorkman, Swedes; And. B. Johnsen, Hattolf Markusen, Knut Gunderson, Norwegians. Thirty-four voting members signed the constitution at the time of organization. Pastor Unonius and bis wife were present, and their names appear in the first membership list. On the first board of trustees, with most of those mentioned, served A. S. Sheldon and John Anderson. Unonius removed to Chicago from his charge at Manitowoc, Wis., and at once began soliciting funds for an edifice. Accompanied by his faithful friend Schneidau, he visited the descendants of the Swedish colo- nists in Pennsylvania, and among them he is said to have raised more than $4,000. In the spring of 1850 building operations began at Franklin and Indiana streets on a structure 33x50, to seat about 300. Apparently all the funds were not used for building purposes, for soon Unonius and Schneidau had to start soliciting anew. Later in the year Unonius went to New York and laid his cares in the lap of Jenny Lind. who then toured this country, and received a donation of $1,500. She subsequently donated a silver communion set valued at $i,oco, which is still used by the Ansgarius Church. For the funds now available the church edifice and a comfortable rectory were completed. For nine years Unonius labored in this field. He also visited other points where Swedes were located in numbers, but founded no new 1 St. Ansgarius was to be an "Evangelical Lutheran congregation." although "affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church." Norelius. "History of the Lu- theran Congregations, etc./' T, 368. GUSTAF UNONIUS. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 79 churches. St. Ansgarius remained the sole Protestant Episcopal com- munion among the Swedish-Americans for many decades, and not until recent years was there a companion church organized in Illinois that of Galesburg. In its third year the St. .Ansgarius Church numbered 195 members, the highest point reached during the incumbency of Unonius. After his return to Sweden in 1858, the congregation dwindled down to a small flock, served by American clergymen and known to them as St. Barnabe's Mission. In 1862 Jacob Bredberg, a former Methodist preacher, succeeded to the charge. That same year the Norwegian mem- bers withdrew, but others were added. The old church, extensively remodeled in 1868, at an outlay almost equal to the original cost, was destroyed in the great fire of 1871. In the same year the foundation for the present edifice on Sedgwick street was laid, and it was opened for the first service on Christmas morning, 1872. The cost was $30,000, the Illinois diocese contributing two-thirds of the amount. GUSTAF UNONIUS, PIONEER AND PASTOR. The career of Gustaf Unonius is bound up with the Pine Lake colony and the St. Ansgarius Church, and divided in two nearly equal periods by his removal to Chicago. Unonius lays claim to our interest in two capacities, first, as the founder of the first settlement of Swedish immigrants in this country ; secondly, as the first Swedish pastor to labor among these immigrants in the West. It will be noticed that his ordina- tion was simultaneous with the beginning of Olof Gustaf Iledstrom's work as seaman's missionary in New York harbor. Gustaf Unonius was born in Helsingfors, Finland, Aug. 25, 1810, his father being an attorney at law. When Finland was lost to Sweden, the family moved across the Baltic and located in Grisslehamn, where the elder Unonius was appointed customs officer. At thirteen the son entered the Karlberg Military Academy as a cadet. He soon went to Upsala, completing his college course there in 1830 and two years later the course required for entering the civil service. He subsequently studied juris- prudence for two years, and later took up medical studies, but completed neither of these courses. After his marriage in 1841, to Charlotta Mar- gareta Ohrstromer, he decided to leave for America. He headed a party of emigrants who stopped at Milwaukee and after due investigation located at Pine Lake, near Nashota, Wis. These people were mostly of the genteel class, not of the rugged type that makes the best farmers, and at agriculture they had but scant success. When certain Protestant Episcopal missionaries started a seminary at Nashota for the training of men for pastoral work, Unonius took up studies there and after three years was ordained (1845) as Scandinavian missionary. He later served an American church at Manitowoc until 1849, when he went to Chicago. His pastoral work in the St. Ansgarius Church has been briefly recounted. For some time Unonius served as Swedish vice-consul. GUSTAF PALMQUIST. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 81 A wish entertained by him for years in 1858 prompted his return to Sweden. He would gladly have entered ihe service of the Church of Sweden, but obstacles being interposed he entered the customs service and in 1863 was made customs collector of the port of Grisslehamn, the office formerly held by his father. After twenty-five years he was retired on a pension. Both prior to his retirement and after, he served the Church of Sweden, and his orders in the Church of England he retained. This Swedish-American pioneer was claimed by death at the ripe age of ninety-two, on Oct. 14, 1902, at his old age home in Hacksta, Upland, provided by his son-in-law, Hugo Tamm, manufacturer and member of the Riksdag. In 1861-2 Unonius published his memoirs of seventeen years in the American Northwest, a valuable contribution to Swedish-American his- tory. A polemical supplement directed against the history of the Lutheran churches by Norelius (Vol. I, 1890) followed in 1896. His other literary work of consequence is a history of the origin, development and confession of Mormonism, published in 1883. THE FIRST SWEDISH BAPTIST CHURCH IN AMERICA FOUNDED AT ROCK ISLAND. Gustaf Palmquist, a former schoolmaster, came over from Sweden in the year 1851 and joined the American Baptist Church in Galesburg the following year. The Home Missionary Society soon after engaged him to carry on missionary work among the Swedish settlers in various localities. In this capacity he became instrumental in organizing at Rock Island the first Baptist church among the Swedish-Americans. It may be stated by the way that sixty years earlier, or 1790, a Baptist of Swedish birth, named John Asplund, published "The Baptist Register," a work still considered authoritative on the early history of the American Bap- tists. Palmquist, however, was the first Swedish Baptist preacher in this country. From the meager records its appears that a few members of a party of religionists known as Hedbergians, who came over in 1850, located in Rock Island and Moline. These knew Palmquist from Sweden, and he came here primarily to serve them as pastor. He found his intended flock widely dispersed, and naturally turned first to the little group still holding together in the two cities. These Hedbergians, also called Luther Readers, he soon won over to his new faith, and on Aug. 8, 1852, he baptized three adults, one of whom had been a member of the Lutheran Church of Moline. On the I3th of August 1 a congregation of six mem- bers was formally organized. These were: A. Theodor Mankee (or Mankie), A. Boberg, Fredrika Boberg, Peter Soderstrom, Karl Johanson (Charles Johnson), and Anders Norelius. Palmquist himself seems to 1 In the absence of church records the date, variously given also as Sept. 13 or 26, cannot be verified. COL. HANS MATTSON, A Western Illinois Pioneer. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 83 have retained his membership in the Galesburg church. By May, 1853, the flock numbered thirteen, including Hans Mattson, who left soon and seems to have deserted the Baptist denomination shortly afterwards. In his published memoirs Colonel Mattson forty years later refers to this church connection. As supplementing the scant records of this church, his reference may here be quoted : "Dr. and Mrs. Ober were deeply religious people and members of the Baptist Church ; and as I was now under their influence and soon came in contact with Gustaf Palmquist, the Swedish Baptist preacher, and the handful of people who formed the core of the first Swedish Baptist Church in America, I became one of their circle before spring and doubtless would have remained one of them to this day, but for the fact that circumstances over which I had no control brought me into different environments and another field of activity. The same winter Pastor Wiberg of Stockholm visited Moline, when I likewise formed his acquaintance." The occasion of Anders Wiberg's visit was when a council of delegates from American churches met at Rock Island, May 5, to give official recognition to the new church. Hans Mattson became one of the organizers of the Swedish Lutheran Church of Vasa, Minn., in 1855. A revival brought the membership lip to fifty, and that summer Fredrik Olaus Nilson, a pioneer Baptist preacher of Sweden, where the denomination was but four years older, arrived with a small party of followers, some of whom joined the Rock Island church. i With the support of the Missionary Society Palmquist served this charge until 1857, but did mission work in Iowa and Minnesota, also in Chicago and New York, during the last two or three years. ! GUSTAF PALMQUISTS GENERAL CAREER. He was a native of Smaland, where he was born in Solberga parish, May 26, 1812. In 1839 he obtained a situation as schoolmaster in Filip- stad, Vermland, and later taught at Gustaf sberg, near Stockholm. After his conversion there he began evangelistic work in the tenements and prison cells of Stockholm. In 1845, according to his own statements, he had his faith in infant baptism shaken by the study of the Bible, church history, and the writings of Luther, Martensen, Pengilly, Hinton and others. On all other doctrinal points he considered himself a sound Lutheran. When he came to Galesburg he still had in mind the forming of a pure Lutheran Church in this country, and his new views did not ripen into full conviction until the following year. While he was still wavering between the Lutheran and the Baptist faith, Esbjorn asked him to preach to his people in Galesburg, which he did, remaining over winter in charge of the Lutheran Church there. In August, 1857, Palmquist went back to Sweden. Upon leaving he gave out a statement of the number of members in the Swedish Baptist churches, including only two in Illinois: Rock Island, 45 mem- bers, and Chicago, 25. In Galesburg the 8 Swedish converts belonged to 84 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the American church. In that year, however, seven persons met and organized a Swedish church in that city. This was the fruit chiefly of Palmquist's work, as were most of the nine churches in other states. In Sweden Palmquist found a larger field, the cities of Stockholm, Orebro and Sundsvall being given into his charge as missionary fields. He also conducted private schools for the training of missionaries. After ten years of labor in Sweden, more successful than here, he passed to his reward Sept. 18, 1867. A book of "Pilgrim Songs" was compiled chiefly by him. LIFE SKETCH OF ANDERS NORELIUS. Palmquist was succeeded at Rock Island by Anders Norelius, who was among the first members of that church. He was in pastoral charge until 1858. This man's life is worth recording, embracing as it does much interesting detail. He was born July i, 1830, at Hassela, Helsingland, and emigrated at the age of twenty, in company with his brother, Eric Nore- lius, who attained great prominence in the Lutheran Church. They left home in July, 1850, with Andover as their objective point. Eric took up studies, on the advice of Pastor Esbjorn, but Anders went to work with farmers at $8 to $10 per month. In 1855 he was married to Christina Peterson, and about the same time he began his pastoral work. In 1858 he moved to Vasa, Minn., where he bought a farm and built his first home. At the outbreak of the Civil War he wished to enlist, but was dissuaded by his friend, Hans Mattson, who or- ganized a Swedish company there, yet held Norelius to be more useful, just then, at home than in the ranks, which he might join later if he chose. Removing, to Isanti county in 1862, Norelius located on a homestead and built his second home. He was elected county supervisor and served as registrator. In 1864 he finally enlisted and served until the close of the war. Upon his return home he was elected county treasurer and reflected two years after. In 1868 he resigned and after two years removed to Kiron, Iowa. When the first postoffice was opened there, Norelius was appointed postmaster and served for eighteen years. He served on the school board, part of the time as its ANDERS XOREL1US. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 85 secretary. In 18/9 he was one of the organizers of a mutual fire insurance company, whose president he was for nine years and secretary for twenty- five years, whereupon he retired from active pursuits. Norelius left the Baptist church when he ceased his pastoral services, and did not join any other church. In 1891 he joined the Populist party, became a member of its central committee, was twice nominated presidential elector and once given the congressional nomination. The pulpit of the Rock Island Church was vacant for four years from 1858 when Norelius left, except for a six months' pastorate by F. O. Nilson. Its next pastor was L. L. Frisk. Owing to neglect, consequent to lack of pastors, this first church did not perceptibly increase after the first year, the members numbering but 72 after twelve years. A period of prosperity set in about 1870, when Pastor Olof Lindh took charge. Under his care the church membership reached 200, many removals not- withstanding. When he left after six years of service there was an amicable division of the flock, the Moline members organizing their own church. The old congregation had no house of worship until 1857, when a small frame edifice was built, seating seventy persons, and remarkable but for being the edifice of the first Swedish Baptist church on American soil. The earliest Swedish Baptist church in Chicago was organized in 1853 and existed until 1864, when the members disbanded. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. The Swedish churches of the Delaware colony were the first Lutheran congregations to be established in the United States, antedating the Dutch Lutheran churches in present New York State by about twenty years. 1 Those, of the old Swedish churches of the colonial period which had survived down to the first decades of the nineteenth century finally passed into the hands of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the last, the Gloria Dei Church of Philadelphia, before the death of its last Lutheran pastor in 1831. ; But this was not to be the end of the Swedish Lutheran Church in America. Gradual assimilation with and final absorption by the Epis- copal Church was possible in the case of the dwindling churches of the East, but not for the large and vigorous Lutheran communions which sprang up thirty years later in the new West, constantly recruited with fresh material from the Lutheran fatherland. There were, however, men who had studied the later developments on the banks of the Delaware so thorongbly that they had come to believe this to be the normal course of things as between Lutheranism and Epis- copalianism. Among the immigrants of the West the one noted propa- gandist of the theory of close kindship between the Church of Sweden and the Established Church of England and its daughter, the American 'Cf. Lovgren's Church Hi?tory, augmented by M. Wahlstrom and C. W. Foss. DR. ERIC NORELIUS, HISTORIAN OF THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 87 Protestant Episcopal Church, was Gustaf Unonius. Acting on this theory, he was ardent in his efforts to gather the Swedish newcomers into the Episcopal fold, which he himself had but recently entered. In his church in Chicago he introduced the main features distinctive of divine service in the Church of Sweden, for the manifest purpose of impressing upon his audiences the alleged identity and the legitimacy of his claims. And it must be remembered that Unonius was a man of learning and capacity more than a match for many of the other pioneer pastors. Although practically alone against a number of able Lutheran clergy- men from Sweden, he maintained a sharp controversy with them for years, and competed for Lutheran membership in Chicago with measur- able success. His preaching tours through the various settlements for the purpose of gaining adherents, while not without effect at the time, nevertheless proved fruitless, inasmuch as a second church on the doc- trinal basis of the St. Ansgarius of Chicago was never founded by him. The parting shots in this fight were fired across the waters as late as the nineties, when the publication of the "History of the Swedish Lutheran Congregations and the Swedes of America," by Eric Norelius, was fol- lowed by "Supplement" (1896) to "Reminiscences of Seventeen Years in the American Northwest," published by Unonius in the early sixties. Out of a mass of charges and incriminations of a personal character from both sides must be extracted the subject matter of this controversy, the only thing which now concerns us. The fact that the Protestant Epis- copal Church has not yet abandoned its endeavor to build up Swedish- American churches in the United States with Lutheran timber on the unhistoric ground of identity of faith and doctrine prompts an inquiry into the merits of the. case from its inception in the year 1849. The original sources do not show that the Swedish colonial churches turned Protestant Episcopal by reason of doctrinal correspondence. In a letter to Jesper Swedberg of Skara, Sweden, whose diocese embraced the Swedish Church in London and those in America, Andreas Sandel, who was made dean of the churches in Pennsylvania, touches upon the relation between the Swedish churches and those of the Estab- lished Church of England in the colonies during the early part of the eighteenth century. The letter, dated June 17, 1714, which is reproduced in Swedberg's "America Illuminata" (Skara, 1732), reads in part as fol- lows : The good confidence in the English Church so often urged in the letters of Your Eminence, \ve have always endeavored to maintain. Thus we keep up a friendly, mutual intercourse. Their pastors, with whom we associate, call us brethren ; so do we style them ; our Lutheran Church they call their sister Church. Their letters to the Bishop of London relating- to the general spiritual condi- tion we are requested to sign. We also give our recommendations and testi- monials to the English priests who, after a period of service here, return to England. In the article on predestination they are of the very same faith as we. As to the Sacred Coena we differ. Upon the advice of Your Eminence in a letter to me, we do not enter into discourse with them, nor with the heretics in this country, 8 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS except as we may have especial occasion to show them their error. There are many enough here who discuss and write books one against the other, all making their appeal to statum primitive? ecclesice (the state of the primitive Church) to which each claims to stand most closely. I have often thought that if they would with like zeal and anxiety seek after spiritum primitives ecclesice (the spirit of the primi- tive Church), their Christianity would be better. But as it is, certain ones care only for forma primitives ecclesice (the form, etc.) and abandon that which is most im- portant. That which remains of their Christianity thus becomes a body without life, without faith, without charity, etc. Our Swedish people care nothing for such things, but hold fast constantly to the Evangelical doctrine. I know of none of them (the Swedes) who have gone over to them. This the English have observed with some degree of wonderment. This was the situation after half a century of English rule over the former Swedish possession. For obvious reasons the Swedish pastors were deferent to the church of the dominant race, yet they did not yield up their religious convictions. The most significant proof that there was here no merging of the two national churches is found in the fact that the Swedish congregations remained under the direct supervision of the bishop of Skara. In his writings relative to them, Jesper Swedberg signed him- self "Bishop of America." x That the surviving congregations, after existing nearly two hundred years as an integral part of the Church of Sweden, finally, when abandoned to shift for themselves, were absorbed into the Episcopal communion was not the result of a belated discovery that the two churches were confessionally one. It was purely the result of resistless outward circumstances. As early as 1851, Pastor Gustaf Unonius in a letter to Eric Norelius, then a young student, defined his position, and followed with an offer to place him in an Episcopal seminary. He wrote in part : I learnt from the divisions in the Lutheran Church here and its departure at many points from the doctrines as well as the outer organization of the Church of Sweden, that here was a question of fact, not of name. I thus found that the Protestant Episcopal Church is the one which in all things most closely corresponds to the Church of Sweden, from whose doctrine and communion I am unwilling to deviate. I found, in a word, that this church was the church in this country, and that by joining any other religious communion I would be guilty of schism. There- fore I have been duly ordained in that church, and with that church the parish of which I am pastor has been affiliated. But we have not thereby deserted the faith of our fathers. On the contrary, we are being daily convinced that the only means of maintaining that faith is found in a union with the Episcopal Church. On the plea that the Lutherans in the United States were divided, and on the basis of his own opinion that his was the church in this country and the one which most closely resembled the Church of Sweden, Unonius thus set about substituting the likeness for the original, in his work among the Lutherans of Illinois. For the fact remained that the men whose field he entered were ordained in the Church of Sweden and sent by the Church of Sweden as missionary pastors to their expatriated countrymen at the 'The title page of the work above quoted reads: "America Illum'mata, Written and Published by its Bishop, Jesper Swedberg. in the year 1732." 89 request of the latter. In the circumstances then obtaining, Unonius plainly laid himself open to the charge of proselytism among the people served by pastors from Sweden. When later the work was taken up by pastors ordained here and whose ordination the Episcopal Church did not recognize, its claims car- ried greater weight, and through his "Reminiscences" and otherwise Unonius sought to advance them after his return to Sweden. This caused President Hasselquist of the Augustana Synod, a body formed by the Swedish and Norwegian churches, to seek definite information on the attitude of the home church in the matter at issue. His letters of inquiry brought a number of replies from prominent churchmen in Sweden, all legitimizing the Swedish Lutheran churches and characterizing the efforts of the Episcopal Church as a proselyting movement. The occasion was furnished by the authorization by the Swedish Riksdag of a form of certificate of removal in which the emigrants were commended to the care of the bishops and priests of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States in the event of settling in localities where they would find no access to Swedish Evangelical Lutheran congregations. Dean P. Wieselgren replied in part as follows: I can readily realize the situation in which you Lutherans in America have been placed and appreciate the praiseworthy vigilance exercised by you, our brethren, in watching the signs of the times. 1 We have seen how the Lutherans of New Sweden were swallowed up in the past century, and this will be your fate, lest you are mind- ful of the danger. . . . May we all be one in a living faith and in the love that dwells in the heart. But so long as the Shepherd does not make one fold for all His sheep, it is meet that each church guards its own confession. The least anti- or syncretism would bring on numberless wordy wranglings. If we leave our confessions intact, there will be no need of quarreling. Bishop G. D. Bjorck gave it out as his opinion that a union of the Church of Sweden and the Protestant Episcopal Church could hardly be accomplished so long as the Twenty-ninth Article in the symbolical book of the Church of England still remains. Dr. Peter Fjellstedt, the noted exegete, seconded all that Wieselgren had written, including a reference to the existence in the Syrian Church of doubt as to the legitimacy of English orders, they having been derived from the schismatic Church of Rome (Christian Researches in Asia, by Dr. And. Buchanan, London, 1811). On this point Fjellstedt added this commentary : "I bow in deep humility to the apostolic order, but papist orders we are bound to reject, and to this very hour the Protestant Church needs to be on its guard against popish elements. The successionist idea marks a return from the spirit to the flesh, from Christ to the sons of Aaron, and it is in fact contrary to the letter and spirit of the 1 Hasselquist had pointed out that the document in question was to be used as proof of the legitimacy of the Episcopal activity among the Swedish Lutherans and that one of the purposes of the visit to Sweden of Bishop Whitehouse of Chi- cago in 1866 was to open the door for such activity among the Swedish new- comers. 90 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS New Testament. As transmitted through a chain of popes the succes- sion becomes still more unreasonable.'"' In his annual report to the Synod President Hasselquist dealt at length with this matter, whereupon the Synod resolved : "That the officers of the Synod be authorized to bring to the attention of the Church of Sweden the attempts made by the Episcopal Church at proselyting among emi- grated Swedes, as also to make the situation of our church in this country better known in the mother country." Just prior to this action Bishop Whipple of Minnesota had made this statement in his annual message : "The position of the members of the Church of Sweden in our state has long been of deep interest to myself. With a valid ministry, a reformed faith, and a liturgical service, they ought to be in communion with ourselves. For lack of their own episco- pate, as a bond of union between them, they are becoming divided and losing their distinctive character as members of the Church." He further stated that during the visit of Bishop Whitehouse to Sweden "arrange- ments were made whereby the clergy should give letters of recommenda- tion to us (the Episcopal Church) wherever they had no clergy of their own." This matter was referred to a special committee, and when one of its members came to Pastor Norelius for information these facts were pointed out to him : . 1. Most of the Lutheran pastors had not received episcopal ordina- tion, and were not a valid clergy within the meaning of the bishop's words. 2. The letters of recommendation therefore could easily be con- strued in favor of the Episcopal Church only. 3. Consequently nearly all Swedish Lutherans in the United States would automatically fall to the share of the Episcopal Church, and this without any act of union or declaration of correspondence in doctrine and polity having been passed by the two State churches concerned. The aforesaid arrangement did not work out in practice. The next official attempt at winning the Swedes over was made in 1870. Then the Joint Committee on Friendly Relations with the Church of Sweden, in existence from the year 1856, presented an elaborate plan, according to which the Church of Sweden was to appoint a bishop for the Swedish- American Lutherans, such bishop probably to be received as a member of the House of Bishops of the American Protestant Episcopal Church. Such action was said to be "justified by the first example and colonial work which the Swedes undertook in America 233 years ago, when Bishop Swedberg had charge of the Swedish colonies on the Delaware in 1637 in conjunction with the Bishop of London." l It was stated further that "The American Church does not want this action except for the glory of God and the church. But we think the Swedes in America need this action for the safety and blessing of themselves and their children." 'There are two errors here, one a matter of dates, Jesper Svvedherg, born 1653. being made bishop in 1702; the other in the matter of joint episcopal government, such cooperation being nowhere found recorded in Swedish church history. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 91 The -plan was as devoid of results as the foregoing schemes along the same lines. The underlying idea has never been abandoned, no matter how often it has collided with hard and stubborn facts. Some of the facts are these : The ordination of Unonius as an Episcopalian was described by Arch- bishop Reuterdahl as a "downfall," and upon his return to Sweden he was unable to gain entry to the clergy of the Swedish Church. On the other hand, L. P. Esbjorn was appointed to a parish in Sweden before his return. Not one Swedish clergyman in good standing in his home church trans- ferred to the American Episcopal Church, according to Norelius. 1 The one Swedish Episcopal Church in Illinois, the St. Ansgarius of Chicago, .after more than fifteen years of work confessed its weakness by appeal- ing to the Gustavus Adolphus Society of Goteborg for financial aid this at a time when there were no less than twenty self-supporting Swedish Lutheran churches in the same field. In recent years the American and English churches have renewed their overtures to the Church of Sweden, particularly in the English- Swedish Church Conference at Upsala in 1908, without any more tangible results than an exchange of courtesies. Lectures have been given in America on the Church of Sweden, and books and pamphlets have been published on the subject, manifestly with a view to establishing closer relations. After well-nigh seventy years we find the old claim of ; Gustaf Unonius reiterated in the parish paper of his oldtime church in : this form : "Who are members of this parish? All who have been properly baptized and, of course, all who have been confirmed, and have not formally removed, or been removed, from the parish. Then there is a considerable number of those who have come from Sweden, who, by virtue of their baptism and confirmation in the Church of Sweden, and as long as they have 'taken on' no new faith, are automatically, as it were, members of this parish. Indeed, it was for these and for their children this church was organized, as the old records, both in Sweden and in this country, will show."- All efforts and claims notwithstanding, the three Swedish Episcopal churches now existing in Chicago and Galesburg, backed by so remark- .able a propaganda, are not flourishing. FOUNDING OF THE SWEDISH PUBLISHING BUSINESS. In December, 1854, Pastor ' Hasselquist, of Galesburg, purchased type for a printing office which was opened in March, 1855. when the type arrived from New York. Prior to that time the New Testament and a few tracts had been published in Swedish in the United States, 1 Tidskrift, 1899, p, 45. -Quoted from The Messenger of St. Ansgarius, Oct., 1916. ULANBIT* DET GAM LA OC'll DEI ' 3TV A. HASSELQUIST'S HOUSE AND PRINTING SHOP IN GALESBURG, 18SS, WITH FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST SWEDISH NEWSPAPER. SETTLEMENT AND FOUNDATION 93 but the Galesburg office established by Hasselquist was virtually the first Swedish-American publication concern. The three Swedish Lutheran clergymen, Esbjorn, Erland Carlsson and Hasselquist, had for some time planned a newspaper to be published at Chicago by Carlsson. Owing to much work among the incoming immigrants, Carlsson did not get the enterprise under way, and it devolved upon Hasselquist to carry out the plan. The first number of the new paper, named Hcmlandct, was issued from an American news- paper office at Galesburg in January, 1855. In a previous prospectus the members of the Lutheran congregations had been asked to contribute fifty cents each over and above the subscription price, and these contri- butions were later invested in the new printing office, which thus became in a way, the property of the churches. The first typographer was N. P. Armstrong, from Karlshamn, who came to Boston early in 1854, and began composition on Hcmlandet at the end of the year. In the following summer there was added to the office force Jonas Engberg, who had come over from Bergsjo, Helsing- land, in December, 1854. He began work on No. 9 of Hcmlandct and No. i of the series of books published by Hasselquist. Engberg appears later as one of the laymen who helped to organize the Augustana Synod and as a partner in the publishing house of Engberg and Holmberg. Serving three congregations at this time, Hasselquist was assisted in his editorial work by P. A. Cederstam, a theological student, in 1854-55, and in 1856-57 by his brother-in-law, A. R. Cervin. In July, 1856, a second paper, called Det Ratta Hcmlandet, was put out. This was exclusively religious, while the former combined religion, politics and general information in its program. During the years that the publishing office remained in Galesburg (1855-58) a number of books and tracts were issued, chief among which were: "Enchiridion, Dr. M. Luther's Lilla Cateches" (1856), an accurate translation by Esbjorn: "Augsburgiska Bekannelsen," 21 articles (1857); "Luther-Boken" (1858). In 1856 the Mississippi Conference officially took a hand in the management of the concern, which remained in Hasselquist's charge for the next two years. After that it was deemed advisable to organize a publication society in order to relieve Hasselquist of the burden of personal responsibility for the publishing business of the conference. The organization took place in December, 1858, and in February of the following year Prof. Esbjorn, then in Springfield, had it chartered under the name of the Swedish Lutheran Publication Society in the United States. This society comprised all the pastors and lay delegates of the Mississippi and Minnesota conferences. Pastor Carlsson is spoken of as the chief promoter of the organization ; he also became its manager when the society transferred the publishing concern to Chicago in December, 1858. Its publishing activities fall chiefly within a later period. 94 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS One other Swedish publishing enterprise dates from the middle- fifties. In 1856 the leaders of the Bishop Hill colony fitted up a printing office in Galva and began to issue a weekly newspaper, the full title of which was Den Svenska Repiiblikancn i Norra Amcrika. The editor was S. Cronsioe, and in this same shop two well-known Swedish- Americans, Andrew Chaiser, the newspaper publisher, and Major Eric Bergland, of the U. S. Army, began their careers as printer's devils. The paper was ardently republican in politics, and in church matters as nonpartisan as might be expected from a paper dependent principally on the Janssonist colony. The first issue was dated July 4, 1856. In the next year the paper was moved to Chicago, where it was 'issued until July, 1858, under the proprietorship of Cronsioe. It died from lack of support, according to the statement of the publisher. In its later stages it appears to have deviated from its nonpartisan course in church matters, for, according to C. F. Peterson, it "succumbed in the fight with the Lutheran Church." Hemlandct, its rival, continued for more than sixty years. The need of accessories for cultural development, as well as an increased number of spiritual teachers, was accentuated at an early date. The first definite proposition for the establishment of a library is recorded in the proceedings of the Chicago and Mississippi Conference convention held at Waverly in October, 1855. With a view to accumu- lating a library for the use of the Scandinavian pastors affiliated with the Synod of Northern Illinois, the conference resolved to issue a request to authors and publishers in the Scandinavian countries and in America that they send free copies of their works or publications to a designated commissioner. The Gustavus Adolphus Society in Sweden was asked to lend its aid to the plan, and Rev. Erland Carlsson was appointed commissioner. The absence of his report in subsequent proceedings, however, would seem to warrant the conclusion that the plan failed of accomplishment. PART III THE PERIOD OF GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 1860 1893 PART III THE PERIOD OF GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT ILLINOIS SWEDES IN THE CIVIL WAR. In the year 1860 the great influx of immigrants from Sweden had but fairly begun, yet there were Swedes in every rank and station fight- ing and working for the cause of human liberty and for the Union. The Civil War marks the beginning of their general participation in public affairs. When the Swedes came to the land of the free, they were struck with the incongruity of finding half of the territory of this great republic a home for legalized slavery. To them it was well-nigh inconceivable how the fathers of the American nation, who drew up the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution, could maintain slavery as an economic institution after having declared all men free and equal. The political and religious training of the Swede from the old country fitted him for citizenship in the republic and predisposed him against the slavery system. Little wonder, then, that the Swedish newcomers almost to a man affiliated with the Republican party, formed about this time to champion the cause of freedom, and rallied to the support of Lincoln with equal loyalty at the polls in 1860 and at the recruiting stations in 1861. The Swedish-Americans, then less than 20,000 in number and mostly new arrivals from their native land, hastened to respond to Lincoln's call for defenders of the Union and enlisted in the service of their adopted country as eagerly as the most patriotic of her native-born citizens. The general census of 1860 records a total of 18,625 persons of Swedish nationality in the United States. Of these, 11,800 were living in the four states of Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. The immigration from Sweden in the next two years was 2,300. Allowing two-thirds for those four states, their combined Swedish population, males predominating, during the period of early enlistments would ap- proximate 13,500. The best estimates of Swedish enlistments in the four states gives a total of 2,250, or one-sixth of their Swedish population. Illinois, with a Swedish-born population, in 1860, of 6,470, and approxi- mately /,coo at the end of the year 1861, contributed no less than 1,300 Swedish volunteers. Of the total population in Illinois one out of every seven persons enlisted. The Swedes of Illinois, many of whom were not yet legal citizens, showed a slightly better percentage one out of every five. These facts and figures are the result, not of rough estimates, 97 98 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS but of a laborious search through nine volumes of names of Illinois vol- unteers, undertaken by the writer during the compilation of another work. 1 The great majority of Swedish volunteers enlisted for three years. Judged by the two all-Swedish companies in the Forty-third and Fifty- seventh regiments, they very generally re-enlisted as veterans. Some undoubtedly went out of the state to enlist, but probably a larger number of Swedes came from other states for the same purpose. Sympathy for a republic struggling to maintain free institutions brought many volun- teers from continental Europe. Not a few came over from Sweden to fight for the freedom of the slaves. Illinois being the state pre-eminently settled by the Swedes, many of their countrymen naturally came here before enlisting. All things considered, it would be safe to claim fifteen hundred Swedes in the Illinois regiments, the number found in the canvass of the 255,000 names in the adjutant-general's reports being subject to changes from the fact that in many cases Swedish names are too cosmo- politan to establish the nationality. Any skepticism as to the resultant higher ratio of Swedish volunteers to the Swedish population would then be disposed of by two unquestioned facts that the census and immigra- tion figures are commonly too low, and that these volunteers had not all been enumerated as residents of the state. The fighting qualities of the Swedish volunteers were tried on many a hotly contested field. Most of them had an advantage over their Amer- ican-born comrades by having received military instruction in their native country. They submitted more readily to military discipline than the American citizen soldiery and took greater pride than these in develop- ing tactical skill, order and precision in drill as well as in actual fighting. The Bishop Hill company of the Fifty-seventh Illinois Regiment proved itself the best drilled company in that regiment ; Col. Oscar Malmborg made the fifty-fifth what it was the best all-round regiment from Illi- nois, and in further proof of the claim it may be added that Company D of Col. Hans Mattson's regiment, the Third Minnesota, was admittedly the crack company of this model regiment of that state. From good soldiers naturally come able commanders. There is justice in the complaint that American history gives but scant credit to the foreign elements which rendered such substantial aid in putting down the rebellion. While the Swedes were fairly well rewarded in the way of minor promotions, it is but the plain truth to say that they earned well every advancement accorded them, and in sundry cases rendered yeoman service for which others reaped the honors. The history of the Fifty-fifth Illinois furnishes convincing proof that Col. Stuart received his ill-fated appointment as brigadier-general as the result of the fighting done under the direction of his Swedish lieutenant-colonel. Charles J. Stolbrand did duty as brigadier-general a year or two before he was given that rank, and not until he had resigned in mild protest against official ingratitude did the promotion come. Many an officer has attained similar rank for 1 History of the Swedes of Illinois, 1908 (Engberg-Holmberg Pub. Co.)- GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 99 services less brilliant than the parts played by Col. Malmborg and Captain Silfversparre on the first day at Shiloh in staying the enemy's last onslaught and saving General Grant's forces from utter rout. COMPANY C, FORTY-THIRD ILLINOIS VOLUNTEERS. Upon President Lincoln's first call for volunteers a company consist- ing exclusively of Swedish-Americans was organized in Galesburg. It was deemed supernumerary, but upon the second call it was reorganized under new command, its first captain, Leonard Holmberg, and many of the men previously enlisted having entered other regiments. At Camp Butler the company, consisting of one hundred Swedes and three Germans, elected their own officers, Dr. Hugo M. Starkloff, a German, being made captain, Olof S. Edvall first lieutenant, and Nels P. McCool second lieu- tenant. When Dr. Starkloff soon after was made regimental surgeon, Edvall succeeded to the captaincy. As a part of the Third Brigade of Gen. McClernand's Division of the Army of the Tennessee, the Forty- third fought in the two days' battle of Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), par- ticipated in the advance on Corinth, and then was sent to Bethel, Jackson, and Bolivar, Tenn. At Bolivar, Carl Arosenius, quartermaster sergeant of the Fifty-ninth Illinois, was transferred and commissioned captain of Company C. The company saw further service in the battle of Salem Cemetery, Tenn., in skirmishes around Somerville, Tenn., at the siege of Vicksburg, the occupation of Little Rock, the battle of Prairie D'Ahu and at Jenkins' Ferry. During a 3O-day furlough in December, 1863, the company secured thirty recruits, all Swedish-Americans, to fill up their depleted ranks. Those who served as subordinate officers of Company C, besides those mentioned, were: First lieutenant, John P. Andberg; second lieutenant, Nels Knutson; first sergeant, Magnus M. Holt; ser- geants, Nels Peterson, Nels Anderson. COMPANY D, FIFTY-SEVENTH ILLINOIS VOLUNTEERS. In the summer of 1860, without any thought of an early war, a number of young men in and around Bishop Hill organized a company for military drill, with Eric Forsse as their captain. When war broke out, they promptly tendered their services to the state and the nation. The company was mustered in at Camp Douglas, Chicago, and sent south, serving, like Company C, Forty-third Illinois, at Shiloh and Corinth, and later at Mitchell's Mill, Tenn., where the men were engaged for a long time in cutting down timber, in the absence of rebels, and operating a sawmill. After the expiration of the -three-year term the members of the company very generally reenlisted, and after a month's furlough they returned to the South to join Sherman's army at Chattanooga. With their regiment the Swedish boys in blue marched with the Army of the Ten- nessee in the Atlanta campaign, fighting at Resaca, taking part in the operations around Rome, Ga., and lastly joined in the initial movement of the famous "March to the Sea," finally on Dec. 21, 1864, reaching SWEDISH COMMANDERS IN THE CIVIL WAR. COL. OSCAR MALMBORG CAPT. ERIC FORSSE BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES JOHN STOLBRAND CAPT. AXEL SILFVERSPARRE CAPT. AXDREW STENBECK GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 101 Savannah, just evacuated without a fight. They had their last encounter with the Confederates at Bentonville in March, 1865. After having taken part in the grand review at Washington, the regiment was mustered out at Louisville, Ky., but retained its organization until reaching Chicago. The officers of Company C from time to time during its three years and ten months of service were : Captains, Eric Forsse, Eric Johnson, Peter M. Wickstrom ; first lieutenant, Eric Bergland ; second lieutenants, George E. Rodeen, Andrew G. Warner, Olof Anderson; sergeants, Olof Crans, Peter Wilson, Olof Olson. COL. OSGAR MALMBORG, OF THE FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS VOLUNTEERS. Oscar Malmborg, a man of military education from Sweden, was virtually the maker of the Fifty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Regiment. For reasons that can only be conjectured he has been accorded but meager credit. A search of the war records, however, reveals the fact that in point of skill and brilliancy as a tactician as well as personal valor he was the equal of other able Swedish commanders, such as Stolbrand and Silfversparre, and all the facts lead to the conclusion that there were but few, if any, braver and better fighters of any nationality in the Union army than was Col. Malmborg. Oscar Malmborg was born in Sweden in 1820 or 1821. He com- pleted a six years' course at the Karlberg Military Academy and saw eight years of active service in the Swedish army. He tendered his services to our government in the Mexican war. Denied a commission apparently because of his imperfect knowledge of English, he entered an artillery corps as a private and served until the close of the war, earning promotion to some grade above the ranks. In 1852 he located in Chicago and was connected with the immigration department of the Illinois Central railway when the Civil War broke out. He took charge of the Fifty-fifth at Camp Douglas, Chicago, as commander and drillmaster and transformed the raw recruits into a military unit which later became noted for its discipline and was reputed one of the model regiments of the volunteer army. Tac- tical knowledge was at this stage a rare acquirement among volunteer officers, and Malmborg's discipline was too rigid to suit his subordinates, especially such as had enlisted to command, not to obey, or under the erroneous impression that the campaign was to be an easy triumph. Two Methodist preachers, Haney and Presson, who had been active in raising recruits, were made captains of companies, but like most patriots, they were "willing to serve as brigadiers" or, at least, regimental officers, so when Malmborg was appointed lieutenant colonel and as such put in active command these reverend gentlemen felt grievously disappointed. They apparently exercised great influence over the rank and file, and if we are to believe "The Story of the Fifty-fifth Regiment," published years after the close of the war to air the grievances of these men and defame the character of Malmborg, the regiment must have been constantly on the verge of mutiny. And yet Col. Malmborg ridiculed for his brogue, 102 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS denounced as a tyrant, hated for his "martinet discipline," branded as un-American and pronounced unfit to command free-born citizens led this regiment through a score of battles, in which none fought better and few won greener laurels. Whatever his shortcomings, Malmborg proved himself a highly capable military leader whose achievements on the field of battle, praised by his superiors again and again, give the best answer to these charges. He was, as a matter of fact, a gentleman of culture, enjoying the respect of his associates in private life, as witnessed by his recent appointment as consular representative of Sweden and Norway at Chicago. Malmborg's mettle was tried early in the campaign. At Pittsburg Landing his regiment stood its ground when others retreated or fled, and on Gen. Grant's personal order he organized and commanded a line of some 3,000 troops early in the first day's fighting, maintaining his organ- ization throughout that day of confusion and disintegration. In this, the initial engagement of the regiment, its loss was the heaviest of any Federal regiment except the Ninth Illinois. How splendidly Malmborg acquitted himself in that desperate struggle may be inferred from the report of Col. Stuart on the day's work of his brigade, running in part as follows : "I was under great obligations to Lt. Col. Malmborg, whose military education and experience were of every importance to me. . . . He was cool, observant, discreet and brave and of infinite service to me." After the battle, Malmborg reported to the colonel a long list of names of officers and privates who had merited promotion or approbation for bravery. Among them was First Lieutenant Lucius B. Crocker, whose elaborate vilification of Col. Malmborg seven years after the latter's death was probably his most notorious achievement as a civilian. During the advance on Corinth Malmborg had charge of the strategic movements of his brigade and later of the entire division, in the matter of selecting positions and planning and building fortifications. For this work he was complimented by his superiors, including Generals Grant and Thomas. After Shiloh, Grant learnt the value of intrenchments, and Malmborg was his instructor. The complete system of intrenchments executed by his direction around the federal position at Corinth are yet to be seen in almost perfect outline. "The Fifty-fifth did its full share of digging, and the fortifications built by the regiment were the pride of Lieutenant Colonel Malmborg's heart," says Crocker, who sneeringly adds, "He was never so happy as when displaying his alleged engineering skill." Expert military writers have taken a different view, deploring the absence of intrenchments on the Shiloh battlefield, and they doubtless agreed that a few prior lessons in digging trenches might have wholly changed the aspect of that battle. Malmborg and his command shared largely in the credit for the vic- tory at Arkansas Post, after which Malmborg was again highly compli- mented by his superior officer, Col. Thomas Kilby Smith. At Vicksburg he participated in the assaults of May I9th and 22nd, being wounded both GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 103 times. Nevertheless, he was active throughout the siege, spending twenty full nights prosecuting the work allotted him by reason of his experience and capacity as a military engineer. We quote from the report of Col. Kilby Smith: "With Col. Malmborg, of the Fifty-fifth Illinois, I have been side by side in seven battles ; have stood with him literally amid heaps of slain. He is always cool, prudent, and of dauntless courage, and in the recent engagements, although wounded twice, and, by strange fatality, first in the right and next in the left eye, displayed those qualities with the ardor and cheer so necessary in a charge." At Chattanooga Malmborg played a conspicuous part. One night, commanding his brigade in the absence of his superior officer, he manned a fleet of pontoon boats in North Chickamauga Creek and, descending and crossing the Tennessee during intense darkness, captured the enemy's pickets a feat conceded to be one of the most daring exploits of the campaign. At Larkinsville the Fifty-fifth, after exacting the right to elect officers, reenlisted as veterans. All the existing field officers, Malmborg included, failed of election, the strained relations within the regiment having been aggravated as time passed. As early as the fall of 1862, steps were taken to oust Malmborg. In a letter to Governor Yates, twenty-one subordinate officers urged military incapacity, harsh discipline, and abusive treatment of subordinates against Malmborg's succession to the colonelcy about to be vacated by Stuart's promotion. The latter foiled the attempt by another letter to the governor, who replied by issuing a colonel's commission to Malmborg in December. No one could wish for higher commendation than was contained in this letter, here quoted in part : "Col. Malmborg is a strict disciplinarian and exacting officer, who de- mands from every officer the active and complete discharge of his duties. There are very few of them who do not feel pretty well contented with them- selves when they somewhere near half perform their duties; such men are not only not patted on the back by him, but they are sternly and promptly reproved by him, and are driven up and compelled to do their duty. They would like to get rid of him and have a slipshod, easy-going time of it. It is this vigilance, zeal and discipline, which has made this regiment in every regard today the best one in this army. I claim boldly for it (and it will be conceded by the commanding generals), that it is the most efficient, the best drilled, best disciplined, best behaved, cleanest, healthiest, and most soldierly regiment in this army. This perfection has not been attained, nor these qualities acquired, without great labor and care, constant and earnest vigi- lance. I have, of course, the reputation of having accomplished this, among those who know only generally that I am at the head of the regiment; they who know us more intimately are well informed of the consequence Col. Malmborg has been to me. It would be not only ungenerous, but ungrateful in me to appropriate any share of the credit and honor which so justly belongs to him, to myself. There was scarcely an officer in this regiment who, when he entered it, knew his facings; they have learned here all they know (and with some of them the stock of knowledge on hand is not burdensome even now), but by 104 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS dint of hard work and doing their work for many of the officers, we can get alon an( ] do. They ought to be grateful to Col. Malmborg for what he has done for them, but vanity, selfishness, and "that prurient ambition for fame not earned," which afflicts most men, makes them insensible to the better, nobler and more generous sentiments of their nature. I desire frankly, and truthfully, to bear witness to you, as our chief, that this regiment, which has done and will do honor to your state, owes its effi- ciency, its proficiency, and everything which gives it superiority or a name, to Col. Malmborg I owe most that I know to him the officers owe all to him. Col. Stuart was appointed brigadier-general by the President, but when the promotion failed of confirmation he left the service. The opposition, having failed to oust Malmborg, bided their time, after five officers had resigned in disgust at Malmborg's official promotion to the position actually filled by him all this time. The mustering out of six first lieutenants for disability followed, at the colonel's recommenda- tion, made likely in a spirit of retaliation. In the summer of 1863 a futile attempt was made to have Malmborg tried before a general court-martial. The charges, alleging intoxication and profanity, were withheld and finally suppressed by the commander of the brigade. The real crisis did not come until early in 1864, when the regiment demanded the right of election as the price of reenlistment. Then Chaplain Milton H. Haney was chosen colonel, Malmborg and all the other officers being sacrificed to the ambition of this man and his party of malcontents. Haney had served as captain of a company until the regiment reached the front in March, 1862, when he resigned to take the less exposed position of chaplain. So ignorant was he of military tactics and so diffident about his ability that he dared not accept the command. To complete the reform, the principal musician was elected sergeant-major and a man hardly able to sign his name was made quartermaster. The whole procedure was a ridiculous farce. Gen- eral Logan, commander of the army corps, is quoted as having said to Col. Malmborg, "We have been accustomed to look upon the Fifty-fifth as the best regiment in the army, and how shall I express my astonishment to find they are after all a set of d - fools? Electing a chaplain, a civilian, a know-nothing for their colonel ! Are they prepared to go into battle under such a man? Do you suppose that I, now on the eve of the most important campaign of the war, am going to send that regiment into battle under that man? Do you suppose the Governor and the Adjutant- General of Illinois will commission him?" As a matter of fact only the officers in line of promotion were com- missioned, and the most notable achievements of the Fifty-fifth Regiment were all a matter of the past. Malmborg subsequently served as chief engineer of the Seventeenth Army Corps and was later detailed by Sherman to visit the military posts along the Mississippi, all this while retaining his colonel's commission. He finally resigned and was mustered out Sept. 20, 1864, whereupon he returned to Chicago. On Jan. i, 1865, he was commissioned colonel in the First Veteran Army Corps and assigned to duty as recruiting officer in GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 105 Chicago. His last commission was that of colonel of the Second Regiment, and as such Malmborg became the commander of the only brigade in this army corps that was ever organized. Owing to impaired eyesight and threatening blindness, partly from injuries received in his first battle, Malmborg asked for his dismissal, which was granted May 31, 1865. Col. Malmborg was now given a position in the departments at Washington. His vision being further impaired, he returned to Sweden, where he died in Vishy, Gotland, April 29, 1880, in his sixtieth year. BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES JOHN STOLTSRAND, CHIEF OF ARTILLERY AND INVENTOR. On May n, 1821, there was born at or near Kristianstad, Sweden, a boy named Carl Johan Moller, who was destined to render eminent military service to the United States in the great internal conflict. At eighteen he was enrolled as constable cadet in the Royal Vendes Artillery, then changing his patronymic for the martial name of Stahlbrand. He attained the rank of sergeant in 1843, serving as such until 1850, when he resigned and came to the United States the following year. He obtained a position with the Cook county recorder and was prominent in Swedish circles here. At the first call for troops in 1861 his martial spirit was rekindled, and he raised a company of recruits, which was disbanded when it was found that the Illinois quota had been filled. At the second call for volunteers he recruited a new company at Sycamore, which was mustered in October 5, 1861, as Battery G, Second Illinois Light Artillery, with Stolbrand as captain. On Dec. 31 he was promoted major and sub- sequently he was made chief of artillery under General John A. Logan, who was an enthusiast for the artillery branch of the army. After his last named promotion, in 1863, he virtually assumed the duties of brigadier- general. Displeased at being obliged to render such service for the meager compensation connected with a major's commission and after having waited in vain for promotion Stolbrand finally resigned as chief of artil- lery of the Fifteenth Army Corps on Jan. 28, 1865. Gen. Sherman, apparently accepting his resignation, asked him to deliver "important papers" to President Lincoln before his return home. When Lincoln had examined the papers, which included a recommendation for Stolbrand's promotion to the rank of brigadier-general, he turned to Stolbrand, ad- dressing him by that title. The army records show the following dates and facts pertaining to Stolbrand's military career: In September, 1862, as major, he was in command of five batteries of Brig.-Gen. Logan's artillery brigade, in the district of Jackson, Tenn., and in November he commanded nine batteries of Maj.-Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut's division. In the siege of Vicksburg he directed the operations of five batteries, and at one time he had as large a force as ten batteries under his charge. Ample testimony to Stolbrand's usefulness in the operations at Vicksburg is given by Gen. Logan, who in his report compliments him repeatedly ; thus in the report of May 26, 106 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS 1862, he says : "The admirable manner in which this battery was handled reflects the highest credit upon Maj. Stolbrand, my chief of artillery."- "The respective batteries . . . under the personal supervision of Maj. Stolbrand rendered incalculable aid in effectually shelling the enemy." "To Maj. Stolbrand, my chief of artillery, I am indebted for valuable aid." In the siege of Savannah, Stolbrand on Dec. 19, 1864, placed half of his batteries before the Confederate forts and uncovered and silenced the enemy's heavy artillery, whereupon the Confederates under cover of darkness abandoned the fort and the city, leaving guns and ammunition behind. On this and other achievements Maj. -Gen. P. J. Osterhaus reported: "To Maj. Stolbrand I have to acknowledge important services during the campaign as chief of artillery of the corps. Through his energy and skill that branch of the arms which was under his immediate care was in most excellent condition." On Sept. 4, 1864, while the Army of the Tennessee was encamped at Kingston, Stolbrand had the misfortune to fall in the hands of the enemy, being taken captive by a squad of cavalry while out reconnoitering by direction of Gen. Logan. The following month, however, he again figured in the reports as chief of artillery. In his recollections of Stolbrand 1 , Lieut. Joseph E. Osborn relates sundry instances of his bravery, as told to him by credible eye-witnesses. They are here given in his own words. At Jackson, Miss., our army fought the enemy behind breastworks, and they fought fiercely. Suddenly in the afternoon the firing ceased and our generals, Logan and McPherson, were puzzled as to what it all meant. They surmised that the enemy was up to some trick. Major Stolbrand conceived the idea that they had evacuated. This they ridiculed, as the enemy was strongly fortified. "I will show you," said the major, putting the spurs to his horse, and to the amazement of all he galloped across the whole battlefield, leaped the trenches and rode up the embankment. Turn- ing around, he waved his hat. Not a rebel was there. Later on, at the battle of Champion Hills, about sixteen miles in the rear of Vicksburg, Major Stolbrand's actions virtually decided the day, a day of terribly hard fighting. The lines were drawn up on two parallel ridges, and although the battle raged fiercely, neither side would budge. About midway between the lines ran a lower ridge. Towards evening our lines, tired as our men were by continuous marching and fighting for days, began to waver. On seeing this, the enemy commenced to pour down the slope in order to take possession of the intervening ridge and force our lines to retreat. But Stolbrand was there. Rushing up to McAllister's battery, consisting of six twelve-pounder Howitzer guns, he ordered them to speedily double load with canister and grape. This done, he gave the order, "Limber to the front! Double quick, march!" and broke out of the line, galloping down the hill so that the dust rose high in the air, Stolbrand's long, red whiskers floating behind him. Generals McPherson 1 In Yearbook of the Swedish Historical Society, 1909-1910. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 107 and Logan caught sight of him just as he had started, and shouted to him: "Come back with that battery," but Stolbrand, never turning his head, galloped on with the battery down the hill and up the intervening ridge. Just as he reached the crest of the hill he ordered ''action front," and the rebels, scrambling up the other side of the same hill, were literally mowed down ; those who were not killed or wounded rushing back to their lines as fast as their legs would carry them. This done, Stolbrand came leisurely riding back, not a gun or man lost. This closed the battle for the day. The next morning the enemy had retired. At General Logan's famous headquarters in the trenches investing Vicksburg his staff was almost within speaking distance of the enemy. Guns were mounted in embrasures in the temporary redoubts. One day in a fit of cold-blooded rashness, Stolbrand went up to one of the embra- sures and stuck his head out beside the siege-gun just to draw the enemy's fire. This act was answered by scores of musket balls that imbedded them- selves in the embankment close to his head, covering his hair with flying dirt. "Go on, shoot!" he shouted with an oath, when General Logan pulled him back, sharply upbraiding him for his foolhardiness. "Ah, there's no danger," rejoined Stolbrand, stroking his long red beard, "the rebels never fire on the hospital flag!" There are several versions of the story of Stolbrand's capture and imprisonment. Lieut. Osborn tells it as follows : After being taken captive he was taken to that hell-hole known as Andersonville Prison. How a man of his temperament must have chafed and fretted there, we can all understand ; and, therefore, it it not strange that he there performed one of his most daring deeds, as I am credibly informed. In an attempt to escape he got over the "dead line," but was recaptured. He must have given Captain Wirz, the commander of the prison, great anxiety. But hold Stolbrand he could not. This restless spirit that knew no fear planned another escape, and succeeded. Sleeping at night in the huts of the ever loyal negroes, following their guidance during the day, he picked his way back to the Union lines and liberty, to fight the enemy so much the harder. John A. Anderson, who served as lieutenant in Battery H, First Illinois Light Artillery, originally known as Silfrersparre's Battery, sev- eral years ago gave the writer the following version of the incident: 1 "During the advance in Georgia the two forces were near each other many times, as at Kingston, Ga. The enemy was in the woods, separated from our army by a river in an open space of perhaps 200 yards. When our men went into the open they were fired on by the enemy and could not advance. General Logan, calling for some one to volunteer to reconnoiter on the bridge, accepted Major Stolbrand's offer rather unwil- lingly. The latter rode to the bridge with a negro servant, threw the reins to him and began to cross the bridge on foot. When he had walked more 1 Subsequently published in Yearbook of the Swedish Historical Society, 1909-1910. IQg THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS than half the distance, several heads popped up and demanded his sur- render. This done, he was told to order the negro to bring the horses. Stolbrand invited them to fetch the horses themselves. After being taken to the rear, he was robbed of his clothes and accoutrements and given castaway garments in their place. On being brought before the colonel of the regiment, Stolbrand upbraided him for ingratitude. The rebel colonel finally recognized in him the Yankee officer who had once taken him prisoner and given him good treatment, both being Masons. He therefore had Stolbrand's property returned to him. General Logan had to exchange two Confederate generals in order to get Stolbrand, his chief of artillery, released." After his promotion, Stolbrand was sent back to General Sherman by the President, with the words, "I need you in the Carolinas." A month later Sherman placed him in command of the Second Brigade, Fourth Division, of the Seventeenth Army Corps, the brigade being made up of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Thirty-second Illinois Volunteer Infan- try. It marched north and passed in review at Washington at the close of the war. Stationed at Fort Leavenworth, it served on the western plains until September, when it was mustered out, thereby terminating Stolbrand's command. He held his commission until January, 1866, when he received his discharge. He soon took up his residence in South Carolina, locating at Beaufort, where he owned a plantation. In that state he attained prominence in political life. In 1868 he was elected secretary of the constitutional con- vention, also delegate at large to the Republican national convention and presidential elector. For some time he was superintendent of the state penitentiary and during Harrison's administration he was in charge of the government building at Charleston. King Charles XV. in 1866 recognized Stolbrand's soldierly achieve- ments by decorating him with the Royal Order of the Sword. While his later career was chiefly political, Stolbrand was also engaged in mechanical inventions, making various improvements in steam engines and boilers. For what we know of his mechanical genius we are indebted chiefly to Col. John F. Hobbs, Stolbrand's confidential friend and legal adviser in his later years. According to Hobbs, Stolbrand practically completed the invention of a successful submarine boat of a peculiar type. He carried on experiments along this line until an accident which occurred in Charleston harbor came near ending his life. "But for this accident," says Hobbs, "I believe that Gen. Stolbrand would have revolutionized the construction of submarine craft as completely as his compatriot, John Ericsson, revolutionized other naval vessels by his construction of the Monitor with its revolving turret." The account by Hobbs runs substan- tially as follows : "The world has never been fully acquainted with these experiments. Stolbrand had all but completed a military submarine capable of being lengthened and shortened, raised and lowered at pleasure. He was GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 109 engaged in perfecting a method of condensing air by hydraulic power and an ingenious system of searchlights whereby the waters could be recon- noitered under-sea for three or four miles around the submerged craft. Had his inventions been completed, he would have produced two kinds of submarines, one adapted for operations in enemy harbors, detect- ing and destroying mines, the other to serve as pilot boat in guiding ships through mined fields. His submarine was to be provided with torpedoes to be pressed against the keels of ships by means of bags automatically inflated and then exploded from a distance by electricity. While he was experimenting with a small model submarine one day in the harbor of Charleston, the machinery became disordered, the air supply gave out, and he narrowly escaped suffocation or drowning. Sickened by the dis- aster, he discontinued his experiments for a long time. I believe, however, that if Stolbrand had put himself in communica- tion with the Navy Department at Washington, he would have obtained all needed assistance in the perfecting of his inventions and in maintaining secrecy about them. This he did not do, and nothing came of his en- deavors, although the experiments proved that his appliances required very little improvement of details to work out successfully. On these final improvements he was engaged at the time of the disaster." BATTERY H, FIRST ARTILLERY, CAPTAIX SILFVI-:RSPARRE. Swedish soldiers formed a little more than half of this efficient artil- lery unit, which was recruited and trained by Capt. Axel Silfversparre and served under him during the first year of actual campaigning, and subse- quently under the command of Captain Levi Hart and Second Lieut. FYancis De Gress. Axel Silfversparre, son of Viscount Gustaf Johan Silfversparre of the Royal Horse Guards, was born in Strangmis, Sweden, May 8, 1834, and prepared at Upsala University. Joining the Svea Artillery in 1852, he was promoted second lieutenant the following year and served until 1858, when he entered the artillery school of Marieberg. He came to the United States in 1861 and under a commission from General Fremont first served as military engineer in Missouri. At the close of the year he secured a commission to raise an artillery company, and at once set about organizing a Swedish battery, recruited largely from the Swedish settlements and supplemented by men of other nationalities in the same localities. Silfversparre being elected captain, all the other commissioned offices were given to men of other than Swedish descent. The battery was mustered in on Feb. 20, 1862, as Battery H, First Illinois Light Artillery, and left Chicago in March for the drill grounds at Cape Girardeau, Mo. The battery reached Pittsburg Landing the day before the battle, and aided materially in checking the Confederate onslaught in the first day's fighting. According to Silfversparre's own memoranda of the battle, he had his guns planted and well protected by earthworks, his men being provided with spades, picks, and axes after the manner of the HO THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Swedish artillery. In his account of the battle Major Reed says: "We find at Shiloh that with three exceptions no breastworks were prepared by either side on Sunday night. Of these exceptions a Union battery near the Landing was protected by a few sacks of grain piled up in front of the guns." The inference would be that Silfversparre's battery furnished one of the exceptions. Sergeant John A. Anderson, who had aided in recruit- ing the battery, differs from Silfversparre in his recollections, averring that upon arrival there was no time for building breastworks, which, how- ever, may have been done in preparation for the second day's battle. We quote from Anderson's story of the fight : "We went up the river on Saturday night, April 5, 1862. It was just getting dark and we could do nothing except land the horses and picket them. Early in the morning, when the battle commenced, there were no general officers to give orders. We hitched eight teams to the guns and drew them up the hill. There was a ridge along the road, which bordered a ravine. We were told to plant our guns to cover the ravine, which was done. The caissons, with ammunition, were down near the Tennessee river bank. One or two were pulled up the ravine during the day, by hand. My recollection is that cracker boxes, and not grain bags, as stated by some participants, were heaped about the guns. We put double charges of canister in our guns, each canister being sixteen inches long and containing 275 balls. When the guns, thus loaded half full, were discharged at the advancing enemy, we swept everything in sight. "Frank Leslie's Weekly came to us not long after the battle. The issue had a picture of our battery, and stated that had it not been for the gunboats and Silfversparre's battery, the Union soldiers would have been swept into the river on that first night." It may be added that Silfversparre was personally thanked by Grant and Sherman at the end of that day for his part in checking the advance of the enemy, though, like most of the heroes of the day, he received no mention in Grant's report of a battle that was so nearly lost. Shortly after, the Silfversparre battery was transferred to Gen. Sherman's division, and it belonged to the second division of the Fifteenth Army Corps until the close of the war. In September, Capt. Silfversparre was assigned to Fort Pickering, near Memphis, Tenn., where he took charge of the fixed batteries, mounted heavy guns, and instructed the artil- lery officers in the gun manual. He also served as drillmaster of four companies of garrison, which, in case of action, he was to command. About the beginning of the following year he was assigned as drillmaster of General Hurlbut's division, in addition to his other duties. Being apparently overburdened with work, he resigned his commission Feb. 22 to take a position in another department of the army. Before the transfer could be made he suffered the humiliation of capture and was sent to Libby prison at Richmond. After ten months' imprisonment he escaped, by bribing a guard, it is said, and went to Wilmington, S. C, disguised as a Confederate officer. Here he was engaged as engineer on the blockade GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT HI runner Cornubia, which, being pursued by Union vessels, sought refuge in the Bermudas. Such was the awkward episode that closed the military career of this gallant artillery officer. Making his way to New York, Silfversparre collaborated with Col. W. W. Adams in plans for a suspension bridge across East River, which were afterwards used in the designing of the Brooklyn suspension bridge. Late in 1864 he was employed as engineer in the Quincy copper mine in Michigan. For the next fifteen years he figured in the municipal life of Chicago, holding various public positions until 1880, when he went to Colorado. That year he drew plans for the city of Denver, and was next engaged in the survey of the Denver and Rio Grande railway. A map of Colorado worked out by him was published in Chicago. In 1886 he secured a position as draftsman in the Department of Agriculture and the following year he completed a map of the capital city. Silfversparre's unhappy marital union with Mary Jane Gunning of Chicago in 1886 was dissolved after eighteen years. Since 1888 Silfversparre spent most of his time at various homes for old soldiers, passing away at Danville, 111., March 2, 1906. His son, Servais Zacharias Silfversparre, became pub- lisher of Ores and Metals, a Denver mining journal. Under Hart and De Gress, Battery H continued its honorable career. The latter led it in all the engagements of the second division, the battery distinguishing itself for brilliant work especially in the taking of Atlanta, July 21-22, 1864. After Atlanta, it continued to add to its laurels, and became a famous one in Gen. Sherman's command. It took part in the victorious march to the sea, passed in review at Washington, and was mustered out at Springfield, June 14, 1865. The surviving members of the battery, in the records of the organization are said to have been a unit in praise of Silfversparre as a commander, declaring him as brave as any and a tactician of more than average skill, but they were of the opinion that his ironclad Swedish discipline was impracticable in an army of volunteers. SUNDRY OFFICERS OF SWEDISH DESCENT. Capt. FREDERICK SPARRESTROM enlisted in Stolbrand's battery, and was commissioned first lieutenant at muster-in Sept. 16, 1861, of Battery G, Second Light Artillery. He served as second in command until Dec. 31, when upon Stolbrand's promotion, he succeeded to the captaincy. During the siege of Vicksburg he had temporary command of Battery D, First Artillery, his own battery having not yet been re-equipped after losing its horses and guns in a river accident. His own battery subsequently served under him with marked efficiency until Aug. 22, 1864, when Sparrestrom resigned the command. Sparrestrom came from Stockholm, where he served in the Royal Life Guards simultaneously with Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles XV. He is said to have been a splendid horseman. After the close of the war he located first in Chicago, then went to Colorado, where he died. 112 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Major ERIC FORSSE was the original organizer of the private military company of Bishop Hill, serving as its captain and heing given the same rank when it joined the volunteer army as Company D, Fifty-seventh Illinois. He had seen twelve years of service in the Swedish army prior to his emigration in 1850. On April 15, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of major of the regiment to succeed Norman B. Page, who fell in the battle of Pittsburg Landing. His military skill was recognized by his superiors, and on occasion he was called upon to command larger forces, at one time an entire brigade. After the fall of Atlanta, he resigned, together with a large number of other officers, confident that their services would be little needed from that time on. Returning home, he located on a farm near Galva. In 1869 he removed to Saline county, Kansas, heading a party of some fifty Swedish Illinoisans who located at or near Falun. At this time large numbers of Illinois settlers were drift- ing farther west, as they had drifted northwest in the fifties. At Falun Forsse served as postmaster, township trustee and justice of the peace for a long term of years, and was elected to the Kansas legislature in 1872, serving one term. This gallant soldier and trusted citizen passed away at Falun April 18, 1889. He was a native of the Swedish province of Dalarne, born in Mailing parish March 4, 1819. Captain ANDREW G. WARNER enlisted with Company D, Fifty- seventh Illinois, and w : as appointed first corporal. At Shiloh he was wounded, but continued in the service, carrying his arm in a sling. He was soon promoted first sergeant and subsequently second lieutenant. In 1864 Warner volunteered to accept the command of a colored regi- ment, and on March 7 was commissioned captain of Company A, Sixty- third United States Infantry, serving in that capacity until mustered out Jan. 9, 1866. He then settled down as a farmer at Andover. In 1868 he was elected sheriff, having been nominated by an independent convention of Swedish voters, whose request for representation on the Republican ticket had been denied. At the close of his term he sought a new home, locating in Page county, Iowa, in 1871. On Dec. 4, 1865, Capt. Warner had been united in marriage with Mathilda Johnson, only daughter of Eric Janson, the founder of the Bishop Hill community. He passed away ten years later, Dec. 5, 1875. Captain ANDREW STENBECK commanded Battery H, Second Illinois Light Artillery, from date of muster, Dec. 31, 1861, until May 25, 1863, when he resigned. He was a native of Hafvarod, Skane, where he was born Feb. 12, 1828, and had emigrated in 1854, locating at Galesburg. He was made captain on recommendation of Stolbrand, a former com- rade in the Swedish army. He fought at Fort Donelson. Shiloh, Clarks- ville, Nashville, and led his company in a number of engagements in the Tennessee campaign. After his resignation he served as superintendent of Benton Barracks, at St. Louis, until 1866, when he removed to Chicago. His application for a captaincy in the regular army being denied by President Johnson, Stenbeck settled down to a civil vocation, and \vas GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 113 employed for many years as tuner for the Julius Bauer Company. He served for a short time as deputy under Sheriff Mattson. Capt. Stenbeck died at his Chicago home Dec. 14, 1891. Captain CARL AROSENIUS, who had enlisted and been mustered in as corporal of Company A, Fifty-ninth Illinois, and subsequently promoted quartermaster sergeant, was transferred to the captaincy of Company C, Forty-third Illinois, on Oct. 9, 1862, to succeed Capt. Olof S. Edvall, who on May 7 had died of wounds received at Pittsburg Landing. After re-enlisting with most of his company in 1863, Arosenius remained in command until it was mustered out. He was a resident of Galesburg and in 1859 became editor of a weekly paper, Frihetsvanncn, which ran for about a year. After the war he was one of a company who formed the weekly Svenska Amerikanaren of Chicago. Of his subsequent career no data are available. C. E. LANDSTROM, a resident of Knoxville before, and of Galesburg after the war, who was employed in Des Moines, la., at the time, joined Company B, Fifteenth Iowa Volunteers, which company had been partly recruited by him in November, 1861, as second lieutenant. He was pro- moted first lieutenant shortly, and in 1863 attained to the rank of captain, serving until the war closed. Returning in 1865, he located in Galesburg, engaging in business in partnership with one Bancroft. Shortly before going to the front Landstrom was married at Des Moines to Miss Crocker, sister of General Crocker. SWEDES IN POLITICAL AND CIVIC LIFE. Their efficient service during the war gave the Swedish-born citizens a strong claim on political recognition. They presented at this time a solid Republican front at elections, a condition which did not change materially during the subsequent forty years. As late as 1898, it was still estimated that they voted the Republican ticket according to the time-honored proportion of ninety-nine out of a hundred. 1 But there was a prior reason for due recognition. It is pointed out by the writer to whom reference has just been had and from whose work the following is a free quotation. Sweden was a staunch friend of the Union, and her sons in America were a unit on that point. A small factor may sometimes, owing to its momentary relation to other and greater factors, become indispensable for the attainment of a certain object of momentous subsequent import in human history. That was the position of the Swedish-Americans in the great national crisis. At the time they were not many enough to determine the outcome of a test of strength on a battlefield, but, incredible as it may sound, they were sufficiently numerous and strong in their unity to decide the presidential election which in turn determined the outcome of the Civil War. 1 C. F. Peterson, "Sverige i Amerika," p. 215. THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS A person totally impartial and one intimately conversant with the question, a former state governor, 1 has shown conclusively that Lincoln could not have been elected president but for the unanimity with which he was supported by the Scandinavians of the western states. The out- come of the presidential election in 1860 and again that of 1864 hung on a very small margin, and had the Swedes been less enlightened, less moral, less liberty-loving, they would likewise have been less zealous in their efforts to accomplish the election of Lincoln. And had he failed of the choice, what of the Union cause? Possibly some say certainly a compromise would have secured the permanence of slavery in the old slave states. But with Lincoln after 1864 no compromise was possible, and for his election the country owes a great measure of gratitude to the Swedes in Illinois and Minnesota, whose votes were sufficient to tip the balance in favor of the Lincoln electors. Practical politics made no strong appeal to the Swedish-born citizens of the earlier period. The class of men who had come over from Sweden had no previous training for office-holding, and down to very recent times their history in this state does not present one notable instance of a Swede practicing politics as a profession or seeking public preferment for gain or emolument. No matter how keen his interest in public questions, he is constitutionally averse to taking the gambler's chance involved in the average political campaign. He is satisfied to do his duty as a private citizen, and does -so with almost religious devotion, paying less attention to local partisan struggles than to the problem of taking the right stand on the great national issues. The few men of Swedish descent who filled public office in Illinois during the first generation after immigration are the exceptions which prove the rule. The second and still more the third generation have shown a growing tendency to engage in the free-for-all contest with greater reliance on the principle of equality and the justice of their claim to representation in public government. Captain Eric Johnson, son of the founder of the Bishop Hill com- munity, was an early champion of Republicanism among his nationality. Compelled by ill health to leave the captaincy of Company D, Fifty- seventh Illinois, in 1862, he soon after became publisher of several local newspapers in turn or simultaneously, and in 1869 founded The Illinois Swede, a general newspaper. That year he was given the secretaryship of a legislative committee, and in iS/o he was nominated for the legis- lature, but had to forego the candidacy on account of too short a residence in his district. Jonas W. Olson of Galva was then named and elected in his stead. In 1872 Johnson left the Republican party, being of the opinion that it had outlived its usefulness, and supported Greeley. He was put up as a presidential elector on the liberal ticket in that campaign. In 1871 he was made journal clerk of the House of Representatives, serving during 1 Name not given by the author. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 115 one regular and one extra session. He held a position in the War Depart- ment at Washington for a short time in the middle eighties. Captain Johnson narrates a political incident which throws light on the political situation in 1862 and how the Swedish voters dealt with it. After so many Republicans had enlisted and gone to the front, the Demo- crats secured power at home, and to make hay while the sun was shining, they framed up a new constitution. Among the pro-slavery articles sev- eral were submitted to the voters. To make a show of fairness, they per- mitted the Illinois soldiers in the field to vote on the proposed constitution, and sent a commission of three Democrats, with the notorious "Sam" Buckmaster as chairman, to poll the vote of the soldiers. As each soldier appeared, he was asked how he wished to vote on each proposition. When it came to the negro propositions, if the vote of the soldier was not satis- factory to the commissioners, they would say, "You do not want to find your sister married to a negro when you return home?" Of course the soldier answered no, and this answer was then recorded as his vote on a proposition to which the voter at first assented. When the boys of Com- pany D noticed how the soldiers were being confused, they went to Captain Johnson and said, "Captain, we want you to vote first, and when our turn comes, we will have them record our votes the same way." Captain Johnson voted not only against all the Democratic propositions on the negro question, but against the entire pro-slavery constitution as well. To a man his company voted the same way. When the last vote of Com- pany D had been polled, Buckmaster remarked with an oath, "That was the d dest black abolition company in the service." Jonas W. Olson is said to have been the first Swede to be admitted to the bar in Illinois. Upon his election to the legislature in 1870 he served with credit for one term, being the first Swede in the Illinois legislature since Raphael Widen. He was the son of one of E->ic Janson s staunchest followers in the Bishop Hill colony, Olof Olson, who emi- grated from Soderala, Helsingland, in 1845. Jonas was born two years before. In his latter years he held several local offices in his home town of Galva, including those of town collector and police magistrate. A. W. Berggren, a resident of Galesburg, served as sheriff of Knox country from 1872 to 1880, being elected for four consecutive terms. While still serving as sheriff he was elected state senator and re- elected in 1884. When the senate was organized in 1887 Berggren was chosen president pro tempore of that body. In 1889 the governor ap- pointed him warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary, a position from which he resigned in 1891 to take active supervision of the Covenant Mutual Life Association of Illinois, at Galesburg. Hans Mattson, who came to Illinois from Sweden in 1851 as a young man of nineteen, and who appeared among the first members of the Bap- tist congregation in Rock Island and Moline, achieved political success in Minnesota, where he was elected secretary of state in 1869 and again in 1887. In 1881 he was appointed United States consul general of India 11(5 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS and served in that capacity at Calcutta for about two years. He organized a Scandinavian company which took the field in November, 1861, and served through the Civil War. In April, 1863, he was promoted to the rank of colonel. Mattson died March 5, 1893. Charles J. Sundell of Chicago was appointed American consul at Stettin, Germany, in 1861, by President Lincoln. He resigned the office of vice consul of Sweden and Norway, held by him since 1858, when he assumed the new position in the American consular service. This seems to have been the first Federal office given to a Swedish Illinoisan. Sundell served at this post until the change of administration in 1867. In 1862 F. E. Jocknick obtained an official position in the Chicago postoffice, serving for eight years. He was succeeded in the department by C. Blanxius. As early as 1864, before the Swedes of Chicago had any numerical strength, one of their number, John A. Nelson, won out in his cam- paign for the office of sheriff, the most remunerative political position attained by a Swedish Chicagoan up to that time. His election is said to have been due to the strong support given him by his predecessor, A. C. Hesing, under whom Nelson had served as deputy, and of the German element. P. L. Hawkinson served as justice of the peace about this time and was repeatedly reappointed, for the third time in 1879. In the sixties (.). Larson, a Swedish civil engineer, was attached to the Chicago de- partment of public works. By appointment of the governor, John A. Enander was made a member of the State Board of Education and was serving in that capacity in 1880. In 1874 C. G. Linderborg was nominated for representative on the Republican ticket, and John A. Arvidson was given a like position on the Democratic ticket. Both were elected. In the custom house P. A. Sundelius, a newspaper man, held an office for some time, subsequently transferring to the recorder's office as chief clerk. In 1884 ne was sen t to the legislature and served for three terms. His most notable service as a legislator was the framing of the compul- sory education bill. Captain Axel Silfversparre of Civil War fame in 1865 became assist- ant city engineer of Chicago, a place retained by him for several years. The year following the great fire he assisted in the work of drawing the new city plans. He sought a place on the police board in 1872 and was a candidate for the office of county surveyor in 1876, suffering defeat in both elections. Part of the years 1878-79 he worked under Gen. McDowell, who superintended the construction of the Federal building in Chicago. We find no Swedish names in the political history of Rockford before 1880, when S. A. Johnson was elected alderman of the Sixth Ward. In 1881, C. E. Knutson was elected alderman in the Seventh Ward. G. A. Salstrcm was alderman of the Sixth Ward in 1887-1895. He was succeeded bv Albert Hollem and Gust Holm in the same ward. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 117 In 1891, A. J. Anderson entered the city council; at the same time F. G. Hogland was elected city clerk, a position he held for five years. G. V. Lindblade also served in the city council, and about the same time A. F. Bargren was elected chief of police, a position he still holds. LINCOLN PARK LAID OUT BY SWEDISH LANDSCAPE GARDENERS. The original plan of Lincoln Park was the work of a Swedish land- scape gardener. In the year 1865 the city of Chicago, more than thirty years after its incorporation, was still without a public park. That year the city authorities awoke to the fact and forthwith set about beautifying the municipal environment. It must have been sadly needed, for according to Fredrika Bre- mer, who visited the place fifteen years before, the general verdict of travelers was that Chi- cago was then a most repulsive and disreputable looking community. A prize of two hundred dollars was offered for the best plans for the two new parks to be laid out Lincoln and Union parks. The prize was captured by Sven Nelson. In the early fall of the same year he began work on the tract assigned for Lincoln Park, with an appro- priation of $1,500 for the first year. The next year he formed a partnership with O. Benson, and the two men carried on the business of landscape gardening on a fairly extensive scale for nine years. In 18/5, when the firm was dissolved, Benson was appointed park superintendent by the commissioners. The principal work was laid down on the north side park, that on the west side being rather neglected for a time. The pioneer landscape artists and park superintendents of Chicago both hailed from the Swedish province of Skane, where they were born at Fjelkestad. They emigrated the same year (1852), Nelson at the age of twenty-four, Benson at fifteen. After spending the first three years in Ohio they came on to Chicago in 1855. Nelson persevered in his original occupation of landscape gardening, which he had learned on the estate of Count Wachtmeister at Wanas. In 1857 ne was married to Sophia Johanna Hoffman of Kristianstad. Benson is said to have engaged in teaching in Ohio shortly after his arrival. He left Chicago after a year to work as a compositor in the print- ing office of Svcnska Republikanen, started at Galva in July, 1856, after having had similar employment in the office of the Chicago Tribune. He subsequently entered high school in Chicago, graduating with high standing after three years. At the outbreak of the Civil War he volunteered for service and remained in the army for three and a half years. His wife was an American by birth. OI.OF liKXSOX. THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS A third Swedish landscape artist connected with the development of Lincoln Park was Pehr S. Peterson, the founder of Rosehill Nursery. Having received his professional training at the large estate of Ovedskloster in Skane, the ancient manse of which was surrounded by an elaborate private park, Peterson came to Chicago in 1862, after spending seven years in the East, and broke ground for the now famous Rosehill Nursery the same year. Much of the nursery stock used in Lincoln Park has been supplied by this establishment from the outset. RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES. FOUNDING OF THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD. It was Illinois men of Illinois churches that formed the majority of the convention which framed the Augustana Synod. On April 26, 1860, at Chicago, the pastors and congregations declared their independence of the Synod of Northern Illinois by unanimous resolution peacefully to dissolve their churchly connections with that Synod. On June 5, at Clin- ton, Wis., in a convention called for that specific purpose, these same churches, through their pastors and lay delegates, voted unanimously and with enthusiasm to organize an independent Scandinavian Synod. All but one of the pastors were present, eleven Swedish and seven Norwegian, eighteen out of a total of nineteen. To these were added fifteen lay dele- gates. Of the Swedish pastors and laymen the sole survivors are Dr. G. Peters and Mr. John Erlander, both residents of Rockford. Before the close of the convention eight were added through ordination. The regular delegates acted on behalf of thirty-six Swedish congre- gations of 3,747 communicants, and thirteen Norwegian churches com- prising 1,220 communicant members, a total of close to 5,000 Scandinavian church members. The convention lasted from the 5th to the nth of June. On the 6th and 7th the Synodical Constitution, drafted in the main by Prof. L. P. Esbjorn, was discussed and adopted. The new church body was named the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America, or in short, the Augustana Synod. The name Augustana, from the Latin name of the Augsburg Confession, was suggested by Eric Nor- clius as appropriate for a synod "determined on holding fast to that glorious confession in its entirety." The constitution adopted June 7 provided for the founding and main- tenance of a theological seminary. Then and there, maintains Dr. C. M. Esbjorn, 1 the foundation was laid for the first Swedish-American institu- tion of learning. The 7th of June is the true "Founders' Day," according to the same authority. The first act of the newly organized Synod was to take steps towards carrying out that constitutional provision. On June 8, Art. I of the con- stitution for the seminary was adopted, reading as follows : "The Au- 1 Anniversary Address, 1910. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 119 gustana Synod shall establish and maintain a theological seminary which shall be located temporarily in Chicago and known as the Augustana Semi- nary." A preparatory and theological department were provided for, and Rev. L. P. Esbjorn was appointed "Scandinavian and theological professor." "Thus did our fathers from the very outset aim to further the cause of education; and if the origin of this institution is intimately connected with the history of the founding of the Swedish-American church, it is because the organizers of the synod had at heart not only the religious LAYMEN FOUNDERS OF THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD. JOHN ERLANDER, P. PALMQUIST, JOHAN JONASON, O. PAULSEN, N. DAHLGREN, JONAS ENGBERG, C. SKOLD. interest but cultural and national interests as well. If their connection with the Synod of Northern Illinois had been to them as Lutherans and Swedes a sort of Egyptian slavery and the meeting in Chicago was the crossing of the Red Sea, then the meeting at Jefferson Prairie was their' Sinai, where they were formed into a covenant and an ordered communion. The former is the Easter, the latter the Pentecost of our church. If, to use another figure, the Chicago meeting was the beginning of travail, the Jef- ferson Prairie was the very moment of birth. There the Swedish-Ameri- can church was born, there was born a new Sweden in America, for not until now did the Swedish element assert itself and claim its fixed place, historically and culturally, among the other nationalities in this land of intermingled races. We rightfully dwell on the importance of the new body for the Swedish element, for although Norwegians took part in the 120 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS organization, the Swedes were predominant in numbers and influence, and furthermore, the connection between the two elements was rather loose, each having its own interests, so that the separation which followed ten years later was practically implied from the first." 1 The Augustana Synod eventually grew from a small group of churches in Illinois and a few in Minnesota to a nation-wide organization of Swedish Lutherans. The former Mississippi Conference, now known as the Illinois Conference, constitutes that part of the Synod which con- tinues to figure in the Swedish religious activities within the state, together with the two synodical institutions at Rock Island, namely, the college and seminary and the publishing house. AUGUSTANA COLLEGE AND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. It is to the organization meeting of the Augustana Synod, held at Jefferson Prairie, near Clinton, Wis., June 5-11, 1860, that Augustana Col- lege and Theological Seminary traces its origin as an independent institu- tion. The way had already been paved- by Esbjcrn's act of removing to that city with the manifest intent of continuing his work of teaching. The first article in the constitution adopted for the school (June 8) reads : "The Augustana Synod shall establish and maintain a theological seminary for the present at (or, to be located in) Chicago and to be known as Augustana Seminary." It was an oddly worded article, foreshadowing the strife over the question of location which agitated the Synod from time to time down to recent years. The second article reads : "The purpose of this institution of learning shall be to educate young men for the gospel ministry in the Lutheran church, particularly the congregations belonging to the Augustana Synod, and also to prepare young men for the profession of teaching." This scope was eventually widened, and a complete college department was developed by the middle seventies, the first college class being graduated in 1877. At the very outset the founders had in view a plan to purchase land and start farming for the benefit of the school. The door was opened for experiment, and we find the sponsors and promoters again and again in quest of land where the institution might be located in the heart of some populous Swedish agricultural section. The institution was removed, first to Paxton, in 1863, then to Rock Island, in 1875. In Chicago the school was conducted on the premises of the Immanuel church, Esbjorn serving as its first president and principal teacher, with various assistants. Means for its maintenance were solicited both in Sweden and in the United States. On one occasion Esbjorn was appointed to go on a special mission to Columbus, O., to secure the transfer to the seminary of $1,500 given by Jenny Lind to the Capital University as a foundation for a Scandinavian chair, which was never established. Recent inquiry as to this fund brought the following explanation from Dr. Norelius, then the only Swedish stu- 1 C. M. Esbjorn in Anniversary Address, 1910. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 121 dent at that university : Dr. Reynolds, then president of the institution, arbitrarily used the money without rendering any account of it to the board of regents, and upon inquiry into the matter no trace of the fund was found, either in the treasury or in the records. This man later became president of the Springfield seminary, and it was partly due to his manip- ulation of the funds solicited by Esbjcrn that the latter resigned. The Church of Sweden appropriated two annual collections for the cause, and private soliciting, first by O. C. T. Andren, who resigned as emissary in Sept., 1861, to settle down in Sweden, then by Esbjorn, brought a total of $10,846 from these sources. In addition, King Charles XV. donated 5,000 volumes from his private collections. This was the nucleus for Augustana Library, now housed in the Denkmann memorial building. While in Sweden in 1862, in the interest of the seminary, whose only regular teacher he had been up to this time, Esbjorn resigned his posi- tion and accepted an appointment by the crown to become pastor of the parish of Oster-Wahla. The chief motive for this step doubtless was his devotion to his native land and a desire for more settled conditions of life than had been afforded the pioneer preacher and teacher for the past twelve years. But he had other reasons. On many points he and Pastor Hasselquist held different views. The latter is said to have privately opposed Esbjorn's election to the Scandinavian professorship, having nego- tiated with Peter Fjellstedt of Sweden to take that place, and about this time the two men took issue with one another in the proposed removal of the seminary to Paxton. The board of directors had urged Hasselquist to move to Paxton and use his influence as president of the Synod in promot- ing a colonization plan in behalf of the school. He thus became pastor of the new congregation there and as such would naturally have a voice in the affairs of the institution. Disliking to stand in the w ? ay of either the financial plan or the personal ambitions of his brother churchman, Esbjorn yielded at the favorable opportunity. After Paul Peter Waldenstrom of Sweden, who later led a dissenters' movement, had declined the position, Hasselquist was chosen temporarily to fill the vacancy. Failing in 1863 to secure Rev. Sven L. Bring or some other capable man from Sweden, the Synod also made Hasselquist the temporary incumbent of the theologi- cal chair. Hasselquist retained that position and also served as president of the institution until his death, Feb. 4, 1891. It has often been asserted that Hasselquist's presidency was never made permanent. C. M. Esbjorn, however, after having made a careful search of the records, states that on Sept. 22, 1875, the day when the school opened for the first time in Rock Island, the board of directors formally elected Hasselquist president. Neither Hasselquist nor the president of the synod made note of this in the subsequent annual reports. During the twelve years Augustana Col- lege and Seminary, so named upon its removal, remained at Paxton, its property consisted of a farm and four small frame houses scattered over a plat of ground donated for a school site. In 1865 it was chartered under that name and allowed $50,000 worth of property free of taxation. An AUSGUTANA COLLEGE BUILDINGS AT PAXTON. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 123 amendment of the charter was granted in 1869, changing the name to Au- gustana College and Theological Seminary, raising the limit of non-assess- able property to $100,000, and lixing no definite locality for the school. Instruction was given in collegiate branches as early as 1866, but a senior class was not formed until 18/6. The school did not prosper at Paxton, and the average number of students up to 1870 was about thirty-five. The desirability of a new and more central location had been growing apparent from the fact that the stream of Swedish immigration bore mainly to the west and northwest from Chicago. Finally Rock Island was settled on as the most favorable location available, and in 1873 nine- teen acres of ground in the hills of the east part of the city were purchased for $10,000. On this site a main college building was erected with all pos- sible expedition, and upon its completion, in 1875, the school was opened there Sept. 22. The dedication took place Oct. 14 of the same year. The main building, a four-story brick structure, costing $35,000, and two auxili- ary buildings, were erected. By synodical resolution in 1873 every com- municant member of the Synod was required to pay 25 cents per year to- ward the support of the institution. In 1879 tne college was placed on a level with colleges in Sweden by act of the Department of Ecclesiastics granting its graduates admittance to the Swedish universities without examination. A Conservatory of Mu- sic was established privately in 1886, and this was made one of the depart- ments of the institution in 1888 ; a Commercial Department was added also in 1888; a Normal Department followed in 1891, and an Art Department in 1895. In the college proper ten departments of teaching have gradually been established. Post-graduate courses were introduced in the college in 1891, and in the seminary one year later. The Synod, in 1883, resolved to erect a new main building at an esti- mated cost of $55,000. When, on Nov. 6, 1884, the corner stone was laid. $30,000 had been subscribed, and the next year P. L. Cable, of Rock Island, came to the assistance of the Synod by donating the sum of $25.000 to the building fund. Then the building plans were changed, whereby some $30,000 was added to the original estimate. The building was not com- pleted for occupancy until 1888, when recitations began in the new halls in January. This is the most monumental building heretofore erected by Swedish-Americans. Dr. Hasselquist was succeeded in 1891 by Dr. Olof Olsson, who served as president until his death in May, 1900. After an interim, during which Dr. C. W. Foss acted as president, the Synod in June, 1901, elected Dr. Gustav Andreen, the present incumbent of the pres- idential office. Augustana is fortunate in the possession of a museum containing comprehensive and valuable collections which facilitate the study of the natural sciences. It has also ethnographic and numismatic collections. The historical collection of American Lutheran and Scandinavian-Ameri- can literature, already grown to considerable proportions, should prove a GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 125 valuable aid to research. In 1910 the library was estimated at about 26,000 volumes. The Handel Oratorio Society, originally called the Augustana Ora- torio Society, was organized in the fall of 1880. This was the first society of its kind in this section of the United States. Its influence in developing a taste for classical sacred music in the community and throughout the Synod cannot be too highly estimated. Prof. Olof Olsson of the theological seminary was its founder and enthusiastic supporter. Dr. A. W. Williamson, professor of mathematics, one of the warmest friends the college ever had, in 1886 presented to the institution five acres of land adjoining the college grounds on the south. The campus was further extended through friends of the institution who organized in 1891 tinder the name of the Augustana University Association. About this time its friends began to have visions of a greater Augustana, as implied in the very name chosen. The express purpose was to promote the growth and higher development of the college. It seized the opportunity of purchasing for $25,000 a tract of ten or twelve acres of ground directly north of the campus. The financial depression during the next few years came near frustrating its plan to deliver this tract to Augustana, but when State Senator C. J. A. Ericson, of Boone, la., promised a donation of $12,800 on condition that the association raise an equivalent amount towards paying the indebtedness, the enterprise was saved. The condition fulfilled in October, 1899, the property, henceforth known as Ericson Park, was turned over, clear of debt, to the institution, making the college grounds about thirty-six acres in extent. With the exception of a few notable donations in large sums, the great bulk of the funds needed to erect and maintain the necessary buildings, and to meet the running expenses of the institution has been faithfully con- tributed by the rank and file of the synod. In addition to the donations by P. L. Cable and C. J. A. Ericson, already mentioned, Augustana grate- fully acknowledges the following large donations, namely : 160 acres of Iowa farm land and the coal rights in 120 acres, by Senator Ericson; subscriptions by Oscar Ekman and other friends in Sweden, aggregating $27,000, as a fund for the endowment of a chair of science to be known as the Oscar II. Professorship, and finally the most munificent of all gifts to Augustana by the Denkmann family, of Rock Island. Public announce- ment was made in January, 1909, that the heirs of Mr. and Mrs. F. C. A. Denkmann would erect, at a cost of not less than $100,000, a library build- ing for Augustana College to be known as the Denkmann Memorial Li- brary. When the building was completed and turned over as a gift to the institution in May, 1912, it was found that the donors had builded better than they promised, for the memorial structure complete represented a total outlay of $208,000, and is recognized as one of the finest and best appointed libraries in the Middle West. A movement was set on foot by the synod at Paxton, in 1903, mak- ing for permanent endowment of the institution. Four years later the de- DR. OLOF OLSSON. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 127 tails of the plan were arranged. The synod expressed its determination to raise a general endowment fund of $250,000, the work to be completed by June, 1910, when Augustana College and Theological Seminary and the Augustana Synod were to commemorate their fiftieth anniversary. To this, the so-called Jubilee Fund, the Iowa Conference as early as 1906 pledged $40,000; Illinois followed in 1907 with a promise to raise $140,- ooo; in 1908 Minnesota promised to contribute $50,000; Kansas, $7,000; Nebraska, $10,000; New York, $20,000, and California, $1,000. In clue time it was reported that the Jubilee Fund had reached $268,000, $18,000 above the quarter million. After the jubilee of 1910 it appeared, however, that several conferences were delinquent, and their promised contributions are still owing to the endowment fund in whole or in part. Despite these delinquencies, the Jubilee Fund on March 31, 1916, was $245,153. All funds available to the institution on the same date aggregated $453,481. The annual attendance in all departments of Augustana College in recent years varies from 650 to 675. DR. TUVE NILSSON HASSELOUIST. In the person of Dr. Hasselquist the Augustana Synod honors the chief figure in the first half century of its history. In the milieu of pioneer times he stands out as the foremost preacher and missionary among the Swedish settlers ; in the founding of their early institutions he had a hand, where he was not himself the prime mover; the education of their pastors lay chiefly with him for almost thirty years; the purity of faith, the unity of doctrine and the stability in church polity and life characterizing the Augustana Synod today are largely the result of the sound indoctrination and steadfast guidance at his hands during its formative period. Twenty- six years have elapsed since this patriarch of his people passed to his reward, yet he lives in works that endure, in spiritual impulses still in force. Pastor Hasselquist came to this country in 1852, at the age of thirty- six, a mature man, liberally educated and prepared at the college of Kristianstad and the old University of Lund, ordained to the ministry in the Church of Sweden by Bishop Faxe in 1839, an( l w ' tn ample pastoral experience gained from five charges in the Lund diocese to fit him for his labors in the larger field the Lord assigned to him in the New World. When he accepted a call to serve the newly organized Swedish Lutheran Church of Galesburg, 111., this was on a three years' leave of absence, but once engaged in the missionary service in the West, arduous, ill-paid and fraught with hardships, he never, so far as evidence goes, contem- plated a return to his well-ordered parish back in his native province. It is a matter of record that Hasselquist, when seeing Pastor Lars Paul Esbjorn at the head of a company of emigrants in 1849, at Helsingborg, had expressed his unwillingness to go to America, yet only three years later we find him accepting a call that brought him here for life. Hasselquist's labors for the next few years were by no means limited DR. GUSTAV ANDREEN, President of Augustana College. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 129 to the Galesburg church and the adjacent charges in Knoxville and else- where. In the fifties a constant stream of Swedish immigration inundated the upper Mississippi Valley. He visited the newly planted colonies in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Indiana, gathering his fellow countrymen around the Word of God and organizing congregations wherever condi- tions favored such a step. He soon realized the need of an organ of communication among the scattered settlements, and with the council of several brethren, chiefly Pastors Esbjcrn and Erland Carlsson, he founded "Hcmlandct, Det Gamla och det Nya," the pioneer Swedish general newspaper in the United States (1855). His little printing office in Galesburg, putting out also a number of tracts and books, was the cradle of the quite extensive general publishing business in the Swedish language now flourishing in centers of Swedish population like Chicago, Rock Island and Minneapolis. A year later, prompted by the demand for religious literature, he founded Det Riitta Hcmlandet, through which for many years he championed the cause of Lutheran faith and teaching as against the vigorous proselyting cam- paign of various sects among the Lutheran newcomers. From the first the Swedish, as also the Norwegian, missionaries affili- ated with the Synod of Northern Illinois. Peculiar conditions soon led to the forming of several conferences which in 1860 were merged into the Scandinavian Augustana Synod. Hasselquist became its first and only president, serving until 18/0, when the Swedish and Norwegian brethren separated amicably and the latter organized an Augustana Synod of their own. With the severance of synodical ties in 1860 came the establishment of a new theological seminary at Chicago, headed by Rev. Esbjorn, who had taught theology and the Scandinavian branches in the seminary at Springfield. In his home in Galesburg, Hasselquist had prepared several men for the ministry by private instruction, and when, in 1863, Esbjorn returned to Sweden, Hasselquist was appointed his temporary suc- cessor and served for a period of nearly twenty-eight years as president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary under a call which, curiously enough, was never made permanent by action of the Synod, merely by the board of directors. The institution was removed from Chicago to Paxton that same year. Hasselquist left Galesburg for Paxton principally to build up and serve a congregation there, while incidentally conducting the classes and man- aging the affairs of the struggling young school, where at times he \vas obliged to teach no less than fifteen subjects. However, both the school and the congregation prospered under his charge. He was a dynamo of physkal and mental energy, except for the last few years of his life. Burdens and discouragements which would have broken an average man he bore with remarkable strength and fortitude. He labored with an eye single to the interests of his church. While on a visit to Sweden in 1870 he did not look about for a comfortable charge for himself there, but 130 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS rather devoted his time to inducing young divinity students to come to the aid of the daughter church in the far West. Hasselquist remained at the head of the synod's educational institution up to the time of his death in 1891 (Feb. 4th), meanwhile serving the First Lutheran Church of that city and editing the synodical organ Augustana, except for the last two years. As an index of the successful and conscientious manner in which Hasselquist accomplished every task entrusted to him, a few significant figures may be adduced. The church in Galesburg, taken over with but a handful of members, he left with a communicant membership of 316, although he made frequent missionary trips and his time was largely occupied with editorial work on two papers and with synodical affairs. In Paxton he built a congregation literally from the ground up and left it after eleven years as a prosperous parish of 525 communicants. While located there, the college and seminary grew in attendance from ten to eighty-one, and in Rock Island during his presidency from the latter figure to 342. His church in Rock Island during his pastorate enjoyed a mod- erate increase in membership from 121 to 174, probably quite proportionate to the slow influx of Swedish population to the city in that period. The gift of song was one of Hasselquist's endowments. In pioneer days he led the singing, as well as conducting the main part of the divine services. Organs there were none and of clavichords and psalmodicons few, and his clear, firm voice lifted up in sacred song is a memory as dear to many as that of his positive and simple preaching of the saving Truth. His was one of the first Swedish homes in the West made cheerful by the piano. Both he and his children cultivated the art of music, and even in his ripe old age the venerable church veteran was sometimes heard as soloist in sacred concert. A woman of marked accomplishments was Miss Eva Cervin, who became the helpmeet of Pastor Hasselquist in May, 1852, just prior to his departure for the United States. Thoroughly educated in a girls' semi- nary in Sweden, she spoke French, German and English, besides her mother tongue, and possessed a reading knowledge of Italian and Spanish. It was with her assistance and advice that Mr. and Mrs. Holcomb, of Gales- burg, produced their meritorious translation of Tegner's master work, "Frithiof's Saga," and at Paxton she taught French to a private class. A Swedish version of "The Luther Book," by Herman Fick, translated from the German and published at Galesburg, is said to be the work of her pen. She would often take notes of her husband's sermons and write them out more fully at her leisure, thus assisting him materially in the preparation of copy for his paper. From the many tributes to the high character and abiding influence of this eminent Swedish-American churchman a few excerpts are given, which, by pointing out details and accentuating particular features, serve to complete the portrait and visualize the greatness of his work. As an exegete, or one skilled in the exposition of the Scriptures, he GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 131 still stands unexcelled among the ministers of the synod. Although his discourses were masterpieces of the art of sermonizing, they were always delivered in plain, simple language, so that even the unlettered might profit by them, and they were mostly preached to plain, unassum- ing audiences in very modest and humble church edifices. He was not easily carried away on some passing wave of popular enthusiasm, and especially was he careful not to pass indiscreet judgment on his fellow- men. Even in the most heated controversies, he never ascribed improper motives to his antagonists or attempted to sit in judgment over them. He knew his limitations, and he never tampered with things he knew he was not fit for. It was his childlike artlessness, combined with his towering intellect and eminent spiritual gifts that made him truly great. He maintained the position that a sound faith and a consecrated life are insolubly bound up with a firm and stable confession. To him the confessional books of the Lutheran Church were living guides on the way of salvation. He was actively engaged in the struggles during the great schismatic movements (in the fifties and again in the seventies). For his unswervable doctrinal stand he was harshly judged by those whose plans he frustrated. While fighting for pure doctrine as though it were for life, which, indeed, to him it was, he was ever charitable to the person of an opponent denying more or less of the teachings of the Church which to him were essential. Never did he pronounce upon their spiritual condition, but often rejoiced over the good works accomplished by other denominations. With great energy he worked and fought in behalf of common interests, throwing his weighty influence in favor of union and strength everywhere throughout the synod. Every office held he enhanced and exalted by his faithful administration. Faithfulness in all things was his characteristic trait. His word often carried greater weight than a resolution of the synod. Still, it would be wrong to assume that the patriarchal president was an arbitrary autocrat. Had he acted on such a presumption, he probably would not long have occupied the presidential chair, although he ranked first among the Swedish Lutheran patriarchs. During Hasselquist's term of service in the theological seminary no less than two hundred and eighty-one candidates for the ministry were sent out. Up to the school year of 1876-77 he was the sole theological pro- fessor, teaching nearly all the disciplines of theology. His most masterly handling of any subject in the class room was his exegesis of the sacred books of the New Testament. Evidence in point is found in his published work on the Epistle to the Ephesians (1887). THE SWEDISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH. About 1865 steps were taken to establish a divinity school for the Scandinavians of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the initiative being taken by Victor Witting. The matter was discussed at a convention in d If Sw U en n W bJ H hJ o o 81 GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 133 October, when it was resolved to found such an institution. Witting and other pastors were appointed to solicit funds and teachers were desig- nated. The plan was well under way when Witting, the soul of the project, was sent to Sweden. Then the work lagged, and more than half the amount subscribed for the school fund is said to have been forfeited through negligence in making collections. The Scandinavian plan was soon thought impracticable, and a separation between the Swedish and the Norwegian brethren followed, each group continuing to work for a school of its own. This split delayed the establishment of the Swedish seminary until 18/0, when it was opened at Galesburg, with Rev. N. O. Westergreen as teacher. During the first year there \vere but four stu- dents. The school occupied the upper story of a private house belonging to Peter Hillgren, and was eventually transferred to Westergreen's own residence. About a dozen pastors were prepared at the school while in Galesburg. After two years it was transferred to Galva, Rev. C. A. Wiren succeeding to the teacher's chair. In 1875 the institution was located in Evanston, in an affiliated con- nection with the Northwestern University and Garrett Biblical Institute. The Swedish students were housed free of charge in Heck Hall, a large dormitory. In July, 18/5, Rev. Wiren was compelled, by failing health, to resign from his position, and Dr. William Henschen was elected to fill his place. As Dr. Henschen also held the office of editor of Sandcbudet and was pastor of the congregation in Evanston, he was unable to teach all the classes, and the exigency was met by locating the Freshman class in Galva, where the new students were taught from 1877 to 1879 by Rev. Frederick Ahgren, a gifted young minister from Sweden, who spent a couple of years in America. The two following years the first class was maintained and taught in St. Paul and Minneapolis by one of the pastors in those cities, Rev. J. O. Nelson. In 1883 Dr. Henschen resigned from his position and Prof. Albert Ericson became the head of the seminary, after all the classes had been consolidated at Evanston. The course was changed from two to three years. He was the sole teacher of the school up to January, 1889. At that time the Swedish Methodists in America had, with the aid of Mr. John R. Lindgren, started the Swedish M. E. Book Concern at Chicago, and began a new religious weekly named Vaktarcn, both enterprises being entrusted to Prof. Ericson. As it was found impossible for him to perform all these duties alone, the board of trustees called to his assistance C. G. Wallenius, who had come shortly before .to America in order to complete his studies in Boston University. He became professor in the academic department, which was organized at that time. Professor Wallenius held this position until 1896, when he resigned and was succeeded by Rev. N. O. Westergreen, who served for one year. The following three years the seminary again had only one teacher, Dr. Albert Ericson, as special arrangements had been made with the Academy of the Northwestern University, whereby the Swedish students received their academic training in that school. In DR. WILLIAM HENSCHEN. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 135 1900 Professor Wallenius was re-elected and served until 1906, when Rev. J. E. Hillberg was called as his successor. The latter held the posi- tion until 1910, when he was elected editor of Siindebudet. After twenty- six years of faithful and efficient service as president of the Seminary, Dr. Ericson resigned, in 1909, and was succeeded by C. G. Wallenius. The following year Dr. F. A. Lundberg was called to fill the chair of natural science, English and church history. The control of the institution is vested in a board of twelve trustees. elected by the six annual conferences of the Swedish Methodists in America, seven being clergymen and five laymen. The institution was started on a fund of $4,000, which since has grown to about $40,000. This does not include the value of the real estate belonging to the Seminary. A building for lecture rooms and dor- mitory was erected in 1883, at a cost of $8,000, on ground owned by the university. In 1902 the board of trustees appointed Dr. C. G. Nelson as financial agent to raise funds for a larger building. He worked with energy and zeal from 1902 to 1910 in this capacity, and during this time a beautiful site was secured at Orrington avenue and Lincoln street, a large, commodious building erected, a home for the president built and the endowment fund increased. The property is now valued at $65,000. The course of study covers a period of four years, the first two being devoted to academic instruction, while the two higher classes are com- prised in the theological department. More than two hundred young men have been graduated from this institution, the great majority of whom are pastors of the Swedish Methodist Church. THE SWEDISH BAPTIST SEMINARY AND ITS FOUNDER. In 1871 a Bible school was opened in Chicago by Rev. Johan Alexis Edgren, who by that act founded the institution long located at Morgan Park, Chicago, and known as the Swedish Baptist Theological Seminary. Returning, in 1870, from Sweden, where he had taught in the Bethel Seminary at Stockholm, Edgren was alive to the importance to the Swed- ish Baptists on this side of the water of educating their own ministers, as their brethren in Sweden were doing. At first his intention was to conduct a school in the Oak Street Baptist Church, but when the doors of the Baptist Union Theological Seminary were opened to him he gratefully availed himself of the opportunity to teach there. In the fall of 1871 Swedish instruction was begun at that institution in a small way, only one student appearing at the opening of Edgren's department. In 1873, Edgren was officially called to conduct a Scandinavian de- partment at the seminary with the added burden of providing for its maintenance and his own support. Accepting the position, he worked un- der disheartening conditions for the next five years. After the removal of the seminary to Morgan Park, in 1877, he continued in charge of the Swed- ish department until 1884, when an earlier resolution to establish a sepa- rate Swedish seminary was carried into effect by the removal of the Swed- DR. JOHAN ALEXIS EDGREN. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 137 ish department to St. Paul, Minn., pending a permanent location. That year ample means for its support were received, while $20,000 were sub- scribed to the building fund and a site between the Twin Cities was offered. A year later, however, the school was removed to Stromsburg, Neb., where it was given a ten-acre site and a bonus of $10,000. Its location there seems to have been dictated by private interests, and naming the school Central Bible Seminary did not make it any more centrally located in rela- tion to the majority of the churches. In 1888 it was generally recognized that a mistake had been made, a majority of the directors favored a new and truly central location, and the outcome of negotiations was that the school was reunited with the Chicago institution. Impaired health caused Edgren to retire, in 1887, after having taught for fifteen years, with one interruption. Rev. C. G. Lagergren was then called from Sweden to take his place, Eric Sandell and N. N. Morten con- tinuing as assistants. In the fall of 1888 the school again opened at Mor- gan Park, the Baptist Theological Union having agreed to provide lecture halls and dormitory accommodations for the students, and to pay the sal- aries of two of the Swedish professors, the department to be under the supervision of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Dr. Lagergren, who accepted the call in 1888, still remains at the head of the Swedish Seminary. In 1895 Sandell and Morten were succeeded by Profs. W. A. Peterson and Olof Hedeen, the latter an acquisition from the clergy of the Lutheran Augustana Synod. Pastors Eric Wingren and John Ong- man are among those who have taught for various periods. While the majority of those who have received instruction are Swedes, there has been a fair Norwegian and Danish element among the students from the outset. The work of Rev. Edgren, the founder, in behalf of the Swedish Bap- tists on this side of the Atlantic probably was of broader scope than that of any other man. Born Feb. 20, 1839, a native of Ostana, Vermland, he prepared for three years at the Karlstad elementary school, then aban- doned his studies in 1852 to go to sea. He got his fill of adventures on the very first trip, but after a stay at home entered the school of navigation at Stockholm and resumed his seafaring life after graduation for the posi- tion of captain's mate. During a terrific storm on one of his voyages he gave his heart to God and pledged himself to the Lord's service as a mis- sionary. After some hesitation between the Methodists and the Baptists, he joined the latter and was baptized at New York in 1858. He then re- turned to Sweden to complete another two-year course in navigation. In one year's time he earned his captain's diploma. On a subsequent voyage to American ports as second mate on a Swedish brig, Edgren, at Charles- ton, S. C., received his first impressions of slavery, which later prompted him to lend a hand in crushing out that curse. He was in the service of the Swedish merchant marine at the beginning of the Civil War and on board a vessel in Charleston harbor chanced to be an eye-witness to the first shots exchanged in that great conflict. DR. C. G. LAGERGREN. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 139 After his return to Sweden to establish a navigation school at Stock- holm, he became a close associate of Rev. Anders Wiberg and preached occasionally, but did not as yet see his future mission clear. In 1862 he visited the United States again to see his brother, Hjalmar, who was serving in the Union Army and had just then witnessed the memorable battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac off Hampton Roads. He found him at Fort Rip Raps, whence he went to New York and applied for admission to the U. S. Navy as a non-commissioned officer. Upon examination he was, however, given a commission, and served as naviga- tor in the Atlantic blockade. Both brothers resigned from the service, and the naval officer took up theological studies at Princeton University, but after a year returned to the navy. He was given command of the small armored cruiser Catalpa and ordered to report to Admiral Dahlgren at Port Royal. Finding life tedious on board a blockading ship, Fclgren, at his own request, was transferred to a battery at Gumming' s Point. From now until the fall of Charleston he was almost constantly on the firing line, and was again present when on that memorable I5th of April Gen. Anderson hoisted anew the Union flag he had been compelled to haul dow r n from the shattered ramparts of Fort Snmter at the opening of the war. Resigning from the navy at the close of the war, Fdgren was engaged as seaman's missionary and colporteur at New York, by the American Baptist Publication Society. After having studied at Madison University one year, he was appointed missionary in 1866, and accompanied Pastor Wiberg to Sweden, where he became professor of mathematics and natural sciences at the Bethel Seminary in Stockholm at the opening of that in- stitution. Later he removed to Upsala, where he served the little Baptist flock, while pursuing theological studies. After having labored for a time as a missionary in Goteborg, Edgren returned to America and accepted a call from the Chicago Swedish Baptist Church. It was while serving this church that he conceived the idea of a Bible school for the Swedish- speaking brethren, and personally realized the plan. During his fifteen years at the head of the school it reached a maximum annual attendance of forty students. In 1880 the University of Chicago conferred upon Prof. Edgren the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He was an able scholar and Bible commentator, and published interesting reminiscences of his past life. Twelve other works by him have been published in book form. The church papers edited by him were Zions Vakt, started in 18/3, and pub- lished for a short time, and Evangclisk Tidskrift, established in 1877, and continued by him until 1880. Owing to failing health, Dr. Edgren with- drew from the active service of his church in 1887, and lived in retirement in California, where he died Jan. 26, 1908. THE CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. Among the large group of religious denominations in Illinois we also find the Church of the New Jerusalem. From the name of Emanuel 140 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Swedenborg, the illustrious writer of its doctrines, its members are gen- erally called Swedenbprgians, The first organization of the New Church in Illinois was established in Chicago, in 1843, by the Hon. Jonathan Young Scammon, and a few others, under the name of The Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem. From that small beginning it grew, mainly among the Americans, until it is now spread to every part of the state, and counts among its members, representatives of many nations, of whom the Swedes and Germans pre- dominate. In Chicago there are eight congregations, and in five of them are a large number of Swedes and their descendants. In Glenview, 111., is a flourishing New Church settlement, with many members of Swedish birth and extraction. This settlement has its own day-school where chil- dren are educated up to first year high school, and for those who wish to further round out their education under New Church auspices. The Acad- emy of the New Church, at Bryn Athyn, Pa., offers college training. In connection with it is also a theological seminary. There is another theo- logical school at Cambridge, Mass. As far as it is known, the first Swedish believers in the New Church in Illinois \vere Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Lundquist and their two daughters, Mathilda G., and Johanna S. (Mrs. J. W. Florine, of Andover, 111., and Mrs. M. B. Ogden, of Riverside, Cal). Lundquist, who was a paper manufacturer in Helsingland, Sweden, after having become affiliated with the followers of Erik Jansson, disposed of his property and came to this country in 1846, locating in Bishop Hill. This affiliation did not appear to be a hard and fast adherence to Janssonism, for the family is claimed to have constituted a group of Swedenborgians from the time of their ar- rival. Being unable to speak English they did not associate themselves with the Illinois Association of the New Jerusalem, then recently formed, nor did they make any propaganda in behalf of their faith among their fellow countrymen, but only studied in private the revelation of the new age. But Mrs. Ogden later became a member of the Riverside Society, in California, where she belonged until her death, and Mrs. Florine made herself well known by giving $10,000 to the Church Building Fund in Stockholm, Sweden, and a mortgage of nearly $3,500 to the Western New Church Union, of Chicago. Among the first Swedish believers in the New Church in Chicago were Swain Nelson and his wife, Johanna Sophia Hoffman Nelson, and Olof Benson, who joined in 1858. These three came from the vicinity of Kristianstad, Sweden, in 1852, and as Mrs. Nelson was a daughter of a zealous member of the Kristianstad Society, they were then more or MRS. M. B. OGDEN. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 141 less imbued with the faith and the knowledge of the New Church. Messrs. Nelson and Benson, being landscape engineers and practical gardeners, later became much interested in the private and public development of Chicago, and were also the ones to whom was assigned the work of laying out Lincoln Park. This they did, and after its completion, Mr. Benson served as its superintendent for seventeen years. Mr. Nelson spent his last years peacefully with his oldest son, Seymour Nelson, and daughter- in-law, Mrs. Annie Florine Nelson, in Glenview, 111., until death claimed him, Jan. 18, 1917. But as the years passed on, more Swedish names were added to the receivers of the New Church. Among them we find Mrs. Anna Frederika Magnusson, who joined in 1866, Mr. and Mrs. Nels Johnson, Mr. Leonard Gyllenhaal, the editor, a grandson of the great entomologist of the same name, Mr. and Mrs. Blid, Mr. C. F. Peterson, the editor and author, Dr. J. W. Marelius, Dr. Oscar Oldberg, Mr. and Mrs. John G. Gustafson and many more. Besides these, some of their wives were born in this country of Swedish parents, and several of them have left large families. But no effort was made by those to establish a distinct New Church society, mainly because of the ease with which Swedes take to English and American ways. Public discourses were indeed delivered now and then, as for instance by Prof. Carl Th. Odhner, of Bryn Athyn, Pa., in the early eighties, and Mr. C. F. Peterson, in the late nineties, but as immediate results did not follow, the efforts lapsed. The first permanent public propaganda among the Swedes in Illinois was started by the Rev. John Headsten in 1898. As a layman he then 'began by establishing a book depot and advertising its contents; secured authorization to preach from the Illinois Association ; held meetings in private houses, and from time to time preached and delivered lectures in churches and halls in Illinois and elsewhere. In July, 1903, the Swedish- American New Church Society was organized under his auspices, with twenty-one charter members, Dr. C. V. Urbom of Rock ford being elected president, Mr. John Headsten, secretary, and Mr. Eric Hawkinson, treasurer. This continued as a highly useful body until Mr. Headsten entered the theological school, in Bryn Athyn, in 1911, when its use naturally passed over to the Extension Fund of the General Church. A Swedish Society was organized in Rockford, in 1904, by Dr. C. V. Urbom and friends, that is still in existence, but in a dormant state, owing to the lack of a leader. After Mr. Headsten had completed his course at the theological school, he entered upon the work of building up a society mainly of Swedes, using both Swedish and English to gain his purpose. This he succeeded in doing. The Swedenborg New Church Society was organ- ized as a consequence in January, 1914. That society has now thirty-five members. Although most of them are Swedes, or of Swedish descent, there are six other nationalities represented in it. In 1915 Mr. Headsten began publishing The N civ-Church Evangelist, 142 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in English, which ran for one year. Each issue of this contained a sermon unfolding the spiritual meaning of the Word, extracts from Swedenborg's theological writings, and an editorial on things pertaining to a practical Christian life. As far as can be ascertained, there are at present about 816 members of the New Church in Illinois, and of these at least 130 are Swedes, or of Swedish extraction. Olof Benson was an active worker within the Chicago society, and served for many years as its secretary. After the great fire the society's North Side Sunday-school was held for some time in his home. In 1873 he built for the society a chapel near the junction of La Salle avenue and Clark street, at the border of Lincoln Park. This was erected at a cost of $1,500. In the early seventies Benson was superintendent of the Sunday-school, and from 1878 to 1882 he served as assistant secretary and as secretary. "For thirty-five or more years," says Ralph Williams, 1 "Benson and his wife" (Jessie E. Arnold, who married him in 1865) "were industrious and useful members of the church, Mr. Benson much of the time being a leader in the Sunday-school, and many years an officer and prominent and efficient committeeman." THE MISSION FRIENDS, AN OUTGROWTH OF LUTHERANISM. The group of religionists comprised in the general term Mission Friends is the outgrowth of a movement in the Church of Sweden known as devotionalism, characterized by a trend toward deeper spirituality, greater freedom from dogmatism and set forms of worship and church practice, the exclusion of all but true believers from the Eucharist and ultimately from the new congregations when formed independent of the State Church. Many devotionalists, or so-called Readers, remained loyal to the Church of Sweden, but about the middle of the last century many of them turned Methodists, Baptists, and Janssonists. In the sixties and later others of this element organized "communion societies," and mission societies, which ultimately crystallized into a distinct denomination which was organized in Sweden in 1878 under the name of the Mission Covenant. Its counterpart in this country is the Mission Covenant organized in Chi- cago in 1885, which was long the only well defined body of Mission Friends in the United States, while others of the group who for some time would tolerate no form of denominational organization were designated as the Free Mission Friends until 1908, when they organized the Swedish Evangelical Free Church. Still others were too free even to affiliate with the Free Church, and some, chiefly those living in the eastern states, associated themselves with the American Congregational Church. A number of Mission Friends from Jonkoping, Sweden, came to Chicago in 1867, and joined the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church. They soon formed a group by themselves and began holding devotional meetings in the various homes. One Martin Sundin would read to them 1 In "The New Church and Chicago," 1906. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 143 from their favorite church paper, Pictisten, but as yet they had no recog- nized leader. The next year John Peterson, who had been a lay preacher in Sweden, joined them and naturally took a leading part in the conduct of devotionals. Another of their early preachers was C. J. Lindahl, who took a prominent part about 1869. But the arrival of J. M. Sanngren is said to have been the real impetus to the work, and on Dec. 26, 1868, at a meeting held in the home of Martin Sundin, 134 East Superior street, the first step was taken toward the organization of a mission association patterned on those in Sweden. This was the beginning of the Lutheran Mission Church on the North Side. Sundin, who came to Chicago in 1864 from Gefle, Sweden, is spoken of as the pioneer of the group. He was a member of the Immanuel Church and served for a time as deacon. Next after him came Henry Palmblad, Johan Lof, J. E. Wretlof, August Hanson, M. Engquist, and others. For their early meetings they are said to have been given the use of a room by D. L. Moody, in his church. Lindahl had come in 1868 as a student from the Ahlberg school in Sweden. Being a brother of S. P. A. Lindahl, then a student in Paxton, he was well received by Rev. Erland Carlsson of the Immanuel Church and was soon engaged as city missionary. As the two brothers, Anders and Eric Norelius, had joined one the Baptists, the other the Lutherans, so here the brothers Lindahl were on the point of separation. Lindahl, however, did not long remain with this movement, although "hyper- evangelical" in his tendencies, but was discharged from the position of Lu- theran city missionary on that ground. He later joined the Lutheran General Synod. Sanngren, a native of Alsheda parish, Smaland, born 1837, had studied with Pastor Ahlberg in his school at Ahlsborg, whence he came to Chicago in September, 1868. He was engaged as lay preacher in the Augustana Synod, and when he appeared in Immanuel his sermons ap- pealed strongly to the group of Mission Friends. When they had com- pleted their own meeting-house on Franklin street in 1869 they called him as their preacher. Upon the subsequent organization of the society as a church communion, he remained its pastor until 1876, then leaving for Lund, Wis. Sanngren became the first president of the Mission Synod in 1873, remaining in that office until his death in 1878. THE MISSION AND ANSGARIUS SYNODS. The North Side Mission Church was the first of that denomination in this state. Partly through early missionaries sent out from here similar churches soon were established in various localities, including Princeton, Rockford, and Galesburg, Keokuk and Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn. The need of union and cooperation soon became apparent, and at a meeting of Mission Friends held at Princeton in 1871 it was proposed by representatives from the Chicago church to form a synod. Acting on this suggestion, a small group of laymen and preachers JONAS ENGBERG. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 145 met at Keokuk, and on May 22, 1873, organized the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Synod. It was incorporated by Peter Englund, Charles Anderson, C. G. Swenson, S. W. Sundberg, and C. A. Bjork. In 1874 the synod began publishing a religious monthly styled Missions-Vannen, which was changed to a weekly in 1880. The organ- ization of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Ansgarius Synod followed in 1874. This was brought about through the efforts of Rev. C. Anderson, a pastor of Danish descent, who was called by the Mission Church in Galesburg, organized in 1868 as the Second Swedish Lutheran Church of that city. Anderson, who was a member of the Synod of Northern Illinois, in 1873 opened a theological school in Keokuk. He had partici- pated in the organization of the Mission Synod, and was enthusiastic for new workers in the mission field. Upon the refusal of that synod to affiliate with the Northern Illinois Anderson withdrew from the former, his only remaining backers being a few mission churches who did not join the Swedish synod. In 1871 he had begun publishing Sions Bancr, a religious journal. When in 1874 he was soliciting funds for a school building, James Knox offered him $12,000, provided he would locate his school in Knoxville. The offer was accepted, and after $5,000 had been added by the city and $3,000 solicited at large a building was erected. Anderson, however, deemed it advisable to have a synod control and back the institution, and in consequence the Ansgarius Synod was organized May 1 8, 1874, at Galesburg. It was formed on practically the same con- fessional basis as the Mission Synod, nevertheless a misunderstanding soon arose between the two bodies, neither of which was strong, and the breach was widened when the younger synod joined the Lutheran General Synod. In 1878 it proposed a union between the Mission and Ansgarius Synods, in order to secure better support for the school, now known as Ansgarius College, but the sister synod declined to cooperate. The churches of these two synods, together with certain independent churches, later gave rise to the Mission Covenant founded in 1885. PUBLISHING ACTIVITIES. THE SWEDISH LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY. The publishing business founded at Galesburg by T. N. Hasselquist and reorganized at Chicago in 1859 under the name of the Swedish Lutheran Publication Society was conducted under the control of the Augustana Synod for fourteen years. During its first years and while the Civil War was on it flourished but moderately, but from the middle sixties its success was more marked, as indicated by the fact that the business could be sold for $17,000 in 1874, after the weekly newspaper Hemlandet had been disposed of for $10,000. It must be explained, how- ever, that in these deals the good will of the church body was a consid- eration of much greater value than the tangible property included in the sales. This becomes all the more evident from the fact that the plant of J46 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the publishing society had been totally destroyed in the great fire shortly before, the loss being only half covered by the insurance collected. The publication society and its successors for about a quarter of a century put out the great bulk of the Swedish books published in the United States. When the business was reopened in Chicago in January, 1859, Rev. Erland Carlsson, .pastor of the Immanuel Church, was made business manager with the assistance of Jonas Engberg, while Rev. Eric Norelius became editor of the two papers issued by the society. Norelius and Engberg had merged their paper, Minnesota-Posten, with Hemlandet when they entered the employ of the society. The plant was established in the schoolhouse of the Immanuel church, at 190-192 Superior street, and later housed in the basement of the church. Norelius resigned the editorship after nine months, and Engberg left in October, 1864, after having served as editor of Hemlandet in addition to his duties as acting manager under Carlsson, whose pastoral work and many other duties as a churchman occupied the greater part of his time. Engberg was succeeded in both capacities by Rev. A. R. Cervin, while Carlsson continued at the head of the business until 1868. When Cervin left at the close of that year to assume a chair of teaching at Augustana Seminary in Paxton, J. G. Princell, his assistant, took editorial charge for half a year, until succeeded by P. A. Sundelius. Apparently spurred by competition since 1866 with the new secular weekly Svenska Amcrikanaren, the publishers now changed Hemlandet from a mainly church weekly to a general political newspaper. It remained for John A. Enander, who became editor after Sundelius in December, 1869, to shape the editorial policy of that paper, with a short interval, for the next forty years. The chief work of the publishing concern was to supply the need of the Lutheran churches in the way of hymnals, textbooks for the parish schools, and religious and devotional works. At first most of these were imported, but by slow degrees the publishing of such books was brought about. The first American edition of the Swedish Psalmbook was pub- lished in 1864, a revised edition of Luther's Catechism in 1868, Esbjorn's translation having been previously in vogue. "Hemlandssanger," first pub- lished in 1860, proved popular and ran through a number of editions, a music edition being added in iS/o. In the Chicago fire of 1871 the society suffered a loss estimated at $18,000, recovering but $5,000 of insurance. The plant at 169 Clark street being gutted, the business was subsequently established at 94 East Chicago avenue. All these years the concern had yielded no profit. This fact added force to an old agitation for years past in favor of disposing of the busi- ness. The management was now vested in the board of directors of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, with a view to turning the accruing earnings over to that institution, then hard pressed for money. The question was whether to sacrifice one or the other of the two estab- lishments for the benefit of the remaining one. The educational institu- GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 147 G. A. BOHMAX. tion being deemed of greater importance, the publishing house had to go. First the general newspaper Hemlandct was sold, in 1872, for $10,000 to J. A. Enander and G. A. Bohman, bringing the school that amount in ten annual installments. It had at that time fifty students and paid annually but $1,600 in teachers' salaries, but large sums were needed to insure its permanence after the relative failure of the land speculations in Paxton entered into for its maintenance there. In the next two years the removal of the school to Rock Island was determined upon, and funds were in still greater demand to complete the first main building. So the sale of the book publishing business followed in 1874, the board realizing another $17,000 for the institution. The pur- chasers, Jonas Engberg, C. P. Holmberg, and C. O. Lindell, were to pay that sum in semi- annual installments distributed over a period of fifteen years. The directors of the school, acting on behalf of the synod, had entered into a formal agreement not to start any new political newspaper and never to lend their support to any other such paper than Hcrnlandet. When the book business was sold, there went with the sale "all the rights and privileges" of the former corporation (which was identical with the synod), as stipulated in the charter of the publication society. The essence of these rights and privileges was, "to establish a book establishment for the circulation of books of a generally useful or Christian character, espe- cially of the Lutheran confession" (Charter, Section 4). Nevertheless, as subsequent events \vent to show, neither of the two new firms were protected, as they had a right to suppose, from competition from within the synod at large and the educational institution to which they were paying their money. ANDERS RICHARD CERVIX, EDITOR AXD TEACHER. For a period of forty years Dr. A. R. Cervin rendered notable service chiefly in the two capacities of teacher and editor. From 1865 until his death in 1900, except for his years of decrepitude, he was constantly in the active service of the Augustana Synod, 1865-68 as editor of the synodical periodicals, 1868-78 as professor in Augustana College, and during the subsequent period, up to the time of his disability, nominally as proofreader but practically as office editor of the synodical organ, Augustana och Missiondrcn, and also of various other periodicals and publications issued by private publishing concerns and later by the official synodical publishing house. Cervin was a man of scholarly attainments and one of the few men of university training in our early period who had earned the doctor's REV. ERLAND CARLSSON. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 149 degree in cursu. His studies, extensive and diversified, were further deepened during eighteen years devoted to the profession of teaching. Born in the city of Kristianstad, he went through the Swedish ele- mentary school and prepared further at the University of Lund, attaining the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1847 a t the age of twenty-four. Next he studied jurisprudence for a short time, while teaching privately in Lund, and specialized along other lines. During the next six years he taught in the college of Helsingborg, then spent one year in the United States, assisting Pastor Hasselquist, his brother-in-law, at Galesburg, chiefly in editorial work. Returning to Sweden, he took a position to which he had been appointed before leaving and taught for three years in the college of his native city, whereupon he completed a four-year divinity course, studying partly in Lund and partly in Upsala, and received ministerial ordination in September, 1864. Shortly after, he came to this country for the second time, and in October, 1864, assumed the editorship of Hemlandet, now issued from Chicago. The statement made in certain biographies that Cervin championed the cause of the Union in the columns of this paper during the years of the Civil War is patently erroneous, the war ending a few months after he began work on the paper. He was, however, a staunch adherent of the Union cause and maintained a firm Republican tone in the paper. After having served as editor for nearly four years, he left the editorial chair in Chicago for the professor's chair at Paxton in the fall of 1868. After serving Augustana College as teacher of mathematics, Greek and the natural sciences until 1878, he resumed editorial work, continuing in that capacity until old age and broken health compelled his retirement. He died Jan. 5, 1900, in his home in Rock Island, built in 1874, just prior to the removal of Augustana College to that city. Among his children are Olof Z. Cervin, an architect of his home city, who holds an appointment as official church architect of the Augustana Synod, and Louisa Elizabeth (Lillie) Cervin, a teacher in the Augustana Conservatory. Fifty years after Cervin's promotion as doctor of philoso- phy, his university conferred signal distinction upon him by awarding him the honorary title of Jubilee Doctor of Philosophy. ERLAND CARLSSON, CHURCHMAN AND FINANCIER. Erland Carlsson came from Sweden in August, 1853, upon a call to become the first permanent pastor of the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church of Chicago, organized in January of the same year by Pastor T. N. Hasselquist. His first years in Chicago were laborious in the extreme and conditions were often discouraging. Among the Swedish emigrants pouring into Chicago by the hundreds and thousands the Asiatic cholera was making its ravages at this juncture, and Pastors Carlsson and Unonius were overwhelmed with work in their earnest efforts to lend aid and succor, both material and spiritual, to suffering and indigent new- comers. But conditions soon changed to the better ; Carlsson's church 150 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS grew large and relatively prosperous, 114 new members being added during his first year in charge. From 1860 on, when immigration in- creased, owing partly to the great demand for men in the peaceful avoca- tions during the drain caused by the war, 1 the Swedish population of Chicago grew at a rapid pace, and in five years Carlsson added more than 300 new members. For ten years the congregation rented out space, first in its schoolhouse, then in the basement of the church, to the Swedish Lutheran Publication Society, and rooms to other parties, collecting in rents more than the total cost of the improvements on its church property in that time. For about nine years Carlsson was at the head of the Lutheran pub- lishing business, as business manager, and at intervals as editor of its periodicals. It has been stated that he served without salary, but as throughout his term of service no reports were ever rendered to the synod and incorporated with its records, this cannot be established. Carlsson's executive ability seems to have been either overtaxed or overrated. Both Esbjorn and Hasselquist had looked to him to start the paper in Chicago which Hasselquist later began publishing in Galesburg, feeling that the matter should no longer be put off. Of Carlsson's early commission to collect a theological library for the use of the early Scandinavian ministers of the Synod of Northern Illinois nothing came not even a report. From a close study of letters and papers that have been preserved from the time of the publication society we have not found that Carlsson did any editorial routine work either on Hemlandct or on the books published. The office management, bookkeeping, and editing was done by Jonas Engberg and A. R. Cervin the greater part of the time, and in justice to them credit should be given where due. Thus it appears that Carlsson devoted himself chiefly to his pastoral work. He began by serving the congregation in Geneva and St. Charles, besides that in Chicago, and did much work as a traveling missionary, organizing a number of congregations, including churches in Rockford and De Kalb. He remained as pastor of the Immanuel church for twenty- two years. Removing to Andover in 1875, he served as pastor there for twelve years, meanwhile managing the Andover orphanage and leaving it free of debt in 1887. He became business manager of Augustana College that year, resigning after two years and removing to his farm near Lindsborg, Kansas, to live in retirement and seek to better his impaired health. While in Chicago Carlsson made judicious investments that in time yielded substantial returns. His homestead and premises in Chicago were sold to the Illinois Conference, for hospital purposes, for $35,000, and Carlsson was one of the founders of the Augustana Hospital located there. Erland Carlsson was born in Elghult parish, Smaland, Aug. 24, 1822. He began his studies in 1839 and earned his college degree in five years, subsequently pursuing theological studies until 1848. He was ordained 1 Norelius, in "Augustana-synoden, 1860-1910." GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 151 to the ministry of the Church of Sweden the following year, and served as pastor at the Lessebo paper mills until called to Chicago. He was always a prominent figure among Swedish- American Lutherans and many important trusts were committed to his hands. Norelius is probably too optimistic in his estimate that the $27,000 realized for Augustana College by the sale of the newspaper Hemlandet and the book publishing estab- lishment was chiefly the fruit of Carlsson's labors. We find greater justice in the appreciation of him given by C. F. Peterson, who says : "Pastor Carlsson was probably the most energetic, most tireless, and most suc- cessful promoter of the Swedish Lutheran Church in America." In rec- ognition of his practical services he was awarded the honorary degree of Di D. by Augustana College in 1892. Carlsson was married, in 1854, to Eva Fredrika Anderson ; he died October 19, 1893, leaving his wife and three children, Eben Carlsson of Lindsborg, Kan., and Samuel E. Carlsson and Mrs. Emmy Evald, both of Chicago. As a financier, Carlsson took a prominent part in the establishment of Augustana College at Paxton in the early sixties and again in the eighties at the founding of Augustana Hospital in Chicago. REPRESENTATIVE SECULAR JOURNALS. Scores of newspapers and periodicals in the Swedish language have been published in the State of Illinois from 1855 down to the present. The enumeration of them, with a few data on each one, would largely partake of the nature of an antiquarian's catalogue, for many have been shortlived, and copies of them are now rare, even in the files of collectors. The representative Swedish secular newspapers founded during this period (1860-1893) were Svenska Amcrikanarcn I and II, there having been two different papers by that name; Svenska Tribuncn, and Svcnska Kurircn. On April 16, 1866, a number of men in Chicago and elsewhere in the state issued a circular inviting their fellow countrymen to join in forming a stock company with a view to publishing a weekly newspaper of liberal tendencies to oppose the alleged intolerance and bigotry of the religious papers, referring chiefly to the Lutheran papers and the Methodist organ, Sandebudet, the only ones then in existence. The organizers were : John A. Nelson, president; M. E. Nelson, vice-president; P. J. Hussander, treasurer ; P. L. Hawkinson, secretary ; Charles J. Stromberg ; P. L. East- man, C. F. Billing, F. T. Engstrom, P. M. Almini, all of Chicago; John Peterson, Galesburg; A. A. Schenlund, Princeton, and Olof Johnson, Galva. In Charles J. Sundell and O. G. Lange of Chicago the enter- prise had two strong backers. The corporation, named the Swedish- American Publishing Company, on September 8, 1866, published the first issue of the new paper, styled Svenska Amerikanaren. Col. Hans Matt- son of Minnesota was the nominal and Herman Roos the acting editor- in-chief. In 1869 Roos was succeeded by Peter A. Sundelius, who had for six months edited the rival paper, Hemlandet. Roos had maintained 152 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS continuous warfare with that paper on a variety of topics, principally the secret society question, and his successor hewed close to the line. Sunde- lius was a capable and forceful writer, who took the keenest delight in polemical duels. He conducted the policy of the paper until 1873, when Charles J. Stenquist purchased it and changed the name to Nya Svenska Amerikanaren. Svenska Tribitnen was founded in 1877. It was the direct successor of Nya Verlden, and absorbed Nya Svenska Amerikanaren that year and in 1878 two other papers, Skandia of Moline and Nya Folkets Tidning. After the first consolidation Nils An- derson and Herman Roos appropriated the name Svenska Amerikanaren for their paper, published prior to that time under the name of Svenska Fasten. This oc- curred in October, 1877. In September, 1884, Anderson sold his paper to the Swedish-American Printing Company, composed of Sundelius, N. P. Nelson, and Gabriel Hjertquist, C. F. Peterson join- ing them shortly after. In 1886 A. E. G. Wingard became a stockholder, and in 1888 Frans Albin Lindstrand, who was the directing power in this paper for the next twenty years. Svenska Kuriren as a newspaper dates from December, 1887, when it succeeded a comic weekly published by F. W. Ankarfelt. It was turned over to John Harder, of Harder, Luse & Co., for debt, and he in turn placed it under the management of Alex. J. Johnson in August, 1888. In January, 1889, Hr. Johnson secured possession and has been its pub- lisher and editor ever since. FRANS ALBIN LINDSTRAND. JOURNALISTS AND WRITERS OF NOTE. As publisher, journalist and author, JOHAN ALFRED ENANDER has rendered valuable service to the Swedish press and literature in this state and throughout the country. As a young man he came to the United States, proud of his native country and its achievements, and during his American career of forty odd years he made himself the foremost cham- pion of Swedish letters and culture on American soil. In the work of in- spiring in the immigrants and their children love of and taste for the language and literature of Sweden he unquestionably deserved greater credit than any other man. In this mission his eloquent tongue ably sec- onded his pen. As editor and publisher of Hemlandet, he accomplished the bulk of his work, yet he found time for independent authorship. In the years 1875-80 he compiled a history of the United States, of four TOH. A. ENANDER. 154 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS volumes, in the Swedish language. His historical essays, together with stories and poems, were published in 1892 in a volume entitled "Valda Skrifter." As a verse-writer he was not prolific, but we concede to his verse a quality and literary finish that is rare in Swedish-American poets. Among minor works by Enander the following have been published : "Nordmannen i Amerika" (1892) ; "Vara faders sinnelag" (1894) ; two compilations "Ur Svenska sangen," an anthology of Swedish poetry (1901), and "Eterneller och Varblommor." He edited Ndr och Fjerran, a literary magazine, and Ungdomsvanncn, a young people's paper, in the latter seventies. The firm of Enander and Bohman, which published Hemlandet from 1872 to 1889, also did an extensive book publishing busi- ness. Enander was a native of Vestergotland, Sweden, born in the parish of Harja May 22, 1842. As a youth he began to contribute to provincial papers, and wrote a short history of Mormonism, published in 1863. After having received private instruction, he entered the elementary school in Venersborg in 1866. In August, 1869, he came to this country to enter the Augustana Seminary at Paxton. After one term of theological study his newspaper experience secured him an editorial position on Hemlandet. In 1890 Enander was called to the chair of Swedish at Augustana College, and taught until 1893, when he resigned. In 1896 he resumed the editorship of Hemlandet, having edited Svenska Journalen for two years in the interval. From Augustana College he received the degree of LL. D. in 1892, and King Oscar II. in 1905 awarded him the Litteris et Artibus medal in recognition of his authorship. The Swedish Academy awarded him 500 crowns in 1910 in consideration of his literary achieve- ments in general. Enander died at his home in Chicago September 9, 1910. Some time prior to his demise he was incapacitated by paralysis, and retired from his editorial work. During his forty-one years in America Enander did not acquire the English language, and was therefore not a true exemplar of the Swedish-American citizen, but, showing little receptiveness to American influences, remained a fine type of the ultra-patriotic Swede. CARL FREDRIK PETERSON ranks with Enander in point of general authorship. His published works are: "Svenskarne i Illinois" (1880), compiled in cooperation with Capt. Eric Johnson, but written by Peterson ; "Forenta Staternas Historia ;" "Republiken och dess institutioner ;" "Amerikanska Valtalare," compiled and translated ; "Karlek och plikt," a novel; "Larobok i Geografi ;" "Ett Hundra Ar;" "Politisk Handbok," and "Sverige i Amerika." Peterson was born at Fittja, Sodermanland, Sweden, April 16, 1843. As a young man of eighteen he came to the United States in 1861, intend- ing to fight for the Union cause and the abolition of slavery. He was re- jected for defective sight, and spent the next nine years in various occu- pations. In 18/0 he entered upon his journalistic career as editor of Mm- GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 155 nesota-Postcn, at St. Paul, transferred after a few months to the Illinois Sivede, at Galva, and remained with this paper through its various changes of name and character until 1880 as editor-in-chief, continuing for the suc- ceeding four years as associate editor. He then went over to the second Svenska Amerikanaren, remaining until 1888 as editor and part owner. After editing two short-lived newspapers during the next three years. Peterson devoted himself to independent literary work for a number of years. After the death of his friend Andrew Chaiser, Peterson as adminis- trator took charge of his paper, Svenska Tribunen, in 1899, until it was sold shortly afterwards. In 1901 he tried a new venture, a weekly paper named A T a- tional-Tidningen, which ceased publica- tion after a few months, when Peterson was stricken with an illness that ended his life June n. Up to 1885 Peterson was a Repub- lican, then turned Democrat, and at the flood-tide of Populism embraced that political faith, championing in turn these various views with a vigor that seemed born of long-established conviction. His political articles were characterized by depth and thoroughness. Self-taught as he was, Peterson attained a remarkable degree of intellectual development. With a better start in early life his un- usual talents ought to have earned him greater recognition than he re- ceived. He was an adherent of Swedenborg's religious teachings and a student of occultism and religio-philosophical subjects. CARL FREDRIK PETERSON. THE BEGINNINGS OF SWEDISH-AMERICAN ART. SOME EARLY SWEDISH ARTISTS. It was not until the second period of development set in that a craving for art works awoke in the minds of the settlers. Then frescoes and altar paintings began to appear in the Swedish churches, and the decoration of the private homes began to betray the artistic instinct. The artists of this period were Almini, Peterson, Torgerson, Fredrik and Lars Blomberg- son, and Peter Roos, who taught at the University of Illinois. PETER M. ALMINI (1825-1890), a skilled painter from Sweden, who had assisted in the decoration of the royal palace at Stockholm, came over in 1852, locating in Chicago. He made himself known for skillful and artistic fresco work for churches and public halls in this and other cities. In 1868-71 Almini and Jevne published a journal entitled Chicago Illus- 156 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS tratcd, each part containing four lithographed pictures in color, with de- scriptive text. The grandfather of Almini was an Italian artist, who was called to Stockholm by King Carl XV Johan to decorate the interior of the royal palace, and who made his home in Sweden. The business founded by Almini in 1853 is still continued under the name of the Almini Company. He was chiefly a commercial artist, painting sketches and pic- tures for mere study or pastime. He became vice-president of the Master Painters' and Decorators' Association of Chicago and treasurer of the Na- tional Association of Painters and Decorators, having aided in the organ- ization of both associations. He was a member of the Chicago Academy of Design. Peter M. Almini was born in the province of Smaland, Sweden, March 21, 1825. His boyhood was spent in the ordinary routine of country life. His father dying while he was still young, he was left to the care of his mother. His educational advantages were only such as fell to the lot of the majority of farmers' sons, and he relied on his inborn intelligence to direct him in gathering the crumbs of knowledge which fell within his reach. That he did this to good advantage, his after life afforded ample proof. At the age of fourteen, young Almini, becoming ambitious to improve his fortune, left his home for the provincial town of Eksjo, where he became apprenticed for five years to a painter. Having finished his apprenticeship with credit, he spent a year in the city of Norrkoping, and subsequently removed to Stockholm, where, under the stimulating influences of this wider field, he labored patiently for six years to perfect himself in his trade. How well he succeeded is attested by the fact that he was engaged for two years in the work of decorating the royal palace. Slightly enriched in pocket after the completion of that work, but more by the artistic knowledge acquired, he was seized with a desire to seek new fields. He first went to Russia, but conditions there were not of a nature to appeal to the liberty-loving young Swede, so he embarked for America, landing at New York in 1852, at the age of twenty-seven. The abundant opportunities of the great West attracted him, and before the close of the year he was settled in Chicago, then a city of about 30,000 inhabitants. Eager to exercise the skill he had spent so many years to develop, but which the requirements of the young city then drew very lightly upon, he soon resolved to establish a business for himself, the result being the firm of Jevne and Almini in 1855. The success of this firm enabled Almini to accomplish a purpose which he had had in mind for some time that of contributing to the pleasure and cultivation of his adopted city by the establishment of an art gallery, the first of its kind in Chicago. When the city was swept by the flames in 1871 he saw with 'many others the result of years of labor destroyed, but in the spirit of most of his fellow- sufferers he reestablished himself in business alone. Three years later Almini was again a sufferer by the destructive fire of 1874. Recovering from this second stroke, he abandoned the business of general painting GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 157 and devoted himself to the higher grades of fresco work. The \visdom of his choice was manifested in the decorations of a large number of fine homes and public buildings in different parts of the country. He stood at the head of his profession, a position reached by painstaking labor and actual merit. He never solicited a job of work, and practiced none of the tricks of self-advertisement. The quality of his work attracted to him more business than he was able to handle. Almini had made a thorough study of both ancient and modern art, and skill- fully used the acquired knowledge in the execution of his art. The Painter, in its issue of July, 1882, from which we have quoted, concluded its sketch with the words : "Faithfulness, love of his trade, and perse- verance, coupled with good natural abilities, have made Mr. Almini one of the greatest fresco artists of his time." Another Swedish member of the Academy of Design was HENRY E. C. PETERSON, portrait painter, who for a time taught the life class in the academy, which in the sixties was a flourishing institution, and, after the fire, erected its own building in Michigan avenue. Peterson located in Chicago after having served in the U. S. Navy during the first three years of the Civil War. He was born (1841) and educated in Stockholm. In recent years Peterson has had the bulk of his work in New York City. Among noted Americans who have sat for him were Brigham Young, president of the Mormons, and John and Moses Wentworth, pioneers of Chicago. FREDRIK B. BLOMBERGSON, from Bergsjo, Sweden, lived in Chicago about 1868-73. Landscape painting was his specialty, and, finding little demand for his canvases here, he soon returned to Sweden, locating in the city of Soderhamn. AXEL WILLIAM TORGERSON (1833-1890), born in Stockholm and edu- cated at Upsala University, came to Chicago in 1856. He took up paint- ing in 1870 and developed into a marine artist of recognized ability. LARS AXEL BLOMBERGSON (1841-1879), came to Moline in 1868 from his native city of Soderhamn, Sweden. As an interior decorator he evinced artistic taste and talent. A number of churches were decorated by him during the eleven years he lived in Moline. The chair of industrial art and design at the University of Illinois was for ten years (1880-90) occupied by a Swedish artist, PETER Roos, a native of Skane, Sweden, born at Lyngby, February 22, 1850. He prepared at Kristianstad and came to Boston in 1872, establishing himself there as a fresco painter and designer. After teaching drawing in the evening schools of the city, he established an art school in 1874, named the Boston Art Academy. In 1876 he took a position as instructor at the University of Illinois, teaching that school year and in the winter and spring terms of 1880, prior to his election to the professorship of art and design. After studying and practicing landscape painting for some years in the nineties, Roos in 1896 became director of art study in the public schools of Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. 158 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS J. F. RING. Music AND MUSICIANS OF THE PERIOD. The Immanuel church choir of Chicago has the distinction of hav- ing been the first Swedish church choir in Illinois, except for a temporary aggregation of singers in Galesburg directed by Jonas Engberg for a month or two in the year 1855. Engberg, who served as organist of the Immanuel church in 1863-67, was the organizer also of the Chicago choir. It was the first Swedish-American chorus to render so large a choral work as a cantata. Root's "Queen Esther" was rendered by it at the opening of the Augustana College at Paxton in 1863, the performers being Jonas Engberg, Emma Peterson, Anna Carlsson, Tilda Swedman, Hannah Carlson, John J. Engberg, Lars E. and P. Lindberg. The can- tata was later repeated in Chicago, and the choir sang at church conventions in Moline and Geneseo. Lars E. Lindberg became choir master in 1867; Joseph Osborn in 1869; K. Sandquist served in 1870-74, and J. F. Ring for some five years, until 1879. This choir, reorganized in 1883 by Mrs. Emmy Evald, and increased to about one hundred members, joined with the choirs of the Gethsemane and Salem Lutheran church choirs in rendering, under Osborn's direction, a number of "Messiah" choruses and "Psalms of David," by Wennerberg, at a jubilee concert given in Central Music Hall, Chicago, Nov. 10, 1883, in commemoration of the four-hundredth anni- versary of the birth of Martin Luther. Mrs. Ella Carlson was the soprano soloist, and the Augustana College orchestra also participated. This organization had just assisted in a similar celebration at the college on Nov. 7 and 8. This choir has maintained its organization under many different directors, and rendered a number of cantatas and other large choral works from time to time. EDWARD A. WIMMERSTEDT is said to have been the earliest profes- sional musician among the Swedes of Illinois. He was born at Skarstad, near the city of Jonkoping, Sweden, Jan. 18, 1838, the son of an organist, composer and musical director named Anders Wilhelm Wimmerstedt. The son emigrated in 1863, locating first in Chicago, where he was a piano teacher for three years. He moved to Jacksonville, 111., in 1866, and there took a position as director of the musical department of the Illinois Female College, giving instruction also at the Illinois School for the Blind. Together with his wife, who was Miss Marion Phillips, a soprano and pianist, Wimmerstedt gave a number of recitals. He was the composer of many songs and opuses for the piano which enjoyed popularity in the seventies and eighties. His musical talent is said to have made him moderately wealthy. Attacked by consumption, Wim- GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 150 merstedt about 18/9 moved to Napa, Cal., and engaged successfully in fruit raising. He died at Oakland, Cal., Oct. 28, 1883, from injuries sustained in falling from a tree. Among the early Swedish Chicagoans was Lewis J. Magnusson, who came to the city with his family in 1855. He had lived in New York, where he was mar- ried to Sarah Corning, a lady of Huguenot and New England an- cestry, who possessed literary talent. They moved to Stock- holm, Mr. Magnusson's birth- place, and there he grew pros- perous as a merchant. Mrs. Magnusson became thorough!}' acquainted with the Swedish lan- guage and rendered a number of Swedish poems into English. They mingled in the literary and musical circles of the Swedish capital and numbered Crusen- stolpe, Frederika Bremer, Jenny Lind and Ole Bull among their personal friends. In Stockholm were born to them two daughters, who became noted in musical cir- cles in Chicago and elsewhere. These were ANNA FREDERIKA and ROSALIE MAGNUSSON. The two daughters began the KDWARD A. WIMMERSTEDT. study of piano at an early age. At the age of thirteen Anna appeared as orchestral accompanist at a series of Saturday afternoon concerts given under the direction of one of the early Chicago musicians. After serving as organist in several churches, she was sent to New York to study voice with Barille, the brother and teacher of Adelina Patti. In 1860 she went to Hamburg to study with Mme. Cornet, being, it is claimed, the first Chicago girl to study music abroad. With the advice of Jenny Lind, she became a pupil of Lam- perti, a noted vocal teacher of Milan. She studied operatic singing with him, dramatic art with Fiorvanti and trained as accompanist under Al- berti during a three years' stay in Italy. Returning to Chicago in 1864, Miss Magnusson sang at the Chicago Philharmonic Society's concert and was enthusiastically received. She was heard also in the Immanuel and St. Ansgarius churches. Shortly after accepting an engagement with Strakosch for a season of grand opera, a recurring illness compelled her to abandon the operatic stage. In Chicago she opened a study in the Crosby Opera House building and ANNA FREDERIKA MAGNUSSON JEWETT. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 161 entered upon a successful career as a vocal teacher. Among the pupils trained by her was Marie Engel, the opera singer. She married Fred- erick Jewett. No less than six languages were familiar to her, and her deft pen prepared many articles for musical journals. Mrs. Magnusson Jewett passed away May 8, 1894. The younger daughter, Rosalie Magnusson, was equally talented. While still a little girl, she became a pupil of Louis Staale, of Chicago. After another period of study in New York, she went to Berlin in 1871 and studied with the ablest musicians. In Vienna she enjoyed the advantage of studying under the personal direction of Rubinstein, who took a kind interest in her. After three years of intense artistic application, she returned to the United States. Having married Alvin M. Lan- caster, she achieved high repute as a con- cert pianist on the Pacific Coast, the pair having made their home in southern Cali- fornia. She trained a number of concert pianists and piano teachers and was gen- erally regarded as standing at the head of the profession. The Lancaster Musical Club was named in her honor. Mrs. Magnusson Lancaster returned to Chicago some ten years ago and continued to give instruction on her chosen instrument. Like her sister, she became known as an able writer on musical subjects. In 1869 an organization known as the Scandinavian National Quar- tette toured Wisconsin and Minnesota, appearing in national costumes. It was directed by John L. Swenson, and the other two Swedish mem- bers were Oliver Larson and C. J. Blomquist, and the Norwegian mem- bers Evert, Jacobsen and Olsen. After their return to Chicago they became the nucleus around which was formed the Freja Society in the fall of that year. This was a male chorus averaging sixty members. Its history merges with that of the Swedish Glee Club and the Swedish Club. Another musical organization, known as Svenska Sangforeningen, was formed by Alfred Lagergren in January, 1875. Singers of both sexes were admitted, and it soon grew to a membership approximating one hundred. It existed until 1879 and did commendable work while in its prime. Lagergren was a native of Christianstad, Sweden, born May 29, 1840. In 1869 he came to New York as a steamship ticket agent, and in 1871 opened a branch office of the White Star Line in Chicago. He returned to Sweden in 1883, after having been active in musical circles in Chicago for twelve years. ROSALIE MAGNUSSON LANCASTER. 162 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Among Swedish musicians in the seventies were one D'Ailly, a singer, and Benjamin Owen (Oven), an organist. The latter held a posi- tion in the Plymouth Church about 1878. Owen was a capable theorist and composer. Some of his anthems, as the "Ave Maria," are still being sung. He moved to Wisconsin, where he died in the early eighties. D'Ailly was the possessor of an extraordinary bass baritone voice. Grau, the impresario, was so struck with the quality of it that he for a time def rayed ^the expense of further schooling. D'Ailly, however, did not make the most of his opportunity, and after a short time Grau's interest in him ceased. A SWEDISH-AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CENTER. EARLY SWEDES IN ROCKFORD. If there be any city in Illinois which holds a particular interest for the Swedes, that city is Rockford. Its his- tory is linked very closely with that of the Swedes. Here they have taken a larger part, proportionately, in the industrial and commercial develop- ment than in any other city. Available sources state that the first Swedish immigrants arrived in Rockford in 1852. There is reason to believe, however, that Swedes lo- cated there at an earlier date. Thus in May of 1838 one Isak Johnson served on the jury of the District Court of Rockford, and it appears that he was of Swedish birth. In the year 1852 a company of nearly thirty immigrants came to Rock- ford. Among these were many who have written their names indelibly into the history of the city. The following, among others, were in the company : S. A. Johnson, John Nelson, Andrew Hollem, P. G. Hollem, Alexander Anderson, Mr. and Mrs. Jonas Hokanson, P. A. Peterson Sr. and wife, P. A. Peterson Jr., Claus Peterson. John Stibb arrived in 1854, and his son Frank G. was the first boy born to Swedish parents in Rock- ford, while Mrs. Augusta Lind, daughter of Jonas Anderson, was the first girl of Swedish extraction. From this time on, each year brought a stream of .Swedish emigrants, but the years of the cholera epidemic, 1853- 54, served, as did the Civil War later, to inhibit the immigration, which did not grow to dimensions of importance here before 1867. S. A. Johnson came from Wing, Elfsborg Lan. He very soon became one of Rockford's most distinguished business men and one of the first pillars of the Lutheran Church. Among the early arrivals was John Erlander, from Slatthog, Krono- berg Lan. He was born April 27, 1826, and was a tailor by trade. In his party were an elder brother, P. Erlander ; a sister ; Peter Lindahl, a grain broker; A. P. Peterson from Ostergotland, machinist; Isak Lindgren ; G. Scott ; Adolf Anderson, who fell in the Civil War, and A. C. Johnson from Blekinge, in company with his father, three brothers and a sister. Immigration was relatively strong in 1856-66, and the latter year the number of Swedes in Rockford reached 2,000. Most of them came from Smaland, principally Oland, and from Vastergotland. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 163 JOHN NELSON AND THE KNITTING INDUSTRY. The one name most intimately connected with the knitting industry of Rockford is that of John Nelson. Other men were associated with him in working out his ideas and the perfection of the machine that bears his name, but his title to the credit for the invention of a more perfect knitting machine than any in use be- fore his time remains undisputed. John Nelson was born in Karrakra, Vestergotland, Sweden, April 5, 1830. When a young lad, he lost his father by death. The widowed mother was left with but little of this world's goods, but, being a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, she succeeded well in providing for her- self and family. The son John seemed born with mechanical talent, and when quite young became a maker of spinning wheels. He remained in the place of his birth until twenty-two years of age, when he left for the United States. He arrived in Chicago in the spring of the year 1852 and stopped there a few weeks, going in turn to St. Charles and Rockford the same year. Being obliged to take whatever work was offered, he left shortly for Elgin and worked on the railroad, returning to Rockford after several months. After a siege of sickness he again left for Elgin, and then went to Chicago, where he worked for a time as a turner and joiner. In 1854 we find him back in Rockford, but two years later he established a cabinetmaker's shop in Sycamore, continuing in business there for a year. In 1857 he finally located permanently in Rockford. After being em- ployed as a woodworker for a time, he opened a turner's and cabinet- maker's shop of his own. From now on John Nelson began to ponder on various mechanical problems. One of these was solved by the in- vention of a dovetailing machine, which was in use for many years, first in Nelson's own shop and afterwards in the sash, door and blind factory operated by John Nelson, A. C. Johnson and Gust Hollem about 1865. About the same time Nelson was associated with one Berglund in a similar enterprise in Water Valley, Miss., but when the latter betrayed the confidence placed in him, Nelson abandoned the undertaking in dis- gust, leaving valuable machinery in Berglund's possession without any compensation. In 1866 John Nelson associated himself with William Worth Bur- son, inventor of the grain binder, whose numerous patents on harvester machinery were acquired by the McCormick, Deering, Whitely, Walter A. Wood, Piano, and Milwaukee harvester companies. The two con- centrated their genius on the task of inventing a family knitting machine. After much tedious labor on the part of both men, a power machine was perfected, on which patents were issued in 1868, iS/o and 1875. In 1874 they also secured a patent on hose. On the 25th of December, 1869, the very essential part now known as the presser hook was developed, and in July, 1870, the first sock was knit by an automatic machine in the city of Rockford. This was also the first practical automatic knitting machine. The socks came from this machine joined together and were separated by hand, Hand work was also required in closing the toe. 164 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS This result did not satisfy Nelson, however, and he continued puzzling over the problem of producing a machine that would turn out a complete hose. In 1872-73 the so-called parallel row machine was devel- oped by him. This closed both heel and toe, producing a stocking ready to wear without hand work. The parallel row machine has since been brought to a much higher degree of perfection by successive improve- ments, but it was sufficiently practical even then to lay the foundation for Rockford's knitting industry. The Rockford product was the pioneer in seamless hosiery and superseded the old line of goods in every market reached on account both of greater durability and the cheaper cost of pro- duction. Burson continued as a member of the firm of Burson and Nelson until 1878, when he withdrew and independently continued his experi- ments, evolving several new devices, including a machine with a mitten pattern, having a double wrist. Another man connected with John Nelson in the making and per- fecting of the Nelson knitting machine was John Nido. He was a native of Stockholm, and, emigrating in 1867, came to Rockford the following year. Being a skilled mechanic, he was at once engaged by Nelson to as- sist in building the machine on which he was then at work. Nido re- mained with John Nelson until the latter's death. In October, 1877, the Burson and Nelson company was succeeded by F. R. Brown and William Nelson, son of the inventor, the style of the firm being F. R. Brown and Company. Brown and Nelson were engaged in the manufacture of hosiery in a limited way for several years. About 1879 twenty-eight machines were in operation in Rockford, while twenty-one of the same make were in use in Manchester, N. H. During the same year the elder Nelson spent ten months in Europe, introducing a number of the Nelson knitters in France and obtaining patent rights in all the countries of Europe. In 1880 the Nelson Knitting Company was organized through a con- solidation of the Burson interests with F. R. Brown and Company. Frank R. Brown became president ; John Nelson, vice-president ; and A. S. Ruhl, secretary and treasurer. The practicability of the Nelson machine having been fully demon- strated, it remained to interest capital to exploit the invention. In iSSi a second company was organized, with a capital stock of $20,000, known as the Rockford Mitten Company. John Nelson became its vice-presi- dent. The company was reorganized as the Rockford Mitten and Hosiery Company, the capital stock increased to $160,000, and the capacity of the plant largely extended. Reverting to the life story of John Nelson, it remains to be told that he was united in marriage, November 4, 1854, to Miss Eva Christina Per- son, whose acquaintance he had formed on board the ship that carried them across the ocean. She, too, was a native of the province of Vester- gotland, born May 6, 1834. To Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were born seven GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 165 children, two of whom have departed this life. The son, Alfred, who in- herited his father's inventive genius, made some important improvements on the Nelson knitting machine, such as the device for widening the leg of the stocking while in process of knitting. He gave promise of a success- ful career, which was, however, cut short by his untimely death at the age of thirty-three years. He proved the errant knight of the family. Going out West, he took as his wife an Indian maiden in disregard of his parents' wishes. Upon being paid a handsome amount after her hus- band's death, the widow relinquished all further claims against the Nelson estate. One son, named Frithiof, died in early childhood. William and Oscar are residents of Rockford, and Frithiof (Fritz), the second son by that name, is associated with his brothers in many of their business enter- prises, as is also Franklin, another brother. Anna C., the only daughter, is the wife of Samuel H. Reck, a graduate of Augustana College, the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and the Northwestern University law school. John Nelson passed away at Rockford on April 15, 1883. After eighteen years of study and experiment his invention had proved a com- plete success, yet he cherished the idea of bringing the little mechanical wonder to a still higher degree of perfection. It was not alone his great inventive genius that made John Nelson an honored and highly valued citizen of Rockford. He possessed also personal traits of character that endeared him to many. He was kind and considerate to all, and to his friends and associates generous to a fault. Many were the needy newcomers from Sweden that received aid from him, especially during the early period of settlement. Numerous in- stances of his unselfish generosity are related. John Nelson was withal an earnest Christian, and he left his family an untarnished name. What he accomplished in the line of invention entitles him to rank with Whitney, Arkwright and others who have achieved fame in the world of industry, and among American inventors of Swedish birth there is only one greater John Fricsson. No higher tribute could be paid to Nelson and his machine than that accorded by General U. S. Grant, who, as President of the United States, visited Rockford after completing his tour around the world. While there Grant inspected the factory of the Nelson Knitting Company, and, after looking over the machinery and seeing its wonderful work, declared with enthusiasm that on his entire tour of the globe, visiting many of the large cities and inspecting the principal factories, he had never seen any- thing in the way of machinery to equal this. A knitting plant entirely controlled by the Nelsons, the Forest City Knitting Company, was established in 1890 by sons of the inventor. Wil- liam Nelson was made president ; Oscar Nelson, vice-president and super- intendent ; and Frithiof F. Nelson, secretary and treasurer. The original capital invested was $60,000. The Forest City company engaged in a dif- 166 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ferent line from that of their competitors, by taking up the manufacture of a better grade of hosiery. They kept several hundred machines in oper- ation, employed about 150 factory hands and turned out on an average 1,500 dozen pairs of hose per day. The story of the Nelson knitter would not be complete without reference to John Franklin Nelson, one of the sons of John Nelson, who also inherited his father's inventive talent. Franklin took up the work where the elder Nelson left off, and, after years of patient work and experiment, ultimately evolved an ingenious yet simple device for turning out a complete stocking, including the ribbed top, without a change of machine. This ribbing attachment added the finishing touch to the Nelson machine and places it as near perfection as human ingenuity could well do. FACTORY OF THE FOREST CITY KNITTING COMPANY. It may be added that the method invented by the elder Nelson for closing the toe has been modified and improved upon by William Nelson, who is credited with having contributed other ideas making for mechani- cal perfection in certain details. Franklin is credited with an arrangement by which the end of the yarn is drawn in at the toe ; an arrangement by which in double-knitting the heel and toe both sides are knit at the same time (a gain of 100% in time) ; a simplification of the machine which increases the speed from 58 to 80 strokes per minute; an automatic press for shaping the completed stocking before packing; plus the impossible, as it was called by all the technically informed, until it was accomplished by Franklin Nelson. The miracle is a speed-knitter which automatically knits a stocking or hose in four minutes, complete in every detail, without a single touch, shift, or reversal of the machine by an operator. The Nelson Knitting Co. has now reached a capacity of 5,000 dozen pairs (men's hose) per day. But this plant uses the original type of ma- chine exclusively, without any of the improvements of the sons of John GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 167 Nelson. This type produces only 12 dozen pairs per day of 24 hours, as against 18 dozen pairs by the improved model. And a more essential advantage lies in the circumstance that one man can manage only twenty- seven of the older model machines, against forty machines per man of the improved type. While the Nelsons have purposely laid the emphasis on mechanical perfection, their competitors have been making the most of the old pat- ents. In 1898 William Burson, partner of John Nelson from 1875, estab- lished a large factory. It uses the old Nelson machine somewhat modified. The capacity of the machine is low, but, nevertheless, the net earnings are high. The Burson factory makes a specialty of ladies' hose of a lighter quality. Another large enterprise founded on Nelson's invention is the Rock- ford Mitten and Hosiery Company. Of late years still another plant has come into existence, called the B. Z. B. Co. (Brown, Ziock & Burson). These results show what the original John Nelson invention has meant to Rockford. But the Nelsons have not altogether held aloof from prac- tical production. Their factory, founded in 1892, and known as the For- est City Knitting Company, has a present capacity of 3,000 dozen pairs per day. The total capacity of all Rockford knitting concerns may be roughly estimated at 15,000 dozen pairs of hose per day. In connection with their factory the Nelsons have developed an ex- tensive machine shop known as the Rockford Drilling Co. Like their father, the younger Nelsons are known for a spirit of phil- anthropy and of democratic modesty. When they are approached on the subject of their own contributions to what might be called their family invention, they will invariably dismiss the matter as of small moment. But they honor their father's memory. As a monument to him they built a large and elegant hotel at a time when Rockford was as yet a small town the Nelson Hotel. When travelers arrived in John Nelson's city, they wanted them to be housed in decent fashion. But when the city had grown up to the hotel, they sold out their interests, relinquishing the enterprise about the time it began to turn into a profitable establishment. THE FURNITURE INDUSTRY. Among the three hundred manufactur- ing plants of Rockford, a large number were founded and are owned and controlled by the Swedish element of the city's population. The Swedes have shown particular aptitude in the woodworking industries there, and control a large number of the thirty-two furniture factories of the city. Without their enterprise Rockford could not now claim second place among furniture manufacturing centers in the United States, yielding only to Grand Rapids. In 1875 a number of workmen of Swedish birth conceived the idea of engaging in manufacturing on their own account, after having been engaged along the same line in the employ of others. None of them, how- ever, possessed any considerable amount of capital ; so the cooperative system was the only possible one. Their plans materialized in the Forest 168 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS City Furniture Company. Fifteen Swedish- Americans were the incorpo- rators, and the capital was $50,000, half of which was paid in at the out- set. After five years, the factory employed one hundred men, and had an average yearly output valued at $125,000. Air. A. C. Johnson was superintendent. Additional capital being needed, several Americans were soon admitted, including Gilbert Woodruff, who is now erroneously stated to be the founder. 1 The factory was one of the pioneers in this field, and struck the keynote to the city's future as a furniture center. ^'hen the Forest City company was well under way a number of its stockholders withdrew, and, together with others of their fellow country- men, organized the Union Furniture Company. This began work in 1876, with $io,oco out of the $30,000 capitalization paid in, the stockholders THE CO-OPERATIVE FURNITURE COMPANY'S PLANT. numbering twenty-five. The first year's production amounted to $20,000 ; the second, $35,000 ; and the fourth, about $60,000, showing a fair degree of prosperity in a factory employing less than fifty operatives. Its offi- cers were A. Kjellberg, president ; P. A. Peterson, secretary ; and Jonas Peters, treasurer. The third Swedish furniture factory in Rockford was started in 1878. This was the Central Furniture Company, organized on a cooperative basis by forty-six Swedish stockholders, and starting operations with a paid-up capital of $22,500. The officers were: President, S. A. Johnson; vice- president, L. M. Noling; secretary, August Peterson; treasurer, A. P. Flo- berg. The force of fifty workmen, nearly all shareholders, was superin- tended by A. C. Johnson and Andrew Noling. These pioneer cooperative furniture factories were followed by many others, too many to be given more than brief mention. In 18/9 the Co- operative Furniture Company was formed with a capitalization of $100,000. It is Swedish-owned down to the present, the officers being Alfred Larson, E. C. Jacobson and C. J. Lundberg. Recent figures give 1 See "Rockford 1912," issued by the Rockford Chamber of Commerce. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 169 an operative force of 125 and the annual output at more than $200,000.* The Rockford Standard Furniture Company, established 1886, with $75,000 capital, later raised to $125,000, employs 150 workmen. The man- agement is in the hands of J. E. Swanson, while P. A. Peterson is presi- dent, and F. E. Lundgren vice president. Among the oldest and strong- est concerns is the Rockford Chair and Furniture Company, capitalized at $100,000, and under the management of Robert C. Lind, C. A. New- man and Andrew Kjellgren. A few years later a period of overspecula- tion in these cooperative investments set in, embracing not only the fur- niture industry, but other lines of manufacturing as well. A glance at the following list of new plants that sprang up in this one city in a very short time and financed to a great extent by home capital should convince the most sanguine financier that an abnormal condition prevailed. The list of new factories organized from 1889 up to and during the first year of the panic, and owned in whole or in part by the Swedish people, was as follows: Scandia Furniture Company (1889), capital, $50,000; presi- dent, P. A. Peterson ; secretary-treasurer, W. A. Brolin. The Mechanics Machine Company (1889), capital, $10,000; president, Gust Dalin ; secre- tary-treasurer. Levin Faust. The Mechanics Furniture Company (1890), capital, $75,000 ; president, L. M. Noling ; secretary, Jonas Peters ; treas- urer, A. P. Floberg. Forest City Bit and Tool Company (1891), capital, $10,000; principal organizers, L. M. Noling and A. P. Floberg. Rock- ford Mantel and Furniture Company (1890), capital, $10,000; president, Alex Johnson; secretary-treasurer, L. Sandine. New Royal (Illinois) Sewing Machine Company (1890), capital, $100,000; president, John Budlong; vice president, P. A. Peterson; secretary, J. A. Bowman; treas- urer, S. Budlong. West End Furniture Company (1890), capital, $50,000; organizers, B. A. Knight, O. W. Haegg, P. F. Schuster, John Sampson, Frank G. Hogland, Emil Stenholm, C. E. Carlson and P. A. Peterson. The Rockford Manufacturing Company for farm implements (1889), capital, $200,000; president, John A. Johnson; vice president, L. M. Noling; secretary, August Lind; treasurer, A. P. Floberg. Royal Mantel Furniture Company (1892), capital, $TOO,OOO; Rockford Cabinet Company (1894). Several of the concerns here named, as well as others founded by Swedish-Americans, have passed out of their control. During the financial crisis of 1893 and the following years, many of these cooperative companies were hard pressed, and not all weathered the storm. A tremendous slump in stock caused enormous losses to the mass of small shareholders, while those who were able to protect their holdings and acquire the stocks that went begging for takers, found themselves moderately wealthy shortly after normal industrial conditions returned. Then began a new epoch of far greater prosperity in the furniture industry and all other branches of manufacture in which the Rockford Swedes are now engaged. 1 Data and figures here quoted from "Svenskarne i Rockford," 1910, are now only approximately correct. 170 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS But the organization of new companies did not entirely cease during the intervening years. In 1896 the Rockford Desk Company was incor- porated with a capital of $70,000. The following year the Rockford Palace Furniture Company began business with $30,000 capital. Its pres- ent officers are : Anton E. Carlson, J. Godfrey Grant and Otto Grantz. As better days dawned, the old establishments, which had been almost crushed, regained strength and resumed business on a larger scale. New plants were added from time to time. Among those of later date are: Illinois Cabinet Company (1905), capital, $100,000; annual output, $250,000; present officers, J. P. Lindell, president; K. E. Knutson, secre- tary-treasurer. Rockford National Furniture Company (1907), capital, $80,000 ; annual output, $250,000; present officers, C. F. Johnson, presi- dent ; August Peterson, secretary ; G. A. Peterson, treasurer. Rockford Book Case Company, capital, $60,000 ; officers, P. A Peterson, president ; William Pearson, vice president ; W. L. Anderson, secretary ; A. E. John- son, treasurer. AFFILIATED INDUSTRIES. In close relation to the furniture industry stand a number of other Swedish-owned plants, such as the National Lock Company, the National Mirror Works, the Rockford Varnish Company, and a number of machine shops. The National Lock Company dates from 1903. Its original capital of $10,000 has been successively increased to $50,000 in 1904, $150,000 in 1906, and subsequently to a quarter million. The mainspring of this going concern is Frank G. Hogland. The National Mirror Works are under a management consisting of W. A. Brolin, C. F. Blomberg, J. P. Lundell and J. R. Anderson. The Rockford Varnish Company, established in 1906, with a capital of $100,000, found customers in practically all the local furniture and cabinet works, and early made annual sales aggregating $150,000. The officers are : Otto Grantz, presi- dent ; C. F. Anderson, vice president ; C. A. Jonson, secretary-treasurer and general manager. One of Rockford's largest manufacturing establishments is the plant of the Haddorff Piano Company, incorporated in 1891. Capitalized at half a million dollars, the company now employs about 300 workers and puts out instruments valued at $800,000 per year. The Haddorff plant has a floor area of no less than 208,000 square feet. P. A. Peterson is president of the company and C. A. Haddorff the mechanical head, the secretary-treasurer being A. E. Johnson. The Swedish-Americans most prominently connected with the indus- tries of Rockford will be found by the frequent mention of them in an official capacity in the foregoing account. Those of the first order are John Nelson, the inventor of the automatic knitting machine and the virtual founder of the Rockford knitting industry, said to be the most extensive in any city in the world, and P. A. Peterson, the great modern captain of Rockford industry. Between these two there is a long chain of men who have contributed much towards making Rockford one of the GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 171 great manufacturing centers of Illinois and the Middle West. These are some of them: Lars M. Noting, Jonas Peters, August Peterson, A. P. Floberg, Robert C. Lind, Otto Grantz, W. A. Brolin, C. J. Lundberg and Frank G. Hogland. PEHR AUGUST PETERSON, the organizing genius and directing power of a large number of Rockford's industrial establishments, has been directly interested in manufactures in his home city for the past forty years. Born in Wing, Vestergotland, Sept. 8, 1848, he was brought to this country as a boy of four, his parents locating at Rockford in 1852. They settled on a farm near the little town, and the son's early training consisted of much hard work on the farm and but little school- ing. At twenty-seven he entered a business college, and when, in March, 1876, the Union Furniture Company was organized, he was given the position of secretary, the first step in his business career. He soon found the outlook bright for the manufacture and sale of furniture in the West, and realized the advantages of the cooperative system for all concerned, whether officers or workmen. During the next fifteen or more years, one company after another was organized by the Swedes on this plan, and in a great many instances Mr. Peterson was one of the promoters, and, becoming one of the principal shareholders, was chosen one of the directors or officers. When the panic of 1893 played havoc with the industries of Rock- ford, as elsewhere, several establishments went down in the general crash, only the stronger ones riding out the storm. New plants had been built largely on credit and on the confidence reposed by moneyed men in Mr. Peterson and those interested with him. The task of pulling these infant industries through the crisis would have driven most men to despair. He drew on every resource, but without avail, and some of the enterprises he had helped to float went by the board. But with the revival in business following the crisis, Mr. Peterson and his asso- ciates soon rallied their forces and put the crippled plants on a sound footing anew. The industrial captain himself rehabilitated himself finan- cially in a manner that did credit to his head and his heart alike not by wiping out old scores and opening new books, but by conscientiously settling up old accounts as fast as his new resources would permit. The writer was creditably informed many years ago that not one of the many who had made investments by dint of their faith in him had suffered pecuniary loss, Mr. Peterson having made satisfactory restitu- tion in every case. Commenting on this mark of business integrity in the presence of Mr. Peterson, we were told by this modest and plain- spoken financier that "no man is entitled to any credit for paying his debts." He has been connected with sundry business enterprises other than industrial ones. Prior to the panic he had large investments in realty, and about 1890 built a large number of houses in the east part of the city, thereby aiding substantially in the development of that quarter P. A. PETERSON. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 173 of the municipality. P. A. Peterson, now reputed one of the big men of the state financially, is peculiarly reticent as to his own achievements. ANDREW C. JOHNSON, born in Torneryd, Blekinge, Sweden, Aug. 16, 1836, is said to have been the first individual Swedish furniture manu- facturer in Rockford, where he located in June, 1855. Ten. years after- ward, having learned the cabinetmaker's trade in that city, Mr. Johnson entered partnership with John Nelson and Gustaf Hollem in order to engage in the manufacture of sash and doors. After four years he bought out his partners. About that time he began making furniture on a small scale. Having associated himself with J. P. Anderson in 1871, he developed the furniture branch of the business so as to enter the general market. L. D. Upham having entered the firm in 1873, a factory was built on the present site of the Central Furniture Company's plant. One year later Mr. Johnson sold his interest to E. L. Herrick, and at this time Cuthbert Woodruff became interested in the enterprise. In 1875 the business was reorganized as a cooperative concern named Forest City Furniture Company, with Mr. Johnson as superintendent, a position he retained for a long period. Mr. Johnson, in 1855, joined the First Lutheran Church of Rockford, of whose church council he was a member for a number of years. He served the city on the board of supervisors for some time in the seventies. LARS M. NOLING was one of the men who have aided most materially in building up the reputation of Rockford as a manufacturing center. He was a living factor in the city's industrial progress in the eighties and early nineties and became personally engaged with a number of concerns. He was president of Mechanics Furniture Company, Forest City Bit & Tool Company and Rockford Manufacturing Company, and held stock in several other enterprises, including Skandia Coal Company, Rockford Furniture & Undertaking Company, and the Swedish Building and Loan Association, the Scandinavian Cemetery Association, and was for a time vice president of the Illinois Sewing Machine Company. He was equally active in a political way. His legislative district sent him to Springfield as its representative in 1894 and again in 1896. As a member of the Illinois legislature, Noling fathered at least two acts of special merit, one reducing the tax redemption rate of interest from 8 per cent to 6 per cent, the other relieving building and loan associations from the state tax. As a member of the Board of Education for a term of years he acquired an intimate knowledge of the school system and its management, which in November, 1905, led to his appointment as president of the school board. Noling was a native of Vestergotland, born May 4, 1843, anc ^ erm - grated to Rockford at twenty-one. Here he was first employed as a car- penter in N. C. Thompson's shop, and after working for his uncle, John Nelson, for a time, went back to the Thompson shop for fifteen years. Anticipating the future growth of the city in that direction, he purchased an eighty-acre farm just outside of city limits, near Kishwaukee street. 174 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS This tract, laid out into building lots, was eventually turned into a pros- perous city district. Having early joined the First Swedish Lutheran Church, Noling held many positions in the congregation, including the trusteeship for thirty years. His death occurred on Christmas day, 1906. EARLY FRATERNAL AND INSURANCE SOCIETIES. In January, 1917, the Svea Society of Chicago completed the sixtieth year of its existence. Outside of the religious field, this is the earliest known organization of Swedish-born citizens of Illinois, and it ranks with the oldest of similar organizations in other parts of the country, among which are the Swedish Society of New York City and Sodetas Scandinaviensis, which was founded in 1769, but fell into a dormant state tantamount to dissolution, and was organized anew in April, 1870, under the name of the Scandinavian Society of Philadelphia. The Svea Society had a few contemporaries during the early years, none of which survived down to the present time. Among these defunct organizations were the Freja Society of Moline, the "Knox Svea Bildningsforening" of Knox county, the Scandinavian Benevolent Society of Moline, and the First Swedish Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Chicago. The Freja Society of Moline was formed in September, 1869, as a social and beneficiary organization, flourishing for eight years and attain- ing a membership ranging close to the one hundred mark. It had its own building, erected in 1874, at a cost of $8,000. Three years later the hall was sold and the society dissolved, owing, apparently, to the pressure of debts incurred. Under the auspices of Freja there was organized the Swedish Band of Moline, which for a time was a popular local musical organization. John A. Samuels, Gustaf Swenson, C. A. Westerdahl, Andrew Swanson, F. O. Eklund and Eric Asp figured as presidents in the records of the Freja Society. It was preceded by another beneficiary organization, the Scandinavian Benevolent Society, founded in 1866, which outlived the Freja. The Knox Svea was a literary society which was founded at Gales- burg in 1858 and existed for one year, under the direction of Sven Peterson and Dan J. Ockerson. It was revived in "Svea Bildnings och Laseforening," in December, 1865, and continued under the new name for about seven years. Pehr Mattson and Torkel Nilson appear to have been its leading members. The first Swedish Lodge, No. 479, I. O. O. F., dates back to Feb. 22, 1872, when it was organized with ten original members, only three of whom were of Swedish birth. After the lodge got under way, the others withdrew, and an all-Swedish lodge soon numbered among its a gg re gate membership of one hundred and fifty some of the best-known Swedish-Americans of Chicago. In the list of its leading members in GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 175 the early period we find the names of P. A. Felt, Henry Allen, J. T. Appelberg, D. W. Modeen, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal, John Mountain, P. M. Nelson, P. G. Bowman, August Nieman, E. O. Forsberg, W. T. Eklund, Charles J. Stromberg, and others. The SVEA SOCIETY of Chicago, of recent years but one unit in a large number of similar organizations, many of which have far out- stripped it in point of membership, strength and influence, was some- what of a history-maker in its early career. Charles J. Sundell, in response to a growing demand for a purely secular society of Swedish Chicagoans, issued a call for a preliminary meeting, to be held Jan. 22, 1857, to discuss the matter. The meeting was presided over by Charles John Stolbrand, subsequently of Civil War fame, while Sundell, then Swedish-Norwegian consul at Chicago, served as secretary. He out- lined the plan of organization, the purpose of which should be to work for the education and ennoblement of its members by means of high- grade public entertainments and giving access to a library of Swedish literature to be collected and maintained by the society ; furthermore, to carry on benevolent work by rendering every assistance to the Swedish people of the city. The plan met with favor, and a society, to be known as Svea, was immediately organized, with the temporary officers made permanent, C. F. Billings being added as the first treasurer. The col- lection of books was one of the first concerns. Rev. Gustaf Unonius of the St. Ansgarius Church donated a small collection, to which was later added a collection originally donated to the church library. With the books purchased with the net proceeds of a bazaar, this made a foundation of four hundred volumes for the society's library. During its first year the society met in the building erected at Kinzie street by P. M. Almini, the painter and decorator. During the first seven years Stolbrand and Sundell alternated as presiding officers, with F. E. Jocknick serving as librarian. A sick benefit clause was early added to the constitution. At the outbreak of the war a number of the members enlisted in the Silversparre Battery, while Stolbrand himself set about organizing a Swedish infantry company. While encamped at Savannah, after the victorious battle of Atlanta, the battery was granted a furlough, and the Swedish artillerists, upon their return to Chicago, were given an enthusiastic reception by the Svea Society. On this occasion a flag of blue satin, embroidered with the names Shiloh, Vicksburg, Atlanta, was presented to the battery. This historic trophy, designed to commemorate the great victories the Silversparre battery had had a part in achieving was lost, together with the society's other paraphernalia and its library, in the great fire. The loss of the library was felt all the more as a collection of five hundred volumes donated from Sweden had been added to it in 1866, through the efforts of Olof Gottfrid Lange. A number of these w r orks were presented by members of the Swedish royal family. 176 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS During the famine in northern Sweden in 1867 the society raised 7,000 crowns for the sufferers by means of a fair. The same year it undertook to establish an immigrant home or hospice for the care of newcomers from Sweden and their protection against unscrupulous agents and immigrant "runners." The prime mover in this enterprise was Charles Eklund. A temporary shelter was maintained at Ohio and Franklin streets, a cooper shop having been remodeled and fitted up for the purpose. There many immigrants are said to have been housed in transit through Chicago to other points. Soon an immigrant house was built at 120 Illinois street, where thousands of immigrants are said to have been sheltered and fed, in part at the expense of the society and its ladies' auxiliary. Differences among the members as to the maintenance and admin- istration of this institution led to the sale of the property in September, 1871, for $6,000 just a month before it shared the general fate by being destroyed in the great fire. About this time Svea averaged three hundred members. The great gala event in the annals of the society was its reception and entertainment of the renowned Swedish singer, Christina Nilsson, in December, 1870. In the evening of the 22nd a great national cele- bration took place in the German Theater at Wells and Indiana streets, under the auspices of Svea, other persons of prominence in local Swedish circles cooperating with its festival committee. The hall was crowded to the doors with people who had cheerfully paid five dollars for the privilege of hearing their famous countrywoman sing. The prima donna was feted in splendid style, crowned with a golden wreath, given homage in speech, verse and song, and finally toasted at a banquet board spread in her honor. This was the first Swedish national celebration in Chicago arranged on a large scale. In 1872 the Svea Society rallied from the stroke dealt by the great fire ; after five years it secured permanent quarters at Chicago avenue and Larrabee street. By 1880 it had re-established its library, which then numbered more than five hundred volumes. Since 1867 Anders Larson had served as librarian. The following is a list of its presidents for the first twenty-five years : Charles John Stolbrand, Charles J. Sun- dell, J. P. Hussander, J. A. Nilson, Oscar Malmborg, C. Blanxius, Th. Engstrom, Charles J. Stromberg, C. F. Billings, Gerhard Larson, Olof Gottfrid Lange, N. Torgerson, Conrad Gothe, one Berglund, Peter M. Almini. J. M. Schonbeck, Gylfe Wolyn, Carl Gustaf Linderborg, A. Asp- man, Sven Olin, A. J. Westman, Knut Nelson. A congratulatory cablegram was sent to A. E. Nordenskiold, the Swedish explorer and discoverer, immediately upon his reaching Yoko- hama, Sept. 2, 1879, after having completed the voyage north of Asia, thereby discovering the Northeast Passage. Count NordensViold acknowledged the communication in a letter to the society, which is preserved in its archives. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 177 Rendered into English, the Nordenskiold letter reads as follows: Honored Sirs: Through Major Elfving, the Swedish General Consul, I learn that my letter expressing grateful acknowledgment of your telegraphic greeting, received from the Svea Society upon my arrival at Yokohama, did not reach you. Without attempting to account for this, I beg to acknowledge again the receipt of your message and to express the gratitude and pride I felt at being thus remembered by my countrymen beyond the Atlantic because of the voyage of the "Vega." It is a source of pleasure to us at home to know that those of our countrymen who have made their home in the New World per- severe in cherishing the old fatherland in its triumphs as well as its sorrows. The message of greeting from them will ever remain one of the fondest memo- ries from my memorable voyage around Asia and Europe. With utmost respect, I am yours gratefully, Stockholm. Oct. 12, 1880. A. E. NORDENSKIOLD. Paul B. Du Chaillu, the noted traveler and writer, was elected to honorary membership in 1882, upon the publication of his work entitled "The Land of the Midnight Sun." Anders Larson (1801-1884), who served as librarian of the society some fifteen years, was one of Chicago's very first Swedes. Born in Torstuna, Vestmanland, he came to this country with a party of Jans- sonists as early as 1846. Instead of going to Bishop Hill with the rest, he located in Chicago. Among his eight children, Emma Larson (wife of Henry E. C. Peterson, the portrait painter) won public favor as a singer in the seventies and eighties. Mrs. Anders Larson and Mrs. Gustaf Unonius are said to have been largely instrumental in securing from Jenny Lind her generous gifts to the St. Ansgarius. The latter half of Svea's history has been less eventful than the former. In 1901 its library, then comprising about 2,000 volumes, was transferred to Schott's Hall, on Belmont avenue, where the meetings were subsequently held. The present officers of the Svea Society are : President, William C. Nelson ; vice president, John Hultgren ; secretaries, E. Sterner and Andrew \V. Nelson; treasurer, Charles P. Funk; librarian, Justus B. Tengberg. The sixtieth anniversary of the society was commemorated at a banquet given on January 18, last. THE SCANDINAVIAN MUTUAL AID ASSOCIATION Rev. S. P. A. Lindahl, who in the eighties served the First Swedish Lu- theran Church of Galesburg, was a strong opponent of secrecy in fraternal organizations of whatever kind, and publicly voiced this opposition in the pulpit as well as in a small paper published for a time under the name of Scliibbolcth. After a particularly strong sermon by Pastor Lindahl one Sunday, one of his hearers, B. A. Stredain, called on the pastor and the two together discussed at some length the suggestion of Mr. Stredain that a Swedish insurance society be organized having none of the objectionable 178 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS features so vigorously criticised by the pastor. The two men then and there formulated a plan which was laid before a meeting called shortly afterwards. This meeting, held in the schoolhouse of the First church, July 20, 1883, was largely attended by Swedish- American citizens of Galesburg. Pastor Lindahl, who presided, stated the purpose of the meet- ing, which was to discuss the best and cheapest plan for a reliable life insurance society. After a full discussion those present unanimously- resolved to organize the Swedish-American Mutual Ajd Association, with headquarters at Galesburg. A committee, in- cluding Rev. Lindahl, B. A. Stredain, Nels C Nelson and six others, was selected to draft a constitution and by-laws. At the second meet- . ing, held Aug. 3, it was explained that 200 applicants for membership were required be- fore the association could be incorporated. Eight persons were appointed to secure appli- cations, and upon the discovery that the name adopted was already used in part by another organization, the name was changed to the Scandinavian Mutual Aid Association. On Aug. 24 following, the directors were chosen who were authorized as incorporators of the association. Rev. Lindahl headed the list, which included further Nels Nelson, J. A. Oberg, N. J. Oleen, J. A. Johnson, Charles A. Peterson, B. A. Stredain, Charles A. Lindstrom and John F. Ostrand. The first annual meeting of the association was held in Galesburg, 111., January 28, 1885, with Dr. Lindahl as president, and Nels Nelson as secretary, and Jonas A. Johnson as treasurer. In these minutes the chair- man speaks of the cause for organizing a life insurance company being principally to prevent the Lutheran members from joining secret societies, as well as for the purpose of assisting one another financially in case of death. From the secretary's report it appears that at this time there were 1,144. members, with insurance in force of $2,139,000. The association flourished for a time, the membership running as high as 16,000. How- ever, having started on a very low rate, the money went for death losses as fast as it came in. At the end of the first year's operation the total receipts were $8,602, and the death losses and expenses consumed all ex- cept $354. Therefore, after having operated a short period, it became apparent to the management that a reserve fund ought to be accumulated, hence 10 cents was added to the monthly assessment. In later years the assessment was increased. However, the death losses were heavy and about the year 1900 notice was given that the association could not con- tinue on the basis on which it was operating, and that either a radical change would have to take place in the rates or the association would have NELS NELSON. GROWTH AND ESTABLISHMENT 179 to be sold out or transferred to some old line company which would over- take all the risks on a certain basis. Several meetings were called, with the final result that a new schedule of rates was adopted, and liens were placed against the policies. It was also decided to transfer the association to Chicago and give it a new name, the Scandia Mutual Life Insurance Company. At this time Dr. L. G. Abrahamson was elected president ; Charles H. Roman, secretary, and N. A. Nelson, treasurer. Prior to the reorganization, S. P. A. Lindahl had served as president and Nels Nelson as secretary of the association continuously since they aided in its founding. PART IV THE PERIOD OF CULTURAL PROGRESS. PART IV THE PERIOD OF CULTURAL PROGRESS THE CULTURAL MOVEMENT John Richard Green, the historian of the life of the English people, pleaded, not unreasonably, that more space should be given in human chronicles to the missionary, the poet, the painter, the merchant, the philosopher. True, in the annals of the nations of the Old World the deeds of rulers and warriors preponderate over all other human achievements com- bined. Down to recent times it could be said of any country as was said of Sweden by one of its noted historians that the history of the nation is the history of its kings. One who attempts to tell the story of any national element that has entered as a component part in the making of the American nation will soon discover that here history treads new paths. From the Plymouth of the Puritans to the southern- most mission of the Spanish friars, the missionary is a dominant figure, second only to the expeditionary commander or the colonial governor, where he does not hold that rank himself. The first annals of many of the American colonies read very much like chapters in church history. The men of the church were the first nation-builders on our shores, and the missionaries not only had a hand in the making of history but fre- quently wielded the pen that preserved the earliest records. This is true of the New Sweden colony founded on the banks of the Delaware, whose foremost men, except for the first few years, were clergymen of the Church of Sweden. Their work furnished the cohesive force that held the Swedish settlements together for more than a cen- tury and a half, and to several of them we are indebted for historical material now invaluable. Again in the Swedish settlements of the nineteenth century, as we have seen, the missionaries and preachers were the leaders among the pioneers. They shaped the history of the Swedish element almost wholly during the first two decades, and the church communions founded by them naturally continue to play a large part in all distinctively Swedish- American activities by dint of priority, numbers, power and influence. Cultural factors other than religious and educational, as provided by the churches and their institutions, have been brought into play by degrees and at a much later time. We are privileged to chronicle notable achievements of poets and painters, singers and virtuosos, composers, 183 184 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS sculptors and writers, merchants, manufacturers and financiers, archi- tects, inventors and civil engineers, surveyors and scientists, jurists and legislators, scholars and thinkers, but not until a generation has passed. The elements of general culture among Swedish-Americans up to recent years were, in fact, so sporadic or volatile that observers from abroad made bold to question their existence, and that, too, with a show of truth. The best they were able to do was to recognize the church institutions and here and there an individual exponent of other than material interests. The last quarter century has wrought a change that no close student of conditions can overlook. The elements formerly found in a fluid state have solidified to a degree. Unity of purpose has been shown along many lines. Organizations have been formed to accomplish 'things unat- tainable by individual endeavor. Cultural progress has, in the main, followed the channel designated by nationalistic interests up to the point where the brook and river meet, i.e., when complete Americanization has taken place. Here we note a division of the current. From this point on only a part of the Swedish element adheres to distinctively Swedish- American activities and ideals. Educated and equipped according to American standards, large numbers enter the various vocations regard- less of locality and racial environment and with the stamp of their origin almost obliterated. The Swede in a foreign land does not cling tenaciously to his mother tongue. Many Swedish-Americans discard their native speech like a cast-off garment. Even the early letters of men of Swedish education such as Unonius and Esbjorn abound in Americanisms. In educational institutions under Swedish control the general medium of instruction is English sometimes even in the teaching of Swedish. This propensity constantly operates to level the chief bulwark of Swedish culture in this country the Swedish language. The result is a language problem with which many minds are wrestling in vain ; for it is not susceptible of solution by human devices. There is a drift from Swedish to Eng- lish, propelled by natural causes, moving on in its course without let or hindrance. The transition period is now, and the best that any Swe- dish-speaking churches or secular organizations can do is to accommodate themselves to the new conditions. Patent instances of such adjustment are found in the recent organization of upwards forty English-speaking congregations within the Augustana Synod, heretofore a Swedish-speak- ing church body ; also the formation of English-speaking lodges which are part and parcel of orders exclusively Swedish-American in their membership. It is a singular fact that a more general participation by the Swedish element in the cultural life of the nation in its literary, artistic, scien- tific, political, social and economic activities should be coincident with the linguistic transition. While this may seem discouraging to those who believe the Swedish language to be the sine qua non for the propaga- CULTURAL PROGRESS 185 tion of Swedish ideas and the survival of Swedish genius in America, it brings cheer to the hearts of others, who hold that the value of the gift lies not in the vessel in which it is conveyed. In any event, the develop- ments in the last twenty or thirty years appear to warrant the assumption that Americans of Swedish origin are capable of bringing valuable con- tributions to American civilization from their home land, even though they should be unable to preserve their cultural heritage among them- selves in its original form through the vehicle of speech. PUBLISHING AND PRINTING. AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN, located in Rock Island, in close prox- imity to Augustana College, is the official publishing house of the Swedish Lutheran Church and the principal publishing concern in the United States established and controlled by the Swedish element. Although dating its existence as a synodical institution from the year 1889, when a private plant was taken over by the Augustana Synod, several years passed before it assumed larger proportions, and inasmuch as its devel- opment and most efficient service falls within the compass of the past twenty years, it may well be accorded first place in an account of the factors and forces that have made for cultural progress among Swedish- Americans in the present period. The evolution of the present quarter-million publishing establish- ment, with modern equipment in all departments, from the modest printing shop and book store of twenty-odd years ago will appear from the sketch that follows. The first official step in the act of establishing the present publishing house of the Augustana Synod was taken at the annual convention of 1889, held at Rock Island and Moline in June. A board of publication was then elected, the first members of which were: Pastors S. P. A. Lindahl, M. C. Ranseen, V. Setterdahl, C. J. Petri, and Messrs. C. G. Thulin of Moline, C. G. Chinlund of Chicago and Nels Nelson of Galesburg. The duties of this board were defined thus : To bring about uniformity in the textbooks used in parochial schools and synodical institutions of learning; to publish and circulate books and periodicals, and to purchase for the synod the property and publishing rights of the privately owned Augustana Book Concern in Rock Island. The board, after being incorporated as the Lutheran Augustana Book Concern, agreed to purchase all the property of the old corporation, the terms being 80 per cent of the par value of all paid shares, payable in five years, with interest at the rate of 6 per cent. The purchase, consummated in September, was dated back to August i. Dr. S. P. A. Lindahl was made president, Dr. M. C. Ranseen vice president, and Mr. Nels Nelson secretary. Mr. Andrew G. Anderson, who had served the former concern in the capacity of foreman of the printing depart- ment and assistant manager, was elected manager and treasurer, a posi- tion ably and creditably filled by him to this day. Under his management DR. S. P. A. LINDAHL. CULTURAL PROGRESS 187 the publishing business of the synod has been uniformly progressive, assuming proportions far beyond the expectations of its promoters twenty-five years ago. Dr. Lindahl continued as president of the board until his death, March 27, 1908. For several years there was some hesitation about the question of location, and the board did not wish to make further investments until that had been decided. There had been much discussion over the mistake made in removing the educational institution from Chicago, and the former publishing house of the synod had been located in that city. For these reasons the board in 1892 proposed to move the business to Chicago, and asked the synod to pass on the question. The vote was in favor of Rock Island, and that practically settled the matter. In 1898 a new fireproof brick structure replaced the old frame building that went with the purchase in 1889. Ten years more, and the business had outgrown this building, necessitating further building oper- ations. Then an addition was erected, fully doubling the floor area of the plant. The first main building was completed at a cost of $22,000, and the cost of the addition, erected in 1911, approximated $30,000. The institution, as it stands today, has six main departments, book store, business office with counting and shipping rooms, editorial rooms, composing rooms, press rooms, bindery the last two with their respec- tive stock rooms. The mechanical departments are equipped with modern machinery and appurtenances representing investments running into the tens of thousands. One of the purposes for which the publishing house was established was to provide funds for the maintenance of Augustana College. A similar promise was made by the private concern which had gone before, but during the twelve years of private publishing activities professedly in the interest of Augustana College, no profits ever accrued to the institution, so far as revealed by the records. It is, therefore, all the more gratifying to record that during its first twenty-five years Augustana Book Concern turned over to the synod's educational institution no less than $37,000 out of its profits, meanwhile making investments and devel- oping the plant to the value of $216,000. Appropriations to other synod- ical purposes in the same period aggregated $17,163, making total appro- priations of $54,163. During its first quarter-century the publishing house increased its net worth from $6,107 to $216,766. The gain made by the synod through this source thus reached $265,000 in the period stated. The chief aim, however, is not to earn money for another institution, but to propagate religious truth through the circulation of Lutheran literature for home and church devotion and for instruction in the paro- chial and Sunday schools. Although purely spiritual culture is the primary object, intellectual and esthetic requirements among the Swedish element of the nation have not been overlooked. The idea was early expressed by Dr. Hasselquist that the synod should aim to circulate such 188 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS literature as will "make for true culture and prove useful in the promo- tion of private and public welfare." The Augustana Book Concern has sought to attain this object in a twofold way, first, by importing and keeping for sale all the standard works in all the branches of Swedish literature, besides the best current literature in its various branches ; in the second place, by encouraging .Swedish-American endeavor in litera- ture and art through the publication of works by writers, painters and musicians of Swedish extraction. The list of more than 500 different books and pamphlets published up to the end of the year 1916 comprises quite a number of original AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD. works by Swedish-American writers. In the field of poetry \ve find A. A. Sward, Ludvig Holmes, Jakob Bonggren, C. A. Lonnquist and John A. Enander. The collected works by Dr. Enander and by Dr. Olof Olsson have been published, besides books of stories, essays, remi- niscences and travels, by Birger Sandzen, C. W. Foss, Johan Person, Ernst A. Zetterstrand, C. A. Hemborg, Vilhelm Berger, K. N. Rabenius, Carl W. Andeer, Anna Olsson, S. J. Kronberg and others. Of historical and biographical works there is the compendious work in two volumes by Dr. Eric Norelius on the history of the Swedish Lutheran churches and the Swedes of America, the most comprehensive historical work in this field published so far. Other historical and biographical works are two compilations on the history of the Augustana Synod published in Swedish and English at the synodical jubilee in 1910; the "Luther- Kalender" of 1883, a biography of Dr. T. N. Hasselquist by Norelius, and two volumes of "Life Pictures" from the Church of Sweden and CULTURAL PROGRESS 189 from the Augustana Synod, by Dr. Nils Forsander. A collection of translations of masterpieces from Swedish literature has been published in two volumes, and an annual of literature, history and art, entitled "Prarieblomman," in thirteen volumes. In recent years the house has sought to meet the demand for textbooks and annotated texts for the study of Swedish in the general schools by the publication of such peda- gogical works, compiled, edited and annotated by Jules Mauritzson, Edw. J. Vickner, A. Louis Elmquist, Joseph Alexis, A. A. Stomberg and Ernst W. Olson. The principal original works in music in a long list of musical publications by this" house are a cantata for the fiftieth anniver- sary of the Augustana Synod, written by Ernst W. Olson and composed by R. Lager strom, the oratorio "Golgotha," by J. Vic- tor Bergquist, Christmas can- tatas by Alfred Bergin and J. Victor Bergquist, and by Frank J. Johnson, and Reformation Cantata for the Augustana Synod celebration of the quad- ricentennial in 1917, written by Ernst W. Olson and com- posed by Prof. Bergquist by special commission from the synod. The strong trend among the Swedes toward the use of English exclusively has caused the issuing of quite a number of books in that language in the last decade, though the great bulk of the output is still Swedish. Newspapers and periodicals form a large part of the product of the Augustana presses. The official organ of the synod, named Augustana, is now in its sixty-second year, being the indirect successor of the religious monthly founded by Hasselquist in 1856. Two Sunday school papers are published, one in each language The Olive Leaf, started in 1883, an d Barncns Tidning, founded by S. P. A. Lindahl in 1886. The synod publishes a second official organ in English, The Lutheran Companion, which originated in 1892 in the form of a college publication. A general literary illustrated monthly magazine named Ungdovnsvdnnen is published to conserve the literary and cultural inter- ests of the Swedish-American public in general. Tidskrift is a quarterly magazine devoted to theology and churchly matters. ANDREW G. ANDERSON. 190 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS The volume of the published output per year may be indicated by giving a few totals for the year 1915, when the number of copies of books and pamphlets printed reached 218,340, of which 113,390 copies were of new publications. Counting one issue of each of the newspapers and periodicals, the combined circulation reached 112,300. The total number of books and pamphlets published since the founding of the publishing house had reached 3,785,585 at the close of that year, and the number is now approximately 4,000,000. For some years past Rev. Frank A. Johnsson of Galesburg has served as president of the board and Prof. Isaac M. Anderson of Augustana College as secretary. In the management Mr. A. G. Anderson is assisted by Mr. Grant Hultberg. The permanent editorial force consists of the following : Revs. L. G. Abrahamson, D. D., Oscar V. Holmgrain, Carl Kraft, Carl J. Bengston ; Messrs. Ernst W. Olson and Carl E. Nelson. Among the editors employed outside of the institution are Drs. Claude W. Foss and Sven Gustaf Youngert, besides persons selected for temporary assignments. Two foremen, Messrs. C. A. Larson and C. L. Ackerlind, have held their respective positions for more than thirty years, having been connected with the printing department since 1886. THE ENGBERG-HOLMBERG PUBLISHING COMPANY. When the Eng- berg and Holmberg firm in 1874 took over the official publishing concern of the Augustana Synod, it came in possession of a business which dated back to the very earliest publishing activities of the Lutheran church, but which had taken more definite form in the Swedish Lutheran Publication Society which had been in control from the beginning of the year 1859. The present Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Company is consequently the oldest Swedish-American publishing house. From 1874 to 1889 it was recognized as the authorized publishing house of the Augustana Synod. By virtue of the stipulations in the bill of sale and the original charter, this authorization still holds, the corporation maintains, while the Synod itself in 1889 officially denied this claim by its act of establishing a new synodical publishing house, not by purchasing back the old business, but by acquiring a concern privately established. An inquiry into the facts and circumstances reveals no true justification for this deal, considered as a synodical act, however conscientious the individuals who brought it about in the conviction that the publishing business ought never to have passed out of the Synod's hands. The twenty-fifth anniversary publication of the Augustana Book Concern (p. 45) puts the following construction upon the act: "Ten years had now elapsed since the sale of the publishing business took place, and meanwhile the Synod's communicant membership had almost doubled, the number of Swedes in America not affiliated with the Synod doubtless having increased in a much greater proportion. The field for this activ- ity had consequently been much enlarged, and in view of the improved economic conditions now prevailing, there was room enough for more than one publishing concern without undue crowding, provided some CULTURAL PROGRESS 191 measure of Christian tolerance had been exercised." Dr. Eric Norelius, the historian of the Synod, evaded the subject by confessing his incom- petency to pass upon the rectitude of the transaction. Writing of Jonas Engberg (Vol. II, p. 19), he says: "When he had been relieved of his work in the office of Hemlandct, Engberg, together with S. P. Holmberg, purchased the synodical book and publishing business, which was offered for sale and which was subsequently developed into a very considerable plant. Unfortunately there arose later on, when the Synod, through Dr. Lindahl, had opened a new book store, difficulties on which I am not competent to express myself. Very likely there were misunderstandings on both sides, if (as) the contracts were rather loosely formulated." The firm of Engberg and Holmberg carried on an extensive pub- lishing business for the Augustana Synod for the first six or eight years, whereupon the synodical business was gradually decreased by other con- cerns engaging in the same line. The board of directors of Augustana College undertook the publishing of a new Catechism and Bible History for the parochial and Sunday schools of the Synod, the Illinois Confer- ence put out a devotional work on its own account, and the firm of Enander & Bohman developed quite a large book publishing business in connection with the newspaper purchased from the Synod. Among its publications was the Swedish Psalmbook and Chorale Book in various editions, a specific branch of business which ought to have been reserved for the publishing house authorized by the Synod. In 1884 the old firm was incorporated as a stock company known as The Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Company. Jonas Engberg, the pio- neer publisher, died Jan. I, 1890, shortly after he had seen his concern deprived of the prerogatives granted it in 1874 by the founding of a new synodical publishing house. Charles P. Holmberg remained in active charge of the business ten years longer, retiring in 1900. He died May 20, 1903. Since 1900 the publishing business has been carried on by Oscar and Martin Engberg, sons of Jonas Engberg, the former retiring in 7916. After having occupied quarters on Chicago avenue for thirty-eight years, the concern in 1912 moved to 901 Belmont avenue, near Clark street, its present place of business. Besides keeping on sale a large stock of imported Swedish books, this house has published several hundred larger and smaller works, relig- ious and secular, including schoolbooks and textbooks in language, his- tories and books of travel, devotional and other religious works, Sunday school story books, hymnals, music books, and sheet music, collections of poetry, works of fiction and miscellanies. Notable among original works are most of C. F. Peterson's works, several of O. Olsson's, chiefly his "Till Rom och Hem Igen," Gustaf Sjostrom's "Jan Olson's Afventyr," G. N. Malm's "Charli Johnson" and the large work in English by Ernst W. Olson (assisted by A. Schon and M. J. Engberg) entitled "History of the Swedes of Illinois." THE PETERSON BUILDING. CULTURAL PROGRESS 193 THE PETERSON LINOTYPING COMPANY is one of many large, flourish- ing Swedish establishments that have sprung into being in late years. It was founded in the year 1899, an< 3 now, in its seventeenth year, ranks with the largest printing plants in the United States. The head of the concern, Mr. Charles S. Peterson, began work in Chicago at the age of fourteen, in the printing office of the weekly Hem- landet. In 1895 he became linotype operator with another Swedish weekly, Svcnska Amerikanarcn. After four years he saw the possibilities for devel- opment in machine composition and engaged in business for himself under the name and style of the Peterson Linotyping Company. The plant grew by rapid paces, and soon a long array of Mergenthalers were in constant operation in the busy concern. In 1908 Mr. Peterson acquired an interest in the old and well established printing house of the Regan Printing Com- pany. After six years he purchased the entire Regan concern, also the G. D. Steere Bindery, together with the building occupied by them at 527- 531 Plymouth court. By this deal he became the sole proprietor of one of the largest printing and bindery establishments in the city, employing a total working force of eight hundred. The three departments form a complete plant equipped for all the multiplex requirements of present day publishing in all branches books, magazines, trade journals, newspapers and commercial printing. For the accommodation of this entire estab- lishment there is now in course of erection a twelve-story structure on a site embracing Nos. 521-537 Plymouth court. This building, to be known as the Peterson Building, is designed to be the last word in construction for the needs of the printing trade. The new Peterson Building will be the handsomest structure in the country to be occupied by the printing craft. It is to be of white enameled tile, with terra cotta front, and an entrance of gray marble with verde antique trimmings and ornamental iron work. Of the eleven stories and basement all but four stories will be occupied by the Regan Printing House and the Peterson Linotyping Company. The Columbian Engraving Company is to have the top floor and the Acme Elec- trotyping Company the seventh floor. The rest of the space not yet pro- vided for will probably be taken by publishers and others in allied printing lines or supply houses, so that everything in the preparation of a book or publication may be had without going outside of the building. The northern half of the building is being erected by the McCormick Estate for Mr. Peterson under a thirty-year lease, and is to be ready May I, 1917. The southern half, which is to be finished May i, 1918, is to be erected for Mr. Peterson on ground he holds under a hundred-year lease. When completed, the structure will be a splendid monument to Swedish- American commercial enterprise. BLOMGREN BROS. AND COMPANY. This corporation, so closely affili- ated with the printing craft, is one of the oldest electrotyping concerns in the West. It was organized as a copartnership business in 1875, by Claus, Oscar, John and Richard Blomgren and their brother-in-law, Gustaf Hockinson. The Blomgren brothers were sons of Carl Blomgren, who in EDWARD C. WESTMAN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 195 1852 started a tailoring establishment, which grew to be one of the largest in the city, at one time employing thirty-five men in the shop and fifty outside, and keeping twenty-five machines going, the weekly output reach- ing 1,500 garments. Two of the brothers devoted themselves entirely to the new establishment, while the other two, John and Richard, also con- tinued the old tailoring business after the retirement of their father. About 1880 the stereotyping plant of the Blomgrens is said to have been the largest of its kind in Chicago. The size of similar plants at that time may be conjectured from the fact that this firm then employed about twenty-five workmen. Originally the firm was a modest electrotyping and wood and wax engraving concern, whose reason for existence was to produce advertising cuts and plates for what was then a small and struggling town. As Chicago grew, the firm grew with it. It was their connection with the famous inventor of the reaper that started them on the road to greater success. As Chicago grew to be a world center for the manufacture of farm machinery, the Blomgren engravings made known to the world each successive inven- tion and improvement in agricultural implements and harvesting ma- chinery. The firm continued in business as such until 1890, when the brothers Claus and Oscar Blomgren bought out their partners and changed the firm into a stock company. Edward C. Westman, who became a stockholder of the company, soon took a very active part in the development of the business, and in 1905 headed the concern as president and treasurer. He has gradually absorbed the bulk of the stock and conducts the business with the able assistance of men who have practically grown up with the business. John Soderterg, now secretary and treasurer, entered the employ of the Blomgrens as bookkeeper in 1876 and has remained with the business without interruption to this day. The plant employs at present an average of one hundred workers, and the annual output foots up to $200,000. The business comprises all branches of the reproductive art, designing, engraving, electrotyping and nickeltyping, the last-named process, by the way, being the invention of a Swedish Chicagoan, the late Olof F. Nelson, a member of the Osgood Company. Blomgren Bros. & Company appreciate the value of contentment in their employees as an aid to efficiency. There can be no better testimony for a business concern than the fact that its workmen will spend a lifetime in its service, and they seek to cultivate this habit by suitable testimonials to their men when they complete twenty-five years of service. Five of its veteran workmen already have been remembered with honors and valuable mementos upon completing their quarter century in the Blomgren estab- lishment, including Messrs. John Soderberg and John E. Anderson. The great Chicago printing establishment of Stromberg, Allen & Com- pany is largely the result of Swedish business enterprise embodied in the person of CHARLES J. STROMBERG, one of the Swedish pioneers in Chicago. 196 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS He came over from Sweden with his parents in 1854. They located in Chicago two years later, he being then a young man of eighteen. After working for W. B. Keen & Company for seven years he quit his position to join the Union Army. When the war closed he was employed by the stationery firm of J. M. W. Jones & Co., rising successively to the position of manager and member of the firm. In 1888 he withdrew to found the present firm of Stromberg, Allen & Company, with which he was connected until his death in 1904. Stromberg's connection as stockholder with Jones & Company dated from 1877. This was a large blank book, stationery and printing concern for that day, keeping about thirty large and small presses busy, in addition to much ruling and binding machinery, and employing upwards of two hundred workmen. The vol- ume of business was about one million per year. One of its specialties was the printing of rail- way tickets, for which Mr. Stromberg invented and had patented a simplified process. CHARLES j. STROMBERG. ' In addition to the larger plants, heretofore mentioned, there are in Chicago quite a few printing and publishing plants of Swedish ownership besides those spoken of in connection with the publishing activities of the churches. The older shops of Williamson and of Lindell have been followed by the more recent establishments of Broman, Almberg, Jacobson, Martenson, Linden, and a number of others. In the general printing trade throughout the state Swedes are everywhere to be found, and often at the head of the craft in the newspaper plants and the larger establishments. LITERATURE, EDUCATION AND SCIENCE. Dr. OLOF OLSSON rendered eminent service to the Swedish-Americans in various capacities, principally as a pastor, educator and author. His pastoral work was performed mostly during the years he was in charge of the church in Lindsborg, Kansas, but he continued to be an influential and highly popular preacher in the Augustana Synod until his death. As an educator, he was for twenty-one years connected with Augustana College and Theological Seminary, serving as its president during the last nine years. His authorship, comprising devotional works or books of travel written from the churchman's point of view, is mostly work done on spare hours snatched from his last twenty years of close application to many official duties, yet his works rank with the best Swedish literary produc- tions in the United States. Olof Olsson was a native of Vermland, Sweden, born at Bjorntorp, Karlskoga parish, March 31, 1841. His parents were pietists of the strictest CULTURAL PROGRESS 197 type. At an early age the son was imbued with their spiritual ardor. Being studious and betraying marked musical talent, he was placed under the tutorship of the organist and cantor of Fredsberg parish, in Vestergot- land, who took his apt pupil quite a little way in his musical studies. Responding to Dr. Fjellstedt's ringing appeals for missionary workers, Olsson in 1858 entered the Fjellstedt missionary institute, friends of the family guaranteeing the needed support. After one year, the authorities of the school concluded to send him to the Leipsic missionary institute for further training. The state formalism and high orthodoxy pervading that institution proved repulsive to him, and he soon returned home disheart- ened and with shattered ideals. Shortly afterward he went to Upsala to prepare for the university in the Church of Sweden, completing his college course in 1861 and his theological studies two years later. After his ordination, Olsson labored fruitfully as a minister of the state church for about five years. By his affiliation with the evangelistic movement of the Devotionalists (Readers) he gained the favor and confi- dence of his more earnest brethren of the clergy, but incurred the odium of certain worldly-minded clergymen, and finally concluded that true Gospel work could hardly be carried on under the trammels of a state church. To escape the restraint, he resolved to emigrate. In 1869 he headed a party of emigrants who shared his views, and with them founded the settlement in McPherson county, Kansas, which was subsequently named Lindsborg. Olsson became their pastor and served as their adviser in temporal as well as spiritual things for seven years. After some little hesitation the congregation joined the Augustana Synod. While at Lindsborg, Olsson served as county superintendent of schools and for a term represented his district in the Kansas legislature. In 18/5, Rev. Olof Olsson had gained so high a standing in the synod that he was elected to a chair in its theological seminary. Entering upon his duties as theological professor, he taught in the Augustana Seminary for a period of twelve years, then resigned and spent about a year in Europe in travel and study. Upon the death of Hasselquist, in 1891, Olsson was called as acting president and was elected his permanent successor the same year. In the capacity of president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, Dr. Olsson served until his death, May 12, 1900. Olsson was a man of profound scholarship, attained largely by private study, travel and research ; he possessed a wide knowledge and experience acquired in the school of active life. Dr. Norelius says of him: "Prof. Olsson was a man of many good qualifications, who labored with note- worthy success in any position entrusted to him. As a pioneer pastor among the Kansas settlers he made an excellent record, but he was still better fitted as teacher in a circle of divinity students, to whom he might freely open his heart. There was in that man profound spiritual depth, though he would at times allow his feelings to run away with him." When in 1892 Augustana College conferred on him the degree of D. D. and the DR. L. G. ABRAHAMSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 199 University of Upsala the following year made him Doctor of Philosophy, these were no empty honors. Aside from his other services to Augustana College, Dr. Olsson at one time solicited about $17,000 for the maintenance of the school, chiefly through appeals from his pen. After a European trip in 1879 he presented several new ideas which matured in great oratorio festivals at Rock Island and at Lindsborg, and also led to the founding of the Augustana Hospital in Chicago and the Augustana Conservatory of Music in Rock Island. During the defection from the Synod to the free evangelism of the Mission Friends, prevalent in the seventies, Olsson, although favoring true evange- listic ideas, took a determined stand in opposition to the movement on doctrinal grounds. He stamped the Waldenstromian doctrine of atone- ment as a new form of the old heresy of Socinianism, and but for him the Synod's loss to the Waldenstrom following unquestionably would have attained much larger proportions. Dr. Olsson's works were published in comparatively large editions and are still enjoying popularity. His published books and pamphlets are: "Vid korset"; "Det Kristna hoppet" ; "Helsningar fran fjarran," being his first book of travel dealing with his trip abroad in 18/9; "Nagot om kanslans bildning" ; "Reformationen och socinianismen" ; "Vi bekanna Kristus" ; "Till Rom och hem igen" (1890), his second book of travel, containing an arraignment of Romanism, snatches of ecclesiastical and profane history, descriptions and meditations in pleasing profusion ; lastly, a posthumous volume of sermons and addresses (1903). The collected works of D.r. Olsson are being published in four volumes by the Augustana Book Concern. Dr. Olsson's literary style possessed a peculiar fascination, and his writings, like his public addresses, abound in wit, epigram, keen and apt observations, delicate sentiment and the fruits of ripe scholarship and profound thought. Prominent in the educational work is GUSTAV ALBERT ANDREEN, Ph. D., president of Augustana College since 1901. Having taught at Augustana and Bethany Colleges from 1882 to 1893, he entered Yale University for post graduate work and after obtaining the degree of Ph. D. in 1898 remained as instructor at the university and was subsequently appointed to the chair of Scandinavian. He had spent two years at Scandinavian universities in preparation for this position when elected president of Augustana. Dr. Andreen has published his doctoral thesis on "Studies in the German Idyl" and a short treatise on the Swedish language in America. The Rev. L. G. ABRAHAMSON, D.D., serves as the editor-in-chief of Augustana since his election to that position by the Augustana Synod in 1909. Prior to that time he had conducted the mission department in that paper for a long term of years. Under the common title "Herrens behagliga ar," three volumes of devotional meditations by him have been published in the last three years. He did his full share of writing for the "Jubel-Album," published in 1893 conjointly with Dr. Carl Swensson. 200 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Dr. CONRAD EMIL LINDBERG is the author of a textbook in dogmatics and of "Syllabus i konstruktiv luthersk kyrkorattslara" and a book of meditations on the opening chapters of the Apocalypse. He has just completed a work on apologetics, recently issued. Dr. NILS FORSANDER, emeritus professor of Augustana Theological Seminary, has written numerous articles for Lutheran periodicals, and edited the Lutheran Quarterly. He wrote most of the articles on the Church of Sweden for the "Lutheran Encyclopedia," and is the author of a commentary on the Augsburg Confession, published in two editions, and of two recent books, "Life Pictures from Swedish Church History," and the first of a series entitled "Lifsbilder ur Augustana-synodens Historia." S. P. A. LINDAHL, D.D., who was a prominent figure in the Augustana Synod for more than thirty years, was chosen editor of the synodical organ Augustana in 1890 to succeed Dr. Hasselquist, and served in that capacity until his death in 1908. He remained the head of the synodical publishing house during the same period. Besides editorial work, he translated and compiled a number of small devotional or juvenile books issued by the same house. While pastor in Galesburg he published an anti-secret society paper known as Schibboleth. Rev. SVEN GUSTAF YOUNGERT, D.D., Ph.D., is one of the editorial contributors to Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, now in course of publication. As such he has written many extensive articles on the religion and mythology of the Teutonic race, including Teutonic cosmogony, Ragnarok and the Regeneration of the World, Loke and Evil, Sacrifices, Salvation, etc. For more than a decade Dr. Youngert occupied a chair in the Augustana Theological Seminary, and during that time edited the literary magazine Ungdomsvdnnen and served on the staff of Tidskrift, a Lutheran quarterly. He has published Pontus Wik- ner's philosophical lectures, with supplementary notes. Dr. CARL SWENSSON (1857-1904) holds a prominent place in the literary and educational life of the Swedish-Americans. While a student at Augustana College, he began to contribute to the press and continued to do so throughout his career. His weekly articles, published in a num- ber of papers, were probably more generally read than anything written for Swedish- American newspapers before or after. To judge him by these newspaper letters, however, would not be fair, for they were often the hurried productions of his pen on board railway trains or in moments when a hundred cares stood waiting at his elbow. But taking him at his best, in his books of travel, "I Sverige" and "Ater i Sverige," you will find him an alert observer, a skillful word-painter, a brilliant nar- rator and altogether a charming writer. The first-named work was pub- lished in Chicago and Stockholm, the latter in Chicago in Swedish and English editions. Other works by Swensson, nearly all published in Chicago, are: "Vid hemmets hard" (reprinted in Sweden); "Forgat- mig-ej"; "I Morgonstund," and "Jubel- Album," a large illustrated his- CULTURAL PROGRESS 201 torical account of the Augustana Synod, compiled in collaboration with Dr. L. G. Abrahamson. Together with others, Swensson edited the church annual 'Korsbaneret" for five years and the monthly Ungdomsvanncn from 1880 to 1887. Swensson was the founder of Bethany College, at Lindsborg, Kansas. Among Swedish-Americans of the second generation he stands as the most notable figure. DR. CLAUDE W. Foss, professor of history at Au- gustana College, is the au- thor of one independent work, a book of travel en- titled "Glimpses of Three Continents," and the trans- lator of a series of "Stories for Children" from Topelius, and a number of Swedish poems. Dr. Foss is an able lecturer on historical sub- jects. A name prominent in American pharmacy is that of OSCAR OLDBERG, who was appointed dean of the School of Pharmacy of Northwest- ern when the school was es- tablished in 1886. He is the author of several well- known text-books on chem- istry, pharmacy, metrology and related subjects. Oscar Oldberg was born in Alfta parish, Helsingland, Sweden, Jan. 2.2., 1846, the son of Pastor Anders Oldberg, au- thor of "Hemskolan" and other pedagogical books. After having completed his college education, he studied pharmacy in Falun, under the well-known F. W. Helleday, a pupil of Berzelius. As a licensed pharmacist Oldberg emi- grated in 1865. In 1869 he entered the faculty of the School of Pharmacy of Georgetown College, D. C.,and later became dean and professor of pharmacy at the National College of Pharmacy in Washington. When he severed his connection with that institution in 1881, the degree of Doctor of Pharmacy was conferred upon him honoris causa. In 1874 he had become connected with the U. S. Marine Hospital service. He was chief clerk and acting medical purveyor until 1881. In 1880 he was elected member of the Com- mittee of Revision and Publication of the Pharmacopoeia of the United MONUMENT TO DR. CARL SWENSSON ON THE I5ETHANY COLLEGE CAMPUS. 202 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS States. At the expiration of his term of service, on that committee in 1890 he was reappointed for another ten years, and again appointed in 1900 for a like period. A second Swedish-American authority on pharmaceutical science in the United States, of equal standing with Prof. Oscar Oldberg, is CARL S. N. HALLHERG, a native of Helsingborg, Sweden, who came with his parents to Altoona, Pa., in 1869. Having studied pharmacy in Philadel- phia, he came to Chicago in 1877, and was for eight years engaged in phar- maceutical manufacturing, reengaging in that line after a period of teaching pharmacy by the correspondence system. Hallberg became editor of The Western Druggist in 1882, and in 1890 accepted the position of professor in the Chicago College of Pharmacy. Selected a member of the commit- tee on the "National Formulary" at its formation in 1886, Mr. Hallberg con- tributed largely to the first edition of this work. At the Pharmacopoeial Con- vention at Washington in 1890 he was made a member of the Committee on Revision and worked on its sub-com- mittee on Pharmaceutical Preparations. He has contributed a number of papers to the American Pharmaceutical Asso- ciation, and has served as secretary and as chairman of the Section of Sci- entific Papers. He has also been active in the Section of Education and Legislation. In the American Medical Association he has held the position of secretary of the Section of Materia Medica, Pharmacy and Thera- peutics. In 1903 the honorary degree of M. D. was conferred on him in recognition of his notable services to medical science. Dr. JOHN A. UDDEN, Ph. D., for many years professor of natural science at Augustana College, now occupying a chair in the University of Texas and prominently connected with the geological survey of that state, has written extensively on scientific subjects, principally on geology, his special branch. His name is prominent in American geological science and scientific journals have contained many articles from his pen. His most recent work is a survey of the geology of Texas. Among his earlier pub- lished works may be mentioned : "Erosion, Transportation and Sedimenta- tion Performed by the Atmosphere" ; "Dust and Sandstorms in the West" ; "Loess as a Land Deposit" ; and "The Mechanical Composition of \Vind Deposits." In "An Old Indian Village" he has described some prehistoric remains in Kansas, found and investigated by him. Much of his work is found in official reports of geological surveys in many states with which he has been DR. JOHN A. UDDEN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 203 connected. During 1892 he served as assistant to the state geologist of Illinois, preparing a collection for the state exhibit at the World's Colum- bian Exposition. Dr. Udden is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prof. TORILD ARNOLDSON, who died last fall in Salt Lake City, after having occupied the chair of modern languages at the University of Utah for ten years, was for some time prior attached to the University of Chi- cago, occupying the Scandinavian chair. He was a graduate of Monmouth College and recently earned his doctoral degree at the local university. Prof. Arnoldson was the son of the noted peace advocate of Sweden, K. P. Arnoldson, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize not many years back. The son, after having obtained his elementary education in Sweden, studied and traveled in France, Germany, England and Spain before com- ing to America and was noted as a linguist. The founder of the Northwestern College of Dental Surgery is said to have been HOWARD C. MAGNUSSON, the son of Lewis J. Magnusson, one of the early Swedish Chicagoans, who located in this city in 1855 and was engaged in business here. Dr. OLOF A. TOFFTEEN is the author of several published works on biblical and oriental subjects, such as "Myths and Bible," "Ancient Chronology," "Ancient Records of Egypt," "Researches in Assyrian Geography" and "The Historic Exodus," also a work on the Church of Sweden, entitled "Vara Faders Kyrka." Several lesser productions have issued from his hand. Not many names of Swedish- Americans have been as familiar as that of Dr. JOSUA LINDAHL to the American scientific world. He had attained a name as a scientist in his native country before coming to the United States. Here he made himself widely known for painstaking research in the natural sciences, as a college teacher, and in the capacity of curator of state and private museums of natural history. A native of Kongsbacka, Sweden, Lindahl entered the University of Lund in 1863, at the age of nineteen, and finished his post-graduate course in science and earned the degree of Ph.D., in 1874. He was then appointed instructor at the university, a position held by him until he took the chair of natural science at Augustana College. He was secretary of the Swedish commission at the International Geographical Congress of Paris in 1875, and served likewise at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. Prior to that he had participated in two British scientific expeditions, and served as zoologist in a Swedish expedition to Greenland, besides taking part in deep sea dredgings along the Swedish coasts during two summers. He served as assistant to Prof. Otto Torell, of Lund, and to Prof. Sven Loven at the Royal Museum in Stockholm both eminent men of science. Dr. Lindahl taught at Augustana for ten years from 1878, and dur- ing that time created a scientifically arranged museum of natural history at this institution. He took the position of state geologist and curator of DR. JOSUA LINDAHL. CULTURAL PROGRESS 205 the museum at Springfield in 1888, and during his five years' service put the chaotic natural history collections there into scientific order, appar- ently for the first time since the founding of the institution. In 1895 Lin- dahl was appointed director of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, remaining for eleven years. He has published a number of scientific papers, one having appeared in a French journal, several others in the Journal of the Cincinnati society edited by him. Vol. VIII of the Geo- graphical Survey of Illinois is Lindahl's work, and his doctoral thesis was incorporated in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy of Science. He was a member of many learned societies, an Orficier d'Academie of France and a Knight of the Swedish Order of Vasa. Dr. Lindahl's services to the State of Illinois in his scientific capacity might have been further extended but for the fact that he refused to look upon his position as a political one, preferring his official duties to earning his reappointment through campaign activity. Lindahl was charged with the arrangement of a geological exhibit in the Illinois State Building at the World's Fair, a task which required the better part of two years. He was appointed on the International Committee on Awards, to fill a vacancy in the Swedish delegation. Dr. Lindahl was included in the National Encyclopaedia of American Biography and in "American Men of Science." Dr. ANTON J. CARLSON, professor of physiology at the University of Chicago, stands high in the scientific and educational world. Years of experimental work and investigation have revealed to him many facts relating to the action of the heart, the stomach and other vital organs, heretofore unknown to physiological science. Upon publication in scien- tific journals his discoveries have attracted wide attention and caused authors on physiology to revise some of their former views. Augustana counts Dr. Carlson among its college graduates and awarded him his master's degree for post-graduate work. Dr. AXEL WERELIUS, the noted Chicago surgeon, whose skill and methods in performing operations have proved a revelation to his col- leagues everywhere, is a native of Blekinge, Sweden, and comparatively young for a celebrity forty-six years of age. He was graduated from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1902 and gained experience as interne at the Michael Reese Hospital. In his rapid career, he has mas- tered some of the most difficult physiological problems, and discovered new and more successful methods in dealing with puzzling and obstinate cases, methods susceptible of technical explanation alone. Numerous articles by Werelius have appeared in medical journals. His demonstra- tions before the Surgical Congress in Chicago, 1913, caused the officers of the American Medical Association to ask him for a detailed presenta- tion on the subject at the next annual convention. Some of his special investigations relate to struma of the thyroid gland, floating kidney, anasto- mosis, etc. DR. JAKOB BONGGREN. Portrait sketch by Zorn. CULTURAL PROGRESS 207 The man who made Svenka Amcrikanarcn a leading Swedish news- paper, and one of the few successful weeklies published in that language in the United States, was FRANS ALBIN LINDSTRAND. For twenty years he was active in Swedish newspaperdom in the double capacity of pub- lisher and writer. For a self-taught man, Lindstrand achieved remarkable popularity as a writer, making his pen name, "Onkel Ola/' so well known among newspaper readers in general that many knew him by no other name. His weekly letters to his readers, while not of high literary merit, were savory fare for the average stomach and seasoned to the taste of the not too fastidious. Mr. Lindstrand traveled extensively, and his observations on a tour of Europe, Asia Minor and Egypt are well told in a volume entitled "I Oster och Vasterland," which excels many a similar book by more scholarly travelers. He was public-spirited, and in many instances generous to a fault. Nationalist movements among his fellow- countrymen had his whole-hearted support, and at least one organization, the Swedish National Association, owed its continued existence chiefly to his moral and financial aid. None the poorer for his generosity, Lind- strand retired in comfortable circumstances after disposing of his paper, and gave the last few years of his life undividedly to his family and his friends. A big heart, an open hand and rare food-fellowship combined to perpetuate his name. Mr. Lindstrand knew how to chose well-qualified journalists as his associates in the editorial work. He retained on the staff JAKOB BONGGREN, now a veteran in the service of the paper, having occupied his position for almost thirty-five years. He is a poet of rare ability, an essayist of broad scholarship and a seasoned journalist of wide and diversified experience. Out of the wealth of his poetic production may be culled many of the classic gems of Swedish- American literature. A volume of his selected poems has been published under the title, "Singer och sagor," but much of his best work is still in manuscript or scattered in newspaper files and various periodical publications. Another man of Mr. Lindstrand's choosing who has proved valuable to Amerikanaren is OLIVER A. LINDER, employed on the paper for a quar- ter century and now editor-in-chief. For practical ability as a journalist he has few equals in the Swedish press in this country. In him that quality has not dulled his taste for idealistic writing, although necessarily limiting the output. A volume of verse, short stories and sketches, entitled "I Vasterland," contains some of his best work. Certain reviewers, how- ever, are of the opinion that as a humorous writer he is at his best, and deplored the lack of the comic element in the book. Once on a time Linder did publish a little packet of humorous chaff calculated to raise a laugh, and after that, like O. W. Holmes, he does not dare to be "as funny as he can." To the new edition of the Swedish Encyclopaedia (Nordisk Familjebok), now almost completed, Linder has contributed a large num- ber of Swedish-American biographies and articles, this being the first time that work takes note of Swedish activities on this side of the Atlantic. OLIVER A. LINDER. CULTURAL PROGRESS 209 A third member of the editorial staff of Amerikanaren is FRITHIOF MALMQUIST, who commands an able pen in prose and verse, whichever he chooses. A volume of his poems has been privately printed. Prof. C. G. WALLENIUS, president of the Swedish Theological Semi- nary at Evanston, heads the educational work of the Swedish Methodist Church of the United States. In addition to his pastoral and educational activities he has conducted historical research, the results of which are embodied in a history of the Swedish Methodists (Svenska Metodismens Historia), written and compiled chiefly by him, with the assistance of two elder brethren in the church. His former colleague in the seminary faculty, Rev. J. E. HILLBERG, now conducts the denominational organ Sandebudetj maintaining the literary traditions established by his veteran predecessors, among whom were Witting, Ericson and Henschen. There is force and snap in Hillberg's editorial pen. A volume of pen pictures from the lands of the Bible is the fruit of his travels in the Orient. The literary testament of THEODORE HESSELL, a journalist and writer who spent his last years in Chicago, has a curious interest. It consists of two volumes entitled, "Farbror Slokums Memoirer" (1909 and 1910), which are in fact an autobiography containing much material bearing on Swedish- American events and conditions. The poetic works of two writers of high order, Rev. A. A. SWARD and Dr. LUDVIG HOLMES, have been published here, while they themselves only incidentally belonged to the state of Illinois. ERNST SKARSTEDT, his- torian, essayist, poet and critic, spent some time in Chicago back in the eighties, working on Swedish weeklies here. Most of his literary produc- tion is of more recent date. Skarstedt is a prolific writer. He has com- piled four volumes containing the history of the Swedish population in the Pacific Coast states, an anthology of Swedish- American writers ("Vara Pennfaktare"), several collections of verse and short stories, and is now engaged on a work on the Swedish- Americans ("Det svensk-amerikanska folket") to be published in Sweden.- Among Chicago writers of a former period we note MAGNUS ELMBLAD, the first Swedish-American poet of rank. CARL GUSTAF NORMAN early began to contribute verses to the Swe- dish-American press. He was editor of Framat, a Kansas weekly, in the eighties ; entered the ministry, but returned to journalism and edited a paper of the same name in Providence, R. I., for several years. His next position was with Svca of Worcester, Mass., whence he came to Svenska Tribunen, Chicago, 1906, remaining with that paper (later con- solidated with Svenska Nyhcter) until his death in 1916 (Jan. 16). In 1914 he published on his own account a collection of his best poems under the title "Emigrantens sanger." He was a prolific writer of newspaper verse, furnishing weekly installments for his paper for many years. Norman's legitimate poetic productions are uniformly well modeled, often sentimental in tone, always characterized by a musical ring and smoothness of diction. 210 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS JOHAN PERSON wields one of the truly capable pens enlisted in the service of the Swedish press in this country. He was added to the staff of Svenska Tribunen in the nineties and has since worked on Swedish weeklies in various parts of the United States, returning to Chicago time and again after much journalistic knight errantry. He was engaged with Svenska Amerikanaren for a time, and is now on the staff of Svenska Kurircn for the second time. He is the author of a volume of short stories entitled "I Svensk-Amerika," which has been followed by a number of well-written stories, sketches and essays only partly published in book form. A number of his newspaper articles on Swedish-American life have been published in a volume entitled ''Svensk-Amerikanska Studier." As a "columnist" Person has for years furnished clever material for a number of papers. His style is fluent and forceful, inclined to be caustic, but tempered with a modicum of wit and humor. From the sixties down to the present time the Swedes have been engaged in editing and publishing general newspapers in Illinois in English as well as in the language of the home land. Capt. Eric Johnson, who seems to have been the first among them to engage in the publishing of local newspapers in the language of the land, has had many followers, both as publisher and editor. In the smaller towns they have taken a rel- atively greater interest in the local press, but instances can be quoted from Rock ford, Moline, Galesburg, Aurora, and even Chicago to show their activity in the dissemination of news and the shaping of public opinion through the medium of the daily and weekly newspapers. The largest publishing enterprise of this kind, though shortlived, was the Daily Press of Chicago, published for a short period in the early nineties by Robert Lindblom and others. Out of fifty-eight general newspapers published in the Swedish lan- guage in the United States, sixteen, or almost thirty per cent, are issued in Illinois. The only Swedish newspaper center to approximate Chicago in importance is Minneapolis, where seven similar periodicals are issued. The success of Swedish-language newspapers in Chicago in recent years is worthy of remark. Several of them have attained circulation figures that would not have been believed if told to the successful Swedish newspaper publishers of the eighties and nineties, when immigration con- stantly added to the number of Swedish newspaper readers. Two weeklies, Svenska Amerikanaren and Svenska Tribunen-Nyhetcr, have doubled or trebled their former strength, while Svenska Kuriren, the third of the older journals, holds its own field and maintains its popularity facts which go to show that the complete language transition is still a long way off. The only old and established Swedish paper to cease publication was Hemlandct, the pioneer of them all, which has been merged with Svenska Amerikanaren. Its present publisher, Francis A. Larson, who succeeded to the ownership in 1908, has made this the most representative Swedish general newspaper in the United States. CULTURAL PROGRESS 211 LEARNED SOCIETIES. THE SWEDISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. The first person to realize the importance of preserving records and material for the history of the Swedes in America in modern times was not a Swedish- American it was doubtless Gustaf Erik Klemming of the Royal Library in Stockholm. Nearly sixty years ago he took steps towards building up a collection of such material in the national library. In the year 1859 Rev. T. N. Hasselquist, then pastor at Galesburg, was commissioned by that institution to subscribe for or purchase Swedish- American newspapers, books and publications of all kinds. This he did and, largely through his activity, the collection grew year by year. But even at this early date some interesting material had been lost in the interval of about fifteen years that had elapsed since the first parties of immigrants arrived. Nevertheless, the most complete Swedish- American historical collections are to be found not in this country but across the waters, in the Royal Library of the Swedish capital. After Hasselquist, according to G. X. Swan, Herman Stockenstrom of Minne- apolis, Rev. Herman Lindskog of Chicago, and Dr. Gustav Andreen have served in the same capacity. It was not until much later that a similar collection was begun at Augustana College in Rock Island, credit being due to Dr. C. W. Foss for the bulk of the work done in that direction. In 1889, at tne suggestion of Dr. J. A. Enander, an organization by the name of the Swedish-American Historical Society was formed and incorporated by a number of persons in Chicago, alive to the fact that an important work was being sadly neglected. Its interest in the object for which it was organized apparently subsided at once, for the society left no traces of its activity in any form, so far as has been ascertained. Interest in the cause of historical conservation received a new stimulus in 1905 when a circular was issued, dated May 12 and bearing thirty-four signatures of well-known Swedish-Americans, projecting a new Swedish-American historical society and inviting to membership. A week later there was issued a call to a preliminary meeting, to be held at the Palmer House, Chicago, on May 27. So far, Louis G. Northland, a journalist, had conducted the preliminary work. At this meeting, presided over by Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, a committee on organization and constitution was appointed, composed of the following gentlemen, viz. : Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, Judge Axel Chytraus, Col. C. A. Smith, Prof. Torild Arnoldson, and Messrs. A. G. S. Josephson, Anders Schon, Ernst W. Olson and Louis G. Northland. Of these, Chytraus, Smith and Arnoldson did not serve. The organization meeting took place July 22 in the Chicago Historical Society building, 142 Dearborn avenue, when the proposed constitution was adopted and a council of fifteen members was elected. Of these 212 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS many never showed any activity in behalf of the society ; this is also true of a number elected later, especially those residing at a distance from Chicago. Those who took active part in the work were : J. A. Enander, A. G. S. Josephson, C. G. Lagergren, A. Schon, C. G. Wallenius, J. S. Carlson, D. Nyvall and G. N. Swan. The council on August 29 elected the following officers : President, J. A. Enander ; vice president, Gustav Andreen ; secretary, Anders Schon ; treasurer, A. G. S. Josephson. In 1908 (April 10) the society was incorporated under its perma- nent name, The Swedish Historical Society of America. After Dr. Enander, the following persons have served as president in the order named : C. G. Lagergren, Jostia Lindahl, C. G. Wallenius, D. Nyvall, C. A. Lindvall and Edw. C. Westman. The secretaries, on whom the bulk of the work has fallen, have been Anders Schon, A. G. S. Josephson, Joseph G. Sheldon, Ernst W. Olson, C. G. Wallenius and Fritz N. Andren. During the first ten years of its activity the society's historical collections have grown to approximately 6,000 books and pamphlets and a large number of newspaper files. Four yearbooks have been issued at irregular intervals, containing contributions of a historical character and proceedings. The most valuable publication heretofore issued by the society is a new edition of J. C. Clay's historic work, "Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware," published in 1914, the cost of publication being advanced by Mr. Henry S. Henschen, who prefaced the reprint with a brief introduction. In 1911 the society decided to publish a small quarterly called "Chronicles," the first and only issue of which was put out by Ernst W. Olson, as secretary, in February, 1912. The lack of means has been a constant check to the publishing activities as well as the work of collecting material. A great service to the society has been rendered by the Swedish Theological Seminary of Evanston, in housing the historical collections for many years past without charge. For some time plans have been on foot looking towards procuring a building suitable for a historical library and society headquarters. In 1914 a movement was begun to raise the sum of $10,000 for a building fund, and Alfred Soderstrom was appointed solicitor and financial agent. He also acted as corre- sponding secretary, and as such procured many new members and added materially to the collections. The specific objects for which the Swedish Historical Society exists and works are stated in its constitution as follows : First : To promote the study of the history of the Swedes in America and their descendants. Second : To collect a library and museum illustrating their devel- opment in America. Third : To issue publications relating to the history of the Swedish people in Sweden and America. CULTURAL PROGRESS 213 Fourth: To encourage the study of Swedish history and litera- ture in American universities. The last published list (1915) includes five living honorary mem- bers, five life members, 382 annual members, six being societies and the remaining 376 individual members. THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCANDINAVIAN STUDY is a recent organization with purely cultural aims, founded in the state of Illinois, but of nation-wide scope. In May, 1911, a number of persons interested in Scandinavian culture met at the University of Chicago to found a society whose aim was to be the promotion of the study and teaching in this country of the languages, literature and culture of the Scandinavian North. Among its Swedish organizers were Prof. Jules Mauritzson of Augustana College, Martin J. Engberg and Ernst W. Olson of the Engberg-Holmberg publishing house, Aksel G. S. Josephson of the John Crerar Library. The prominent Norwegian- Americans taking part in the organization work were Prof. Julius E. Olson of the University of Wisconsin and Prof. George T. Flom of the University of Illinois. Prof. Chester N. Gould represented the Scandinavian department of the University of Chicago. Prof. Olson was elected the first president of the society and Prof. Flom its first secretary. The society meets annually in May, the organization meeting, held under the auspices of the University of Chicago, being followed by meetings held, respectively, at the Northwestern University, Augustana College, the University of Minnesota, again at Northwestern, and at the University of Wisconsin. At these gatherings scholarly papers are presented and discussed,. and plans are laid for the furtherance of the cause for which the society stands. The meetings have been productive of excellent results so far. For the accomplishment of the desired ends the society works along a number of lines, both for maintaining the languages among the Scan- dinavians themselves, and in extending the knowledge of Scandinavian literature and culture among Americans not of Scandinavian descent. Of particular importance is the work of the Society in encouraging the introduction of the study of Scandinavian languages in the schools, of this country. The organization is also attempting to improve the conditions that surround the teaching of these subjects at the present: time ; this is done by encouraging the preparation of adequate textbooks, by competent scholars for this instruction and in many other ways. The work that lies before the society is obviously very great, and during its short existence the society has only as yet entered upon it. The Publications of the Society for the Advancement of Scandi- navian Study, published three times a year, contain scholarly articles and papers read at the annual meetings dealing with the Scandinavian languages and literature. A particularly valuable feature of the Publi- cations is the department of notes, containing brief mention of new 214 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS books that have appeared (both in this country and in the Scandinavian countries) dealing with the Scandinavian languages, literature and culture. In this publication are also reports and papers dealing with the spread and progress of Scandinavian study in this country, and the reports of the annual meetings, together with lists of the members of the society. At the present time there are in the United States more than two thousand young Scandinavians studying their native languages in public high schools alone. This figure does not take into account our American universities and colleges, academies and seminaries, and public schools below the grade of high school. Heretofore, the chief officers of the society have been : Presi- dents Julius E. Olson, Jules Mauritzson, Chester N. Gould; secre- taries George T. Flom, Chester N. Gould, A. Louis Elmquist, Joseph Alexis. Prof. Flom has served as editor of Pitblications. The society has acquired a considerable membership throughout the United States, including many educators. Illinois furnishes by far the largest quota of any state, or about one-fourth of the entire membership. INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING. NORTH PARK COLLEGE. At the conference in Chicago in 1885 to organize the Mission Covenant, the very first question, after the organization was affected, was to establish a school. Upon the suggestion of men at the Chicago Theological Seminary that a Swedish department might be opened in connection with their school, a form of cooperation was entered into. Through the Covenant and its president, C. A. Bjork, Prof. Fridolf Risberg was called from Sweden and a Swedish seminary department was opened the same year. For five years this cooperation continued, and in 1888 the Covenant called to the aid of Prof. Risberg an assistant instructor in the person of David Nyvall. The arrangement with the seminary proving far from satisfactory, there was a growing conviction that the Covenant ought to have a school of its own, and one not limited to the work of educating ministers and missionaries. After two years, Nyvall resigned to be free to work for a Covenant school on a basis insuring complete control and permanent service. He associated himself with the Rev. E. A. Skogsbergh and his school in Minneapolis,' and the two offered this school the following year to the conference assembled in Phelps, Nebraska. The offer was accepted, and the Covenant decided unanimously that the school was to open in the autumn as the Covenant's own school. The seminary people cheerfully accepted the new situation. The presidency was then ten- dered to Prof. Risberg. \Yhen he declined the call, not wishing to CULTURAL PROGRESS 215 sever his connection with the Chicago seminary, Nyvall, who had been made temporary president, was given a permanent call, and the Covenant school was opened at Minneapolis in the fall of 1891. The school was at that time an ungraded English elementary school and a commercial school combined. It had been in existence since 1885, maintained through the untiring efforts of Skogsbergh, assisted by J. A. Lindblade, instructor in the English and commercial classes. To the former departments was now added a theological one, a so-called Bible school, with Nyvall as sole instructor. The beginning was alto- gether hopeful. The first year the students in the commercial school numbered seventy-two, in the seminary seventeen. The treasurer, Charles Wallblom, reported a surplus over all expenditures. The second year opened even better than the first. The Rev. Axel Mellander, who had been called as assistant instructor in the seminary, took up this work. He is now the senior professor, having given the school almost twenty-five years of uninterrupted service. The third and last year in Minneapolis opened not quite as propitiously in point of attendance, the total being 125. The first class to graduate from the seminary numbered five members. These first graduates of the Covenant school of theology were (). W. Bengtson, Alfred Nelson Ahnfeldt, O. G. Olson, K. E. Peterson and M. Thornberg. At the last commencement in Minneapolis, held April 27, 1894, Dr. Carl von Bergen of Sweden, then on a lecture tour in America, was the speaker of the day. In looking for a suitable location, the Covenant had invited com- petitive bids from different localities, such as Chicago and Des Moines, besides Minneapolis and St. Paul. This rivalry reduced itself to a choice between an offer from Chicago and several offers from the Twin Cities. After extended deliberation and investigation, the Chicago site was accepted. That offer, as it came from the University Land Asso- ciation, included eight and one-half acres of land in North Park, a suburb of Chicago, and a donation of $25,000, of which sum $15,000 was to be expended for a suitable building and $10,000 to be set aside as a fund bearing interest after five years. This was donated on con- dition that the Covenant for a period of fifty years continually use the property for mission school purposes only. After the lapse of fifty years, the deed, held in escrow, was to be delivered to the Covenant authorities. In consequence of this grant, the school was located in North Park in the year 1894. The land association, owing to subsequent hard times and to dis- appointments in their calculations, failed to donate the promised fund of $10,000. After years of contention and discussion a compromise was effected in 1901 whereby the Covenant, by releasing the land association from its promise of $10,000 and paying a certain mortgage, was given clear title, thus after seven years coming into possession of valuable school property. DR. DAVID NYVALL. CULTURAL PROGRESS 217 Gauging the success of the school by the attendance, the first seven years in North Park were discouraging. The school closed its first year in Chicago with an attendance of seventy-four. In 1900-01 the enrollment sank to its lowest ebb, a total of sixty-eight. In spite of this, the years had been well spent and real progress made. In the academy the work had been arranged to meet the entrance require- ments of the universities ; the school year had been lengthened by one month, and a corps of teachers enlisted, sufficient in number and com- petent for the work. In the seminary the president and Prof. Mellander gave instruction as before, and Mr. Lindblade was retained in the commercial school. In the academy the principal teachers were A. W. Fredrickson and C. J. Wilson. The former was called to this position as early as 1894, and taught until his death fifteen years later. The latter was added to the faculty in 1896. A just appreciation of the work of the school came in 1899 in the form of an official recognition of its academic courses by the State Normal and the University of Illinois. When the eighth school year opened at North Park College in 1901, larger things were already in sight. A donation of $30,000, known as the P. H. Anderson donation, had been accepted and part of the money put into two new buildings, a boys' dormitory and a home for the president. The attendance increased from sixty-eight to eighty- nine, and two years later reached 165. Internal disturbances in 1905-06 brought a slight decrease in the attendance and caused the resignation of Prof. Nyvall from the presi- dency. From the high water mark of 268 the following year the figures sank by degrees to 141 in 1911-12. After that there has been an upward tendency, the school year of 1915-16 closing with a net total attendance of 300 students. Upon the resignation of Prof. Nyvall in 1905, Prof. A. W. Fredrickson was chosen president, serving as such until his death in 1909. The development .af the academy during recent years has been the most marked feature iri'^e growth of the institution. In the past four years the classes have averaged double the size of those of the foregoing ten-year period. In 1905 Rev. Carl Hanson was elected Nyvall's successor as in- structor in New Testament and other subjects. Upon the death of Prof. Fredrickson he also succeeded to the presidency of the school, remaining at the head of the institution until 1911. For one year Prof. C. J. Wilson was acting president, whereupon Prof. Nyvall was reflected to his former position. In the year 1916 new facilities were placed at the command of the school, in the form of a large modern building for use as gymnasium and assembly hall, and containing rooms for the conservatory of music. The building was completed at a cost of $30,000. In 1902-04 freshman and sophomore classes were maintained, but 218 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS these were subsequently discontinued, the college department still re- maining to be established when the time shall be found ripe for such an advance step. The Alumni Association has pledged $5,000 toward the gymnasium building fund, and an Honor Guard was organized in 1912 for the pur- pose of collecting a permanent building fund. On a plan to solicit pledges of $25 per year for five years about ninety members had been secured and $11,000 pledged up to the end of the last school year. The goal set is 500 members and a fund of $62,500. The graduates of all depart- ments now number more than 600. The faculty consists of nine regular professors and fourteen instruc- tors. The latest catalogue issued showed the following classification of attendance in 1915-16: theological seminary, 18; academy, 86; elemen- tary courses, 24 ; school of commerce, 38 ; school of music, 163 ; evening school, 58. Prof. David Nyvall, head of North Park College, is a graduate of Gefle College, Sweden, 1882; M.Ph.C. of Upsala University, 1886; was instructor in Chicago Theological Seminary one year ; president of \Yalden College, McPherson, Kan., 1905-07; professor of Scandinavian in University of Washington, Seattle, 1910-12. He is the author of a number of minor works in Swedish and English and the author of a book of verse. He is an effective platform orator and an educator of capacity and wide influence within his church. BROADVIEW SWEDISH SEMINARY. Educational work among the Swedish Seventh Day Adventists began with a mission school started at Chicago in 1885. In the year 1889 a Scandinavian department was estab- lished in connection with the Battle Creek College, and the following year this department was moved to Union College, at College View, Neb. Here Swedish educational work was prosecuted for a period of twenty years, from 1890 until 1910, and many of the laborers in the Swedish fields of the denomination received their training there. For years it was evident that a more thorough training should be given in Swedish. But not until the meeting of the fall council of the General Conference in College View, in October, 1909, was a definite step taken towards establishing a separate Swedish school. On April 25 following, a committee comprising among its members several of the Swedish brethren met in Chicago to study the question of locating a Swedish seminary. Several liberal offers were made in other states. There w r ere, however, considerations of greater importance than money or land. To carry out the purpose the location should be such as to offer the best advantages for a Swedish school. The committee finally decided to locate the school on a farm about thirteen miles west of the center of Chicago, about half a mile from the Broadview station on the Illinois Central Railway, near La Grange. An old building on the place was remodeled, and the first school year began September 28, 1910, in the new institution. The attendance - CULTURAL PROGRESS 219 during the year reached twenty-two. This number was more than trebled in the sixth year, 1915-16, when the catalogue showed a total enrollment of seventy. There are three buildings devoted to school purposes. The oldest, a brick structure, was enlarged in 1913, by an annex 32x40, making its dimensions 32x72. A two-story gray stucco building is known as North Hall and another two-story structure is known as West Hall. During 1911 a fourteen-room duplex house was built for the teachers. Connected with the school is a farm of seventy-eight acres, operated for the benefit of the institution. One of the rules of the school reads as follows : "Each student in the school is required to do two hours' work a day and under no circumstances, except in case of sickness, less than seven hours a week in addition to the charge of tuition, home ex- penses and board. All lost time must be made up or paid for at the rate of ten cents per hour, unless excused on account of sickness by the one in charge." The Broadview Swedish Seminary is owned and managed by the Seventh Day Adventists in general, not by the Swedish contingent exclu- sively. While it is a denominational institution serving primarily the interests of the Adventist Church, no religious test is made. Its doors are open to students of other denominations or no denomination, all students being expected to show due reverence for the Word of God and attend religious services at the school. G. E. Nord was placed at the head of the seminary as principal and business manager at the outset. A fair idea of the resources and educa- tional equipment with which the institution began work is gained from a review recently given by him, the substance of which is here given. Soon after his arrival in July, 1910, he received a box of freight from College View containing all the equipment of the Swedish department. This consisted of a teacher's lecturn and a few worn books and maps, having a total value of $23. But a sum of $25,000 had been pledged, out of which $3,000 was expended for new equipment, remodeling and furnishing, the balance going towards payments on the $20,000 property purchased. At the close of 1914 the school property was valued at $45,000, partly offset by a debt of $17,000. A subscription campaign began in 1915 resulting in the wiping out of the debt, and an increase in assets to about $50,000, the present net worth of the school property and equipment. The faculty includes five Swedish members Professors G. E. Nord, H. O. Olson, J. M. Erickson, Mrs. H. O. Olson, O. R. Swanson, besides Oscar Olson in the department of industries. SCANDIA ACADEMY was organized June 26, 1913, and incorporated under the laws of Illinois. The government of the school is in the hands of a board of directors who have entrusted the management of the academy to its rector, Dr. Olof A. Toffteen. According to the announcements of the institution, "Scandia Academy assures its students of a higher degree 220 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of learning in a shorter time and at less cost than does any other American school. It aims to substitute homelike surroundings for the conventional classroom. It transfers the high school instruction from the fifteenth to the ninth year." In this last instance, it follows the precedent of the schools of continental Europe. Assuming it to be the duty of the school to look after the educational needs not only of the children but the entire community, this academy has incorporated with its plan two schools for adult students, called the Continuation School and the Vocational School. It limits its classes to twelve pupils. It holds that home study should be given equal standing with residence study, requiring, however, all examina- tions to be passed at the school. Therefore a correspondence department has been added, known as the National Institute of Education. The school was started without any visible means, with no backing and without any prospective attendance. The rector began with $250 of borrowed money and an experience covering thirty years in educational work. He rented suitable quarters, and on Sept. 15, 1913, the school opened with twenty-five students enrolled. From that day till March 31 following, more than two hundred were enrolled. The average attendance was 65 during the first year and 84 in 1916. The number of teachers employed in the same period was increased from six to twelve. The school is located at 4753 Dover street, in the city of Chicago. THE FINE ARTS. MUSIC. Like the soil of their native land, the temperament of the Swedes is composed of extremes. In the serene calm of the Swedish character there is mingled a melancholy strain which is in strong contrast with its underlying exuberance of spirit and indomitable love of life and nature in all their manifestations. Lyricism is the spontaneous expres- sion of such a race. The Swedes possess great musical and poetical gifts ; they are endowed with a melodious language, and a land more rich in song than any other country in the world, with the possible exception of Wales and some tropical or semi-tropical lands, like Hawaii or southern Italy. The Swedes in America have remained a people in whom the lyrical temperament persisted side by side with their constructive skill. The lot of the early immigrants, whether cast in the primeval forests of Delaware, Maine or Oregon, or on the prairies of the Mississippi, the Red River and the Saskatchewan valleys, was ever one of hardship. To their daily toil and the upbuilding of families, homes and churches, they applied the heroic patience and inventive resourcefulness of the race, keeping for Sundays and holidays their irrepressible craving for lyrical outburst in song. Truly great was Gunnar Wennerberg, the Swedish poet and patriot, as a composer of patriotic songs in four-part harmony. Austria is CULTURAL PROGRESS 221 proud of possessing a national hymn to which Haydn wrote the music, but no other country can adorn the brow of its national genius with such a diadem of gems as that which Wennerberg wrought for Sweden by his songs of lofty patriotism, such as "Hear Us, Svea," Banner March, "O God, Who Rulest Fate of Nations," and others. The Swedes of America have faithfully cultivated the treasure of ;song left by Wennerberg. Every church choir sings his Psalms, every singing club his patriotic songs, and they unite in choral bodies in hundreds of voices to produce them with an ensemble of admirable discipline. Congregational choir singing is more developed among the Swedes in this country than at home, probably being an outgrowth of the greater democratic spirit in social and religious life. Among the Lutherans, the Augustana Synod has taken the lead, closely followed by the Mission Covenant, while earnest interest in Swedish choir music is shown also by the Methodist, Baptist and Episcopal churches. 1 The ardent Wennerberg culture culminated in the raising of a statue to the poet-composer, a masterpiece by Carl Eldh of Stockholm, which was unveiled in Minnehaha Park at Minneapolis on Midsummer Day, 1915. Credit for this must be given to the initiative of the execu- tive committee of the American Union of Swedish Singers. THE AMERICAN UNION OF SWEDISH SINGERS. This organization is purely musical in its object, which is to culti- vate Swedish song and music in general and Swedish male chorus singing in particular, and to make these elements of Swedish culture known and appreciated in this country through the medium of biennial music festivals. The union was formed on Thanksgiving Day, 1892, in a convention at the Swedish Glee Club of Chicago, to which nine singing clubs in the states of New York, Illinois and Minnesota had sent delegates. The real organizers, found among its first set of officers and first executive committee, were Magnus Olson, Gustaf Hallbom and Fred R. Franson of Chicago, Charles K. Johansen of New York, and Victor Nilsson of Minneapolis. Today the union numbers fifty- four clubs, with a total membership of 1,116 singers. Its branches are found in every center of Swedish- American life from the Atlantic to the Rockies. The eastern and western subdivisions have their own festivals about simultaneously every fourth year, alternating with the great quadrennial joint festivals. The first of these was given in Chicago in connection with the three official Swedish days at the World's Fair in 1893, and was highly successful. The soloists were Caroline Ostberg and Carl Fredrik Lundquist of the Royal Opera at Stockholm, and Conrad Behrens, the German-born Swedish basso of cosmopolitan fame, while the orchestra of the exposition, under the direction of the late Theodore Thomas, 1 Free use has been made here of Victor Nilsson's series of articles on "Northern Music in America," published in the American-Scandinavian Review. CULTURAL PROGRESS 223 played exquisite symphonic music by such Swedish composers as Berwald, Norman, Soderman and Hallen. This was the first inter- national victory for the music of Sweden, at which both the vocal and the instrumental branches were richly and worthily represented. New York was the scene of the second of these great festivals, held in 1897. After its conclusion, a chorus of fifty-four voices, under the baton of John Ortengren, made a concert tour of Sweden, which proved one unbroken series of friendly conquests. Again, in 1910, after another and even more successful festival in New York, at which the court singer, John Forsell of Stockholm, was the star soloist, an elite chorus of forty-five voices made a tour of Sweden, more extended than the first. For the second time the "old country" welcomed the Swedish- American singers with boundless hospitality and with unreserved enthu- siasm for the high standards attained by them. The venerable King Oscar II., with tears in his eyes, had toasted and sung with the chorus of 1897. In the same suite of state apartments in the Royal Palace of Stockholm, King Gustaf V. conferred the royal order of Vasa upon Olof Nelson and John Ortengren of Chicago, president and musical director, respectively, of the elite chorus of 1910. Five years later he decorated with the same order Charles K. Johansen, twice president of the American Union of Swedish Singers. The excellent results attained by the individual singing clubs of Brooklyn, New York and Chicago, as well as by the large choruses of the festivals, are chiefly due to two men, John Ortengren and Arvid Akerlind, who alternated as directors-in-chief of the union until 1910. Ortengren then returned to Stockholm, where he had been a member of the Royal Opera before his twenty-one years of residence in Chicago. Not long afterwards Akerlind's health broke down, and he died in the spring of 1914, in his beloved Upsala, where for many years he had been assistant director of the famous university choruses and the trusted co-worker of Ivar Hedenblad, the musical director of that institution. At the convention of the union held in connection with the music festival at Minneapolis in 1914, Joel Mossberg, the eminent baritone and choral director of Chicago, formerly a pupil of Ortengren, was elected to succeed Akerlind as director-in-chief. Mr. Mossberg will conduct in the seventh quadrennial, to be held at Worcester, Mass., in 1918, and also directed the Western Division festival in Omaha in June, 1916. A third concert tour to Sweden in 1920 was decided upon in the Minneapolis convention. Some of the individual artists who have helped to make Swedish song beloved in this country are mentioned above. The names of a few more should be added. A favorite of Swedish-Americans was the late Anna Oscar of the Royal Opera in Stockholm, who visited the United States four times and was well known for her work as soloist at the festivals in Minneapolis, Chicago, and in Seattle and JOHN R. ORTENGREN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 225 Tacoma. Other popular singers who have taken part in these festivals are Johannes Elmblad, Martin Oscar and Julia Claussen, all of the Royal Opera, and the court singer, Signe Rappe. Special gratitude is due Ortengren, Lundquist, Forsell and Baroness Rappe for having introduced a style of vocal solo with orchestra which is original with Swedish music. Among the Swedish-American artists, Gustaf Holm- quist and Joel Mossberg have devoted themselves to interpretations of Swedish ballads with orchestra, while with them must be mentioned two younger artists, Marie Sundelius of Boston and Albert Lindquest of Chicago, both of great promise. AUGUSTANA CONSERVATORY OF Music. The history of music at Augustana covers a period almost as long as that of the institution itself. It would seem strange indeed if a group of Scandinavians, founding an institution of learning in a new land, and seeking to embody in that institution the spirit of their fatherland, should forget to make provision in some wise for the cultivation of that love of melody so characteristic of their people. In June of 1873, President Hasselquist in his annual report to the Synod, included the following paragraph : "I also beg to call the atten- tion of the Synod to the necessity of providing for an old but increasing need of our institution, namely, that of instruction in music, vocal and instrumental. The love of music and the desire to develop its art have, ever since the days of Luther, constituted a marked characteristic of the Lutheran Church, and we must not allow it to be blotted out in the midst of our new circumstances here. No one of our instructors is possessed of sufficient musical training to be able to assume the duty of instructing in this subject, and besides, all the instructors are more than amply provided with work now. Even though it should prove impossible to do anything in this matter now, yet it should not be for- gotten, but rather kept actively in mind." No action is recorded, but the Board of Directors evidently found some solution of the difficulty, for the catalogue of the institution for the year 1873-74 includes in the list of faculty members the name of Mr. Albert Wihlborg as instructor in voice. In the spring of 1879 Dr. O. Olsson, on a trip to Europe, found opportunity to hear a rendition of Handel's "Messiah" in London. This impressed him very deeply, and on his return he emphasized strongly the necessity of greater musical activity at Augtfstana College. In an article published in Augustana, he speaks at length concerning this mat- ter, and there is no doubt that in this article is to be found expressed the germ idea of a conservatory at the college. Mr. Wihlborg's period of service extended over several years. In the fall of 1878, Mr. J. F. Ring became instructor in vocal music and served in this capacity and that of organist until 1882, when Gustav Stolpe, then of Denver, Colo., became Musical Director, and Augustana announced her first professor of music. DR. GUSTAV STOLPE. CULTURAL PROGRESS 227 The year 1886 was a very important one for musical Augustana. During the previous year the faculty had held a number of informal meetings for the purpose of discussing the possibility of establishing a school of music at the college. It seems that the Board of Directors, while entirely favorable to the movement, was unwilling to assume the responsibility for such an undertaking. The result was that on January 18, 1886, the Augustana Conservatory of Music was established as a private undertaking, governed by the following Board of Trustees: Professors Gustav Stolpe, principal of the department ; O. Olsson, president ; C. W. Foss, secretary and treasurer ; Josua Lindahl, C. L. E. Esbjorn and G. W. Sandt. Courses were offered in hannony, voice, organ, piano and violin. The Conservatory was controlled by the following comprehensive Board of Trustees : Professors O. Olsson, Gustav Stolpe, C. O. Granere, C. W. Foss, Josua Lindahl, G. W. Sandt, C. L. E. Esbjorn, Rev. Mauritz Stolpe, and Messrs. J. A. Enander, G. A. Bohman and Johannes Peterson. Miss Marion Reck was added to the faculty as assistant in piano, and seventeen students were enrolled. The following paragraph quoted from the catalogue of that year serves to show the function of the Conservatory as originally conceived of by the founders : "The object of the Conservatory was originally, and is still, in the first place, to furnish a means of educating organists for the churches of the Swedish Lutheran Augustana Synod, and, in the second place, to offer our young people an opportunity of securing a classical musical educa- tion. We also hope by this means to make the institution an important agency for improving the musical taste of the people in general, and especially those of our own nationality." At the Synod meeting of 1887, held in Chicago, the Augustana Conservatory of Music was incorporated as a department of Augustana College. The fall of 1887, then, marks the beginning of the Conservatory as an integral part of the institution, and thirty students were enrolled that year. From 1890 to 1893 the Conservatory made rapid progress in the way of raising and organizing its standards. During 1890 to 1892 Pro- fessor Stolpe was assisted by Professor Alfred Holmes of Chicago, an able musician. In 1892-93 the work in the Conservatory was organized into three distinct departments ; a graduate department leading to the degree of Bachelor of Music ; an organist department designed espe- cially to train students as organists ; and a choral and vocal department affording instruction and drill in solo, quartet and chorus singing. That year the faculty grew to include five members, namely, Professors Gus- tav Stolpe, W. Swensson and G. E. Griffith, Miss Alma Larson, and Mr. G. N. Benson. In the spring of 1893 Professor Gustav Stolpe, probably because of dissatisfaction with the policy of the institution relative to the Con- 228 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS servatory, severed his connection with it as director and professor of music, and the department thereby sustained a severe loss. Professor Stolpe was a man of powerful personality, splendid appearance, and marked ability. Time and again in documents relative to the work of the Conservatory he is referred to with marked respect for his true musicianship and excellent ability to perform. While his ability as a teacher may not have been far above the ordinary, yet the management dealt in no exaggerations when they advertised that the Conservatory was "under the directorship of a master musician,'' and the success- ful status of the Conservatory today is largely due to the pioneer work of Dr. Stolpe. After Dr. Stolpe had left, the department continued with no man definitely at its head until 1905. During these years a large number of persons served at various times on the faculty, among whom we notice especially Professor A. D. Bodfors and Professor F. E. Peter- son. The former served on the Augustana Conservatory faculty from 1895 to 1904 before resigning to organize his own school at Moline. The latter served as pro- fessor of piano and harmony from 1897 to 1906. Others were : Pro- fessor G. E. Griffith, who served on the faculty 1892-1895; Miss Alma Larson, 1892-98; Professor Henry Schillinger, 1893-1896; and Professor Franz Zedeler, 1897-1904. In 1895 Mrs. Edla Lund joined the faculty as professor of voice and served till the year 1912. During these years she laid down a work at Augustana hard to equal. She is possessed of splen- did teaching ability, and has few equals as a director of ensemble singing. In 1904 Prof. Emil Larson became a member of the faculty, and a year later the director of the department. Under his splendid leader- ship, which extended over the period from 1905 to 1908, the Conserva- tory received an added impetus. He was assisted by Professor Christian Oelschlagel, a violinist of a great deal more than ordinary ability, but perhaps better equipped as a performer than as a teacher ; Mrs. Noack, an exceptionally good pianist ; and Miss Lillie Cervin, who is still a member of the Conservatory faculty, having served for fourteen years. During this period the Conservatory enjoyed also the services of a truly great pianist, Professor Sigfrid Laurin. He was connected with the department from 1906 to 1908, and won the admiration of all for his marvelous technique and power of interpretation. MRS. EDLA LUND. CULTURAL PROGRESS 229 In 1908 Professor Larson was succeeded by Professor Peter John- son, of St. Paul, Minn., who resigned in 1912. Then the Board selected as director the active and energetic Professor J. Victor Bergquist, of Minneapolis, a man eminently fitted for the position. Professor Berg- quist took up his duties in the fall of 1912, and with him came Professor L. B. Canterbury to take charge of the department of voice. Professor Algert Anker, who had joined the faculty as head of the violin depart- ment, remained in that position. In the fall of 1915, the Conservatory faculty made a valuable acqui- sition in the person of Arvid Samuelson, as professor of piano, a highly skilled master of his instrument, who was formerly connected with the University of Nebraska. Now the Conservatory has become a department of high standing at Augustana a department more than able to take care of itself finan- cially as well as musically. It has at its head a man who is director not in name only but in the fullest sense of that term, and who is not only a great musician and composer, as well as a splendid teacher, but also a man of fine executive ability. He is loyally supported by a faculty who have been picked individually not only for their musicianship but for their ability to teach a most important qualification often lost sight of in the choosing of teachers. Connected with the Conservatory are two other branches, elocution and painting. The department of art became connected with the Con- servatory in 1897, and up to the present time it has been under the supervision of Professor Olof Grafstrom, one of the noted Swedish artists in the United States. Among the organizations affiliated with the Conservatory is the Augustana Silver Cornet Band, which has enjoyed a long, splendid and useful career, having been organized as far back as 1874. The Handel Oratorio Society, founded in 1881, was the first society of its kind in this part of the country. It came into existence through the influence of Dr. O. Olsson, and its object has ever been the study and rendering of oratorios and other sacred compositions. The society is likely always to remain a very vital part of the musical life of the institution. At least one and sometimes two or three concerts have been given each year. The Wennerberg Male Chorus, now in its fourteenth year, is de- cidedly deserving of recognition in the field of music at Augustana. During the last ten years the chorus has enjoyed the privilege of having as its director the head of the Conservatory, and to this as well as to its solid organization, which has always been maintained, is due, to a very large extent, the great success and wide popularity to which it has attained. The chorus makes annual singing tours among the churches of the Augustana Synod. But the service that it renders to the Con- servatory, and, indeed, to the whole institution by its very existence, by its close and persistent adherence to high and thorough standards in EMIL LARSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 231 its work, can well be appreciated by those who have observed the very opposite influence wrought by the average nonsense-producing glee club of many small colleges. The last five years have seen great changes in the courses of the Conservatory. It is become, in a sense, a college of music instead of a department of music. It teaches emphatically that knowledge of music is a necessity rather than a luxury, a duty rather than a gift. It seeks to make its influence felt over the entire student body of the institution, not merely over those whose names are found on the Conservatory enrollment cards; and here, after thirty years, we again find the advocacy of a required course of music for all, though appearing this time in an entirely different form. The Conservatory today would require the attainment of at least sonic musical knowledge, but they would do it by an appeal to interest, by persuasion and silent influences rather than by obligatory courses. GUSTAV STOLPE, COMPOSER AND VIRTUOSO. It is being more and more recognized as a fact that Dr. Gustav Stolpe was one of the truly great musicians of his period. Among musical creators he must still be conceded first place within his nationality in this country. Stolpe took the position of professor of music at Augustana College in 1882, and this connection soon resulted in the establishment of the Augustana Conservatory, of which he was the virtual founder. At a time when there were no musical organization in Rock Island or Molinc worthy of mention, Stolpe played the great masterpieces for organ, piano and violin on programs which were only too far in advance of the musical culture of these communities. On one occasion during his long tenure of the position of organist of the First Lutheran Church of Moline, the First Congregational Church offered him a similar position at double the salary, but Stolpe, sturdy and devout Lutheran that he was, declined. The incident proves there were people that knew who was the one musician of note in the community. Stolpe and his music stood for the highest musical idealism. Never before or since was there created such community enthusiasm for music as in his years of greatest effi- ciency, while he had the aid and support of that glowing musical enthu- siast, President O. Olsson, of Augustana College, himself a graduated organist from Sweden, to back his artistic achievements. Stolpe was the pioneer Swedish-American in the field of great music, and a friend of his, Prof. Adolf Hult, has styled him not inappropriately "our chief musical knight of tonal pomp and circumstance." His very person was full of interest to those who had the advantage of intimate acquaintance. Here was a truly refined man of the old school of polite life, a grand seigneur as to bearing and prerogatives. It causes a sad smile today to think of the lack of sympathy that often met this courtly but sometimes peevish gentleman of the stately old days. How cocksure some were that he was altogether too superior and sublime, when the fact was that we, with our western prairie-land experience, 232 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS had not caught up! He was a pure and plain musical idealist of the romantic school, with strong leanings toward the Bach type, especially in his church music. He came perhaps too early for our church and community history. But did Stolpe actually arrive too early? Was it not always thus, that the bold lovers of the ideal in life, in literature and in art must hew a path through the tanglewood for the footsteps of Beauty and Greatness? No one would deny the wealth of Dr. Stolpe's contribution toward upbuilding and advancement in our musical culture. He was the first adequate church musician in the Augustana Synod, a loan from Sweden which was never returned a gift outright. He lived and died in our land as one of us, even if his European car- riage, his transatlantic thoroughness, his Swedish gentlemanly spirit of the noblest type, his culture worked into his character, even if all this and more gave proof that he was not one of us. Stolpe was more than a musician. There surged within him strong cultural and spiritual, profoundly spiritual, movements. He was a churchman convincingly church-musical, not only rendering the ecclesiastical music out of pro- fessional urgings, but also from conviction and mature churchly character. 1 Gustav Erik Stolpe was born September 26, 1833, in Torsaker parish, in the Swedish province of Gestrikland, where his antecedents had been organists for a period of one hundred and forty years. At the age of five he began studies in piano and violin under the direction of his father, Johan Stolpe. When but ten years old he played the organ at the regular divine services in his home church on one occasion, and also made his first appearance in concert. At twelve he rendered, at his mother's burial, a funeral march of his own composition. He attended the Royal Conservatory of Music at Stockholm from his fifteenth year, graduating at twenty-two with the degree of Director Musices et Cantus. About this time he was accompanist and piano soloist to Jenny Lind on a concert tour in Sweden. In 1856 Stolpe became director of the orchestra of two of the theaters in Stockholm, those of Ladugardslandet and Humlegarden. He either composed or arranged the greater part of the orchestral repertory during his connection with the theater, and wrote no less than thirty- eight operettas, each of from fifteen to twenty-four pieces. Removing to the city of Varberg in 1863 to become organist of the city church, he taught at two institutions in that city for a number of years. Stolpe early acquired a mastery of three instruments, organ, piano and violin, and displayed his virtuosity on a number of concert tours. Twenty-four piano etudes by Stolpe were published in Stockholm about 1880. The following year he started on an American concert 1 Free excerpt from Prof. Hult's appreciation in the Stolpe Memorial Bulletin, December, 1916. CULTURAL PROGRESS 233 tour. It did not prove a financial success, and when a teacher's position at Augustana College was offered him, he at once accepted and remained with the institution until 1895. After conducting a private music school in Rock Island for five years, Stolpe was made head of the music department of Upsala College, at Kenilworth, N. J., where he remained until his death, October 3, 1901. Among Stolpe's pupils several attained to eminence. It is of interest in this connection that Conrad Nordqvist, kapellmeister to the king of Sweden, played second violin in Stolpe's theater orchestra. After the death of Mankell, the noted hymn composer, Stolpe headed the list of three candidates nominated to succeed him as professor at the Royal Academy of Music. A fourth applicant, however, secured the place, by dint of strong personal backing, it is claimed. Stolpe's compositions were recognized and rendered by such men as Ludvig Norman, the court kapellmeister, and Prof. Bolander of the Academy of Music; and August Soderman, the composer, was his personal friend. Only an imperfect idea of Stolpe as a composer can be gathered from the following enumeration of his works : 38 operettas, all given in Stockholm ; about 25 orchestral works, overtures, marches, fantasias, etc. ; 25 pieces for brass band ; a string quartette; several instrumental trios; 13 duets for violin and piano; a number of piano duets, and fantasias, symphonies and concertinos for organ, besides 50 organ preludes ; 24 etudes for piano ; 20 original polkas from Gestrikland, composed by Per Stolpe in 1756, Johan Stolpe in 1792, and by Gustav Stolpe in his youth, all harmonized by him ; about 25 piano solos ; 24 sacred choruses for mixed voices ; a cantata for chorus and organ ; a jubilee cantata for the celebration in 1893 of the anniversary of the Upsala Council ; 24 male chorus songs ; 100 songs for children's voices ; about 1 5 songs with piano accompaniment, and many others. Stolpe's opus No. 94 was published in 1895, and his individual compositions, contained in his various collections, would prob- ably number one thousand, all told. It was due to Stolpe's ability as a composer that the New York Conservatory of Music in 1891 conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Music. THE SVEA MALE CHORUS OF MOLINE. The Arion Quartette, organ- ized at Moline in 1885 by Charles M. Carlstedt, William Chester, Adolf Hult, Charles Brunstrom and Axel Westman, was virtually the beginning of the Svea Male Chorus. In cooperation with Dr. Gustav Stolpe, organist, and Vilhelm Ljung, parochial school teacher of the First Lu- theran Church, these same gentlemen about two years later enlarged their little brotherhood of singers into a male chorus of fourteen mem- bers. The organization took place on August 23, 1887, when Mr. Ljung was chosen director. So rapidly did the chorus develop in skill and numbers that it was able to make a very creditable appearance after four years, at the great Scandinavian song festival in Minneapolis in 1891. THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS In the musical activities of its home city the Sveas took an important part from the outset. When the American Union of Swedish Singers was formed, Svea was one of the choruses taking part in the organization, and the chorus has attended every quadrennial singers' convention and festival from that time on. There is no record of the number of appearances of the chorus in concert or at other public occasions, but with twenty-nine years back of it, the Svea Male Chorus lays claim to the gratitude of the community where it has so long and so well cultivated the art of song, while many less successful organizations have come and gone. Among its directors, fol- lowing Ljung, may be men- tioned Mrs. Edla Lund, Rev. Walter Pearson and the pres- ent director, Prof. J. Victor Bergquist. Under him the number of singers has grown to thirty-seven, making prob- ably the largest individual male chorus in the Singers' Union. In recent years the chorus has added supporting members to the number of about seventy-five, thus making it a strong social organization as well. The Svea forms the backbone of the Swedish National Chorus, to which three male choruses of Rock Island also belong. Three members, Charles and Victor Carlstedt and Gustaf Carlson, have been awarded medals of honor for active service in the chorus for a period of twenty-five years. Two Swedish male choruses have flourished in Rockford for more than twenty years, namely, Svea Soner and Lyran, the former having been in existence since 1889, the latter since 1894. The singing society known as SVEA SONER was organized Feb- ruary 22, 1889. The occasion was a peculiar one. Prof. C. H. E. Oberg, an able musician, had just lost his position as organist of the First Lutheran Church, and it occurred to a number of young men to avail themselves of his ability by engaging him as director of a male chorus, whereby he might also be induced to remain in Rockford. After serving the new chorus for one year, however, Oberg removed to Minneapolis. He was a musician of high rank, having been awarded the degree of Director Musices et Cantus from the Royal Conservatory of Stockholm. He composed several part songs for male voices and edited two collec- tions, "Xar och f jarran/' and "Skandia." He died at Minneapolis in 1894. SVEA MUSIC HALL, ROCKFORD. CULTURAL PROGRESS 235 Through correspondence with the Royal Academy of Music at Stockholm, Wilhelm Swenson was later secured as director. He served but one year, and soon after the chorus secured in Prof. John R. Orten- gren of Chicago its first permanent director. The chorus sang under his baton for the next sixteen years, making fine headway musically and otherwise during that period. When he resigned in 1910 to remove to Sweden the chorus elected as his successor one of its own number, Gustaf Olson, who is said to have maintained the high standard of choral work attained by the organization under Ortengren. In the early nineties Svea Soner undertook the erection of Svea Music Hall. During the ensuing financial crisis the building was lost to the members before it could be completed. A local capitalist finished the structure and rented it to the chorus for many years. It was finally offered to the club on easy terms and accepted at a figure of about $30,000, the estimated value being close to $50,000. The structure, located at Seventh street and Third avenue, contains a concert hall and commodious club rooms, besides business locations on the ground floor. The club has a total membership of more than three hundred, the great majority being social members, not singers. Among the leading pro- moters of the chorus and the club, Alfred G. Larson and Levin Faust deserve special mention. Gustaf Ekstrom, Charles Hoglund, Axel John- son, John Stoneberg, Lawrence Pearson and Hugo Olson also have given the club excellent service in a presidential capacity. Through the efforts of Svea Soner the people of Rockford have been given opportunity to hear the foremost singers of Sweden and several musical organizations from that country who have toured the United States, such as Conrad Behrens, Johannes Elmblad, the Liitteman Sextette, Madame Hellstrom- Oscar, the Lund University students' chorus, the Vendes Artillery Regi- ment Band, and others. THE LYRAN SINGING SOCIETY. On June i, 1894, the Lyran male chorus was organized with eleven members, Charles Samuelson being chosen president and Oscar Swanborg secretary. The other organizers were C. A. Engquist, E. Carlson, L. J. Swenson, R. Winquist, C. Erick- son and four Swanborg brothers. This organization has attained to a total membership of about 230, with an average of 25 singers. Although the chorus was formed from seceding members of Svea Soner, yet the friction between the two organizations long ago gave way to a friendly rivalry which has proven beneficial to both clubs. Their mutual rela- tions in recent years have been such as to set an example for other organizations of like character competing for public favor in the same locality. In witness of this spirit, the veteran members of both choruses some years ago sang as the Lyran-Svea Soner Chorus under Prof. Ortengren's direction. The Lyran secured its own home in 1911, when a $25,000 club- house was built a short distance from the Svea Music Hall. Its concert hall, reputed one of the finest of its size, seats i ,200 persons. CULTURAL PROGRESS 237 The chorus has had the services of the following musical directors, namely, Frithiof Swenson, L. J. Swenson, Frank Shelain, Charles Ohlson, Joel Mossberg of Chicago, and Gust Ohlson, its present director. Charles Johnson now serves as president of the Lyran Society, and G. A. Ennes as secretary. There are five honorary members, A. L. Johnson, R. Noreen, F. Ohlson, E. Ohberg and V. Flood, chosen as a tribute to their patriotism, all having served as volunteers in the Spanish- American War. There are a number of Swedish male choruses in Chicago, and other Illinois cities, with a history that might have been told here, but for the fact that in some instances it is quite eventless, in others, too short for record. Among the older singing clubs are the NORDEN and ORPHEUS of Chicago and the OLIVE of Moline. A male chorus named the APOLLO GLEE CLUB has existed in Rock Island for the past five years. Four years ago the SWEDISH NATIONAL CHORUS was organized by the union of five male choruses in Rock Island and Moline for the purpose of giving annual charity concerts for the benefit of the new local Swedish hos- pital, and to contribute to the programs of the midsummer festivals ar- ranged by the Swedish National Association of the two cities. The chorus numbered approximately one hundred singers from the Svea, Olive and Apollo, and of the Wennerberg and Lutherman choruses of Augustana College. Four successful benefit concerts have been given under the direction of Prof. J. Victor Bergquist. When in July, 1913, the Chicago Athletic Club and kindred organiza- tions, with Mayor Harrison as honorary president, arranged for a series of athletic events on a grand scale at Chicago, as a preliminary tryout for the international Olympic games, then expected to take place in 1916, a sort of international musical tournament was made part of the week's program. Mr. Charles S. Peterson was requested by the general com- mittee to assume charge of the arrangements for the evening set aside for the Swedish singers. He secured the willing cooperation of all but one of the local Swedish male choruses, and enlisted similar talent from other Illinois clubs, thus recruiting a grand chorus of no less than four hundred trained singers. They appeared in attractive uniform, marched in splendid order, and sang with more than the customary enthusiasm and brilliancy of the united choruses. In the competition with choruses of other nation- alities, some smaller but others larger, the Swedish boys carried off the honors, if the general comment at the time was to be trusted. They were directed by Hjalmar Nilson, of Minneapolis. It may be added that the entire expense for the "Swedish Night" at the games was defrayed by Mr. Peterson, to whom credit is due for making possible this new triumph of Swedish song. The SVITHIOD SINGING CLUB, a male chorus always of great promi- nence in Chicago musical circles, is the outgrowth of an organization of singers formed in 1882 among the early members of the Svithiod Society, the forerunner of the Independent Order of Svithiod. It was directed 238 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS successively by Bjornholzt, E. Becker, August Elfaker and others. On Feb. n, 1893, the chorus was organized under its present name and char- ter as a singing and social club. Theodore Sjoquist, then chosen director, shortly gave place to John Swenson, who continued to direct the Svithiod until 1906, when Prof. Ortengren assumed the baton. The new organiza- tion took an active part in the Swedish musical festival on Swedish Day at the World's Fair. A memorable day in the history of the Svithiod Singing Club was Jan. 1 1, 1896, when a song tournament took place at the Auditorium, the male choruses of seven nationalities competing for the trophy. With its twenty-four voices, the Svithiod Club competed with choruses twice or thrice its size, and came out victorious. W'ith Jahnke's "Sjomannen," sung with fine spirit and consummate finish, they captured the prize, a costly banner bearing the inscription, "The Champion Singers of Chicago." Besides, a gold medal was awarded to John L. Swenson, who directed the winning chorus.. The judges of the contest were three noted musicians of Chicago. To the elite chorus that made a tour of Sweden in 1897, the Svithiod Club contributed no less than sixteen singers, almost one-third the entire number. These appeared also as a separate chorus on the programs of the tour. The Svithiod Club, which consists of several hundred supporting members, besides the singers, owns its clubhouse, located on Wrightwood avenue, to which, in 1901, there was annexed a new concert hall, accom- modating several hundreds. The present director is Edgar Nelson, a man of accepted musicianship, under whose baton the male chorus stands to regain, if not to exceed, its former artistic heights. One of the strongest promoters of the club was Olof. F. Nelson, who held the presidency for many years. His present successor is John E. Ericsson, who takes equal pride in pushing the organization to the front and keeping it there. THE SWEDISH CHORAL CLUB is a strong musical organization of Chi- cago, in existence since 1915. That year it appeared publicly for the first time, giving a highly successful rendition of Haydn's ''Creation,'' under the direction of Edgar Nelson. The club consists of 180 selected singers, and Mr. Nelson remains in the capacity of director. Similar choruses of mixed voices have been formed in Chicago on one or two occasions to sing at particular festivals, none of them retaining their organization for any length of time. The present one is fortunate in having as its backers men who are willing to make financial sacrifices in the interest of the musical art, a circumstance which augurs well for its future. At Christ- mas, 1916, the Choral Club added another public rendering of the highest order by giving Handel's "Messiah." A plan is under way to take the Choral Club across the water for a tour of Sweden in the year 1918, provided the state of Europe at that time shall raise no bars to the success of the undertaking. The idea would be to give Sweden a taste of the musical art, as cultivated by American-born CULTURAL PROGRESS 239 Swedes, the members of the club being practically all of the second or third generation of Swedish- Americans. In pursuance of the same idea leading Swedish-born singers of the United States would be selected as soloists, these three having been tentatively suggested Marie Sundelius, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, of New York; Gustaf Holmquist and Albert Lindquest, both of Chicago. A simultaneous traveling exhibition of works by Swedish-American painters and sculptors is part of this project, which thus would exemplify the particular forms of art most highly cultivated by the Swedes of America up to the present time. CLUBHOUSE OF THE SWEDISH CLUB OF CHICAGO. THE SWEDISH CLUB. The records of Swedish singing organizations prior to 1870 are very meager. Of the Freja Society, the direct fore- runner of the Swedish Glee Club and the Swedish Club, a few scattered data have been picked together in recent publications. As culled from various sources, they furnish a fragmentary chapter of early musical history. Freja was organized in the fall of 1869 as a Scandinavian singing society, composed of both Swedish and Norwegian Chicagoans. The initiative was taken by John L. Swenson when he returned with a little company of Chicago singers from a tour of the Northwest. The under- lying idea was to unite all Scandinavian singers in the city into one strong organization. Its director for ten years was Mr. Swenson him- self, who may well be called the father of Swedish male choruses in Chicago. The membership is said to have averaged sixty singers, the majority being of Swedish birth. A few of the Freja members are still living, among whom are L. E. Anderson, C. T. Carlson, Charles E. Erickson, o *f Gustaf Hallbom, Charles A. Nelson, Charles E. Schlytern, Charles Wahl- gren, Adolph Walters and William Wilson. CULTURAL PROGRESS 241 Freja flourished and made a brilliant career for about a decade. It had many fine voices, including the beautiful tenor of Mr. Hohn, a Norwegian, and the remarkably sonorous bass of Mr. Carlson, who, however, preferred bricklaying to the cultivation of his gift of song. The society gave many excellent programs, attracting audiences numbering as high as one thousand persons. Among its presidents were C. Bryde, G. Nyquist, Henry L. Hertz and Charles Ferm. A sick and death benefit was an added feature of its organization, but the chief beneficiaries are said to have been "Bikupan" (The Bee Hive) and Skow, Peterson, Isberg & Co.'s bank, two Swedish financial ventures, in the failure of which Freja lost $500 and $200, respectively. The setback thus suffered by the society may have had something to do with its gradual decline about 1880. For reasons unknown, Swen- son, a man of fine musicianship, left the directorship that year, and the society practically died in conse- quence of his withdrawal. It dis- banded definitely in iSSi, dying not without honor and glory, after a bril- liant appearance at the sangerfest of the German societies, which was held that summer in the old exposition building on the lake front. The chorus on that occasion numbered about eighty voices and gave splendid renditions of "Hor oss, Svea," "Brudefarden" and several encores. The society had no successor in the form of a musical organization for several years. In 1882 a number of representative citizens organ- ized the Swedish Club (Svenska Klubben), a social organization some- what like the Swedish Club of today, its object being to conserve interest in the Swedish language, customs and traditions. It was a strictly social organization, gave many fine dinners, brilliant balls and excellent enter- tainments, but made no pretense beyond that, and made no permanent mark in the promotion of cultural interests pure and simple. In the spring of 1886 Mr. Gustaf Hallbom, one of the Freja men, inserted in the weekly Hemlandct an appeal to Swedish singers of Chi- cago to get together. A copy was sent to Mr. Swenson. He met with a number of singers and the outcome was the organization known as the Swedish Singing Society (Svenska Sangsallskapet) of Chicago. It met for rehearsals in one of the rooms of Brand's Hall, gave a number FRITZ SCHOULTZ. CHARLES S. PETERSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS of concerts, and eventually developed many singers who later became eminent. The writer of the appeal at that time picked up William Dahlen, who up to his recent demise, sustained the reputation of being a tenor with few, if any, equals among his contemporary countrymen in the United States. Besides Dahlen, Almberg, Lars Anderson, Gra- nath, Hultin, Swenson, Westerberg, Youngdahl and Hallbom were among the most active members. Of these Dahlen, Hultin, Swenson and Westerberg have passed away. Anderson, Granath and Hallbom have withdrawn, and Youngdahl has gone -to the "West Coast. This leaves Mr. S. Th. Almberg the sole survivor among the organizers of 1886, who still retains his membership in the present club. In 1889 several other old members of Freja were admitted, and the name was changed to "Svenska Sangsallskapet Freja." Magnus Olson, one of the men who now re- sumed singing, through his amiable personality became a prominent member and an influence for good among the younger singers. He re- mained a valuable club member until his death. The Freja Singing Society was consoli- dated with the Swedish Club the same year. This step was taken largely through the efforts of Robert Lindblom, whose strong person- ality and liberal views, coupled with a gen- erosity often expressed in cash donations, made for the advancement of the united organization. The new club, which was given the incongruous name "Svenska Gleeklubben," was destined to become the foremost Swedish singing society in America. At the sangerfest of the Scandinavian Singers of America in Minneapolis, at the W'orld's Fair in Chicago, and in Carnegie Hall, at the festival of the American Union of Swedish Singers, the Swedish Glee Club took honors equaled by none of the competing clubs. The leader chosen after the consolidation was John R. O'rtengren, recently arrived from the old country, a young, capable musician whose efforts soon put the club on a high plane of excellence. It took the lead at the great music festival of 1893, at the Columbian Exposition, when it sang repeatedly to audiences of more than ten thousand people. Probably the greatest triumph for Prof. Ortengren and his singers was scored at the Carnegie Hall festival when the Swedish Glee Club, after having sung its number on the pro- gram, was compelled to give five extra numbers in succession and then decline to respond further to the plaudits of the assemblage. This club was the prime mover in bringing Swedish artists of inter- national fame to this country in recent times. It was due to its efforts that such artists as Carolina Ostberg, Carl Fredrik Lundquist and Con- rad Behrens made their public appearance in Chicago and elsewhere. MAGXUS OLSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 245 In 1897 Prof. Ortengren toured Sweden with a picked chorus of Swedish- American singers, the nucleus of which was formed from the b?st talent found in the Swedish Glee Club. Again in 1910 an elite chorus toured Sweden under the direction of Ortengren, many of the Glee Club mem- bers taking part and sharing in the artistic triumph. The new organi- zation was incorporated May 13, 1891, by Lawrence Hesselroth, C. Frith- iof Larson, Gustaf Nyqvist, John Melin, Emil Granath and Andrew Erickson. April 13, 1896, was a memorable day in the annals of this organiza- tion. On that date it moved into its present home at 1258 North La Salle street. The building was purchased by members, forming a stock company incorporated under the name of the Swedish Club. Prof. Ortengren severed his connection with the singing contingent of the club and some time thereafter located in Stockholm. When he left, or some time prior, interest lagged, singers dropped out of "Svenska Gleeklubben" and sub- sequently formed the Swedish Glee Club, com- posed entirely of singers and adopting the name, of the parent club in anglicized form. For this reason the old organization in 1910 changed its name to "Svenska Klubben," its old name of thirty years back. The plans for the erection of an annex w r ere carried out in 1910, doubling the capacity of the clubhouse and giving the club a handsome hall adapted for a variety of purposes. The annex was built at a cost of $25,000. In its new banquet and concert hall the club was able to undertake functions not heretofore attempted. In 1911 it arranged its first Swedish- American art exhibition, followed by many others, public interest in the series being constantly on the increase. These exhibitions (further described elsewhere in this volume) are the leading events in Swedish- American art circles and have done much to make the public acquainted with the finest achievements of Swedish- American artists in the field of painting and sculpture. The club itself has earned grateful recognition for undertaking to promote the interest of art, and so far its assembly hall is the only Swedish-American home in Illinois of the fine arts. An exposition of a different character was held in this same hall in the fall of 1912, when the leading industrial art firms of Sweden had been persuaded to send to Chicago specimens of the best that Sweden has to show in art craft. Fifteen leading firms were represented with somewhat more than 10,000 articles, and during the exposition goods were sold for upwards $10,000. Many brilliant social affairs have been given here, and the club is first to tender the hospitality of Chicago to distinguished visitors from WILLIAM DAHLEN. 246 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Sweden. On behalf of the Swedish-American citizens it has entertained Swedish savants like Oscar Montelius and Svante Arrhenius, noted singers like John Forsell, Anna Hellstrom and Julia Claussen, Commis- sioner Richard Bergstrom, not to mention other notable guests. The following have served as presidents of the club since 1890, viz. : Lawrence Hesselroth, three years ; Magnus Olson, five years ; S. A. Swanson, one year ; Gustaf Lundquist, two years ; William Dahlen, one year; G. Bernhard Anderson, two or more years (the records for 1904- 06 being lost) ; Robert Lindblom, one year; O. C. Nylund, one year, and C. S. Peterson, the present incumbent, eight years. Mr. Fritz Schoultz is honorary president, and the list of honorary members comprises Hon. W. A. F. Ekengren, Minister for Sweden at Washington ; Hon. Edward F. Dunne, Governor of Illinois ; Hon. William Hale Thompson, Mayor of Chicago; Hon. Adolph O. Eberhart, ex-Governor of Minnesota; Herman Lagercrantz, ex-Minister for Sweden; John Forsell, Royal Court Singer of Stockholm. ROBERT LINDBLOM A MAN OF MARK. Robert Lindblom (1844- 1907) was easily the foremost man in the Swedish Club and the one Swedish-American of his generation who made his mark in the city of Chicago. Coming to this city in 1877, after having made and lost his fortune in speculations on the Milwaukee Board of Trade, he began operations on the local Board of Trade and in the early eighties he was reputed one of its largest speculators, often buying and selling 500,000 bushels of wheat in a single day. At the height of its success his firm maintained branch offices in New York and other large financial centers. He \vorked energetically for bringing the W 7 orld's Columbian Ex- position to Chicago, drew up the first public statement in the matter, and was one of a number of wealthy Chicagoans who subscribed half a million each to the World's Fair guarantee fund. He was one of the thirty-six directors, and was acting commissioner for Sweden prior to the arrival of Arthur Lefrler, the regular Swedish commissioner. In his capacity of director Lindblom was in a position to extend courtesies and render material services to the Swedish government, which were recognized by King Oscar II. and signalized by the awarding of the Royal Order of Vasa. As a member of the Board of Education (1893-96) Lindblom served as chairman of the finance committee, doing much to facilitate and sim- plify business and raising the effectiveness of the department. By Mayor Carter H. Harrison he was appointed a member of the Civil Service Commission and served as its chairman during his tenure of this office (1898-1902), bringing about reforms in sundry branches of the civil service. Lindblom was a staunch Democrat, with radical tendencies in social economy. Governor Altgeld conferred upon him the empty honor of an appointment on his staff (1893-97) w ith the nominal title of colonel. CULTURAL PROGRESS 247 In 1897 he sought the nomination to the mayoralty, but withdrew in favor of Harrison, who subsequently paid his obligation with the afore- said appointment. During Bryan's first presidential campaign, Lind- blom did yeoman service in his behalf, appearing as one of the most ardent champions for the "free silver" doctrine in national finance. We have the editorial word of his old friend, Alex J. Johnson, publisher of Svenska Kuriren, that "had Bryan won out, Lindblom's appoint- ment as Secretary of the Treasury would have been highly probable." In 1906 the Independent League of Chicago nominated Lindblom for the presidency of the Cook County Commis- sioners, the office, however, going to his Repub- lican competitor. From Milwaukee, where he started as a newspaper reporter, Lindblom carried the journalistic germ in his system. In the early nineties, for a brief period, he published the Chicago Daily Press, a Democratic paper tinged with socialistic views. The venture apparently proved unprofitable. A book, entitled "Un- rest," in which his views on social and civic questions are expressed in the form of a novel, is one of the products of Lindblom's pen. Being a member of the Union League Club and "Svenska Gleeklubben," Lindblom did not ROBFRT i IXDHLOM neglect the Swedish club for the cosmopolitan one. His love of his native land and his interest in the associations tending to keep its memory green on American soil were evidenced in many ways. To the Scandinavian singers he donated a splendid standard of embroidered silk, representing the North and intended by him as a prize for the best local aggregation of singers appearing at the convention festivals. It was captured at Minneapolis, in 1891, by the Brooklyn Glee Club. The donor having made himself unpopular with the Norwegian contingent, these brethren at the next annual convention refused to compete for the banner, which in consequence remained in the possession of the Brooklyn club. When the Swedish Club, several years before Lindblom's death, was hampered by financial embarrassments, Lindblom was the man who re- established it on a sound basis. He was its honorary president at the time of his demise. In the late nineties Lindblom was caught in the meshes of the Leiter wheat deals on the Board of Trade, from which he was unable to extri- cate himself. He failed and saved but the wreckage of a fortune which has been estimated one of the largest accumulated by any Swedish- American. We have been reliably informed through one who stood close to Mr. Lindblom that, according to his own estimate, his fortune had been 248 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS near the half million mark at two different times during his variable financial career. Robert Lindblom hailed from the Swedish province of Nerike, where he was born in the parish of Asker. Having prepared at the Hogs jo school in Sodermanland, he was in turn employed as a surveyor, in a wholesale establishment in Orebro, and in the Orebro Private Bank. He emigrated at twenty, locating in Milwaukee, where he became cashier of the grain and packing house of Higby & Co. before establishing himself independently in the grain commission business and entering the Board of Trade. Miss Hattie Lewis of Milwaukee became his wife in 1874. Their children are Leriore Lindblom and Mrs. Vesta Raven Pauli, wife of Lieut. Ake Pauli, of.. Ystad, Sweden. In commemoration; of the public services of Robert Lindblom, a Chicago high school building, designed by Arthur F. Hussander, a Swedish architect, and now in the course of erection in Englewood, at a cost of one million dollars, is to bear the name Robert Lindblom High School. SWEDISH-AMERICAN COMPOSERS OF NOTE. The highest rank to be attained by any Swedish- American com- posers now living undeniably has been reached by J. Victor Bergquist and Arne Oldberg each prominently connected with an Illinois con- servatory of music, Mr. Oldberg at the Conservatory of the North- western University, Mr. Bergquist at that of Augustana College. The latter institution has to its credit, in addition, another name noted in musical literature, namely, that of the late Gustav Stolpe, Dir. Mus. of Stockholm, and awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Music by an American conservatory. J. VICTOR BERGQUIST studied organ in Berlin with Franz Grunicke, composition with Wilhelm Berger, and piano with Xavier Scharwenka, afterward pursuing organ studies under the great master, Alexander Guilmant of Paris. Speaking of an organ recital given by Bergquist in Berlin in Feb- ruary, 1902, Der Klavier-Lehrer, published in that city, had this to say : "J. Victor Bergquist, a pupil of the noted master organist, Franz Gru- nicke, proved himself an organ virtuoso of the first rank. His playing was characterized by extraordinary clarity and seriousness, the phrasing being thoroughly true to style and the technique of manuals and pedals perfect throughout." Of Bergquist's organ sonata in B flat minor, dedicated to Hamlin Hunt and played by him in Minneapolis, Caryl B. Storrs, the Tribune critic, \vrote : "The incoherence of the first and second movements are emphasized by the splendid clarity and scholarly construction of the last, which is the best music that I ever have heard by Mr. Bergquist. Here is pure sonata form that need not fear to stand with that of the masters." Harlow Gale of the Nezvs said of the same work : "Two movements from the organ sonata dedicated to Mr. Hunt make us realize again CULTURAL PROGRESS 249 with pride and regret what a rarely fine musician we have recently lost to Augustana College." The oratorio "Golgotha" was the first choral work from Bergquist's pen. It is a serious work in large, adequate form, possessing some excellent themes handled in a musicianly manner. It embodies the impressions made upon the composer's mind by the presentation of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. As a whole the work is impressive, maintaining a high level of musical composition. The leading themes chosen are en- tirely original in conception and deeply expressive. The choruses are strong, with fine climaxes and splendid tone massing. "If 'Golgotha' is a fair evidence of what Mr. Bergquist can do in the way of oratorio composition," says Howard Boardman, "works which will be of the highest rank may be expected from his pen." Upon his resignation from the secretaryship of the Minnesota State Teachers' Association in 1912, Prof. Bergquist received the en- dorsement of the association in the highest terms, running in part as follows : "The Association took on, last June, what it is only right to call a new lease of life. It assumed a position in the practical affairs of musical advancement which it had not until then at- tempted to assume, and it is simple justice to say of Mr. Bergquist that as chairman of the committee on examinations he was the leader of the movement. . . . We shall have cause to remember that our work is. in a sense, a monument to Mr. Bergquist's tireless and unselfish labors." The Augustana Synod in 1916 commissioned Mr. Bergquist to com- pose, to text written by Ernst W. Olson, a Reformation Cantata for rendition at the Lutheran quadri-centennial celebrations in 1917. This opus, recently completed, is a large work dealing with the spiritual content of the Reformation through Luther. It approaches in volume and earnestness of treatment the oratorio "Golgotha," and has elicited high commendation from musical men of authority like Rossetter G. Cole, Glenn Dillard Gunn, Adolf Weidig and others who have studied the work- Mr. Gunn says : "When musicianship of the high order you PROF. J. VICTOR BERGQUIST. 250 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS have demonstrated in this work is able to express itself with this sim- plicity, I speak no flattery when I say that it marks an approach to genius." ARNE OLDBERG is a native of Ohio, having been born in Youngs- town in 1874, and is of pre-Revolutionary American descent on his mother's and Swedish descent on his father's side. His early training in piano playing was received in Chicago, from August Hyllested. Later he studied composition and orchestration with Adolph Koelling, Frederick Grant Gleason and Wilhelm Middleschulte. In 1893 Mr. Oldberg went to Vienna for a two years' stay with Leschetizky, who was then at the height of his powers. After three years' further study in Chicago, there was another trip to Europe for a season's study with Rheinberger in Munich. Since 1899 Mr. Oldberg has been connected with the Department of Music of North- western University, at Evanston, 111., where he is the director of the piano department and holds the chair of composition. During his connection with this school Mr. Oldberg has a long list of orchestral and piano works to his credit. In addition to being a writer he is a highly skilled performer on the piano. It is therefore natural that he has written much for that instrument. His style of writing does not betray an interest and thought confined within the narrow limits of the piano, rather it shows a broader musical mind that finds ready and adequate means of expression through this medium. His piano compositions range from little half-page pieces to the last word in piano composition a piano Sonata and a Concerto Op. 17. Many of the smaller pieces, while they are not technically exact- ing, are compositions of distinct worth and beauty. Among these are his very early works, Opus 7, a group of one and two-page lyrical pieces with individual titles ; Opus 8, a suite of five numbers, none of great difficulty, and another group of three pieces Op. 13. A tremendous stride in development and style is apparent in the next group of works for the piano ; a set of remarkable original variations Opus 25, of great difficulty and novel content ; a Legend Op. 26, a tone poem for piano ; three miniatures Op. 27, which display a mature fantasy in the smallest forms ; a Sonata Opus 28, played by Mme. Zeisler throughout the coun- try ; an Arabesque Op. 31, a brilliant, ebullient composition, an impro- visation Op. 32, a Russian Prelude Op. 33, and a Cansonetta Op. 30. This last named group of piano works demand the utmost resources of instrument and performer. Mr. Oldberg has made several additions to the literature of chamber music. There are a quartet for strings Op. 15; a quintet for piano and strings Op. 16 ; a quintet for wood wind and piano Op. 18, played twice by the Longy Club in Boston, and several times by players from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ; a Horn Concerto Op. 20 ; a quintet for piano and strings Op. 24, this last work being the only one published as yet. CULTURAL PROGRESS 251 Mr. Oldberg's orchestral compositions include (besides a piano con- certo Op. 17, an organ concerto Op. 35, and a horn concerto Op. 20) a set of variations on an original theme Op. 19; a dramatic overture, "Paolo and Francesca," Op. 21; a song cycle Op. 22; a symphony in F minor Op. 23, which was awarded the second prize by the National Federation of Musical Clubs in 1911 ; a festival overture Op. 29; a sym- phony Op. 34, in C minor, and a rhapsody Op. 36. These orchestral compositions have been performed repeatedly in Evanston and Chicago, under the direction of the composer and of Frederick Stock, by the Chi- cago Symphony Orchestra, and one, "Paolo and Francesca," also by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in its home city. NOTED ARTISTS, TEACHERS AND DIRECTORS. From the time JOHN R. ORTENGREN came to the United States in 1889 his voice secured him positions as soloist in some of the larger churches, and he was soon attached to the Chicago Musical College as teacher of voice, a position retained by him for some twenty years and only relin- quished upon his determination to locate in Stockholm. He was one of the foremost teachers and choral directors in Chicago and at many sanger- fests led the American Union of Swedish Singers as well as the local male choruses of Chicago to many of their great triumphs. The choruses directed by him, whether the Swedish Glee Club, the Svithiod Singing Club, or the Svea Soner of Rockford, were always at the forefront at the song festivals of the united choruses. His great service to his nationality in the United States consists in having raised to its highest pitch the interest of his countrymen in the songs of the Swedish fatherland. He studied with Fritz Arlberg in Stockholm and later was a pupil of Prof. Julius Gtinther at the Royal Academy of Music for two years, meanwhile earning a scholarship. In 1886 he went to Paris, studying for a year with Romaine Bussine. Upon his return to Sweden he was attached to the Royal Opera until his emigration in 1889. In 1897 and again in 1910 Ortengren directed choruses of picked singers from the Swedish-American male choruses on tours in Sweden, which, though rather ambitious in view of the high culture to which male chorus singing has attained there, met with remarkable success. In recog- nition of his eminent services in behalf of Swedish music in the United States, Prof. Ortengren in 1910 received the insignia of the Royal Order of Vasa from King Gustav of Sweden. SIGFRID LAURIN, a piano teacher and composer, who spent a number of years teaching at musical conservatories in Illinois and elsewhere, was a gifted musician and a performer of remarkable technical and interpret- ative skill. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Stockholm, graduat- ing as organist and cantor after three months by virtue of thorough prior musical preparation at the Cathedral School. He continued his studies at the conservatory, however, taking piano with Hilda Thegerstrom. a pupil of Liszt, and other capable teachers, and studying voice under Prof. Julius 252 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Giinther, and counterpoint with Josef Dente. At his final graduation he won the gold medal for "remarkable proficiency." Laurin maintained a studio in Chicago for a time and meanwhile headed the piano department at the North Park College conservatory. For several years subsequently he was professor of piano at the Augustana Conservatory. As a composer Laurin is known to the public only as far as he has rendered his own com- positions, mostly from the manuscript. He was a profound student of Chopin, whose works he placed above all others and gave them masterful and devoted rendition. Prof. Laurin gave many piano recitals at which his exceptional playing earned him the admiration of his hearers and the unstinted praise of able critics. He taught at Lindsborg, Kansas, for seven years, at North Park one year, and at Augustana Conservatory for a term of years just prior to his return to Sweden about 1910. The works of Prof. Laurin, most of them in manuscript, comprise eighteen songs, romances and ballads for voice, and many compositions for piano, several of the latter being quite large. The vocal pieces are : Songs "Bon," "Mitt hjartas vittnesbord," "Julens stjarna" ; romances "Vid grafven," "Solen sjunker," "Hemlos," "I Gethsemane," "Sorgen." "Den doende krigaren," "I hdstlig tid" ; ballads "Vid hafvet," "Farval," "It Is Done," "At Eventide," etc. ; romantic ballad "Brustna strangar." Among his piano compositions are, a rhapsody, a berceuse, concert etudes, and a symphonic fantasia of great length, requiring an entire evening for its execution. Mrs. EDLA LUND is one of the most efficient of Swedish-American teachers of music and a singer of high rank. Coming to America in 1887, she was connected with conservatories at Swedish-American schools for more than twenty years, subsequently going to American institutions. A native of Stockholm, she obtained her musical education with skilled teachers in the Swedish capital. She was one of five selected from thirty applicants to gain admission to the Royal Academy of Music in 1884. After having taught at the Bethany Conservatory of Kansas for four years, she returned to Stockholm and took up advanced voice training under Dina Edling. A gentleman connected with the University of South Dakota, who heard her sing at a concert in Stockholm, was struck with the beauty and clarity of her fine northern type of soprano voice, and was instrumental in securing her as teacher in the music department of the institution at Vermillion. There she did not long continue, but accepted a call to the Augustana Conservatory at Rock Island. Her best services were rendered at this institution, Avhere she remained for no less than seventeen years. To no one person, with the single exception of Dr. Stolpe, does the Augus- tana Conservatory of Music owe so great a debt of gratitude for its devel- opment in the past as to Mrs. Lund. Besides being an energetic teacher, she is a pleasing and artistic performer, who contributed of her talent without stint at numerous musical and other public occasions. Further- more, she possessed marked ability, rare in a woman, in drilling and direct- CULTURAL PROGRESS 253 ing choral organizations, from the small chapel choir to so large a body of singers as the Oratorio Society. Mrs. Lund has been heard in concert on numerous tours in the central West, the East and in the Pacific Coast states, and as special soloist at several large public celebrations. At the present time she is connected with an Oklahoma institution. GUSTAF HOLMQUIST has achieved the highest popularity and the greatest artistic success of any Swedish-born American singer so far. He is an artist of the highest type, possessing a voice which, while he claims it to be a basso cantante, in its unusual range easily reaches the highest notes of the pure baritone. It is finely resonant, expressive and well placed, and he uses it with excellent regard for the fundamental elements of correct singing. It combines power with tenderness and flexibility to a high degree. Mr. Holmquist sings with ease and that consummate artistry of expression which fully account for the fame attained by him on the concert stage. A chief point in his favor is his convincing sincerity and a rare chastity of style in everything he offers. Such qualities as these have gained for him an enviable position among American male soloists. His successes with the leading choral societies of the country, as the bass soloist in Handel's "Messiah," "The Creation" of Haydn, Men- delssohn's "Elijah" and "St. Paul," Gounod's "Redemption" and kindred works prove him an oratorio singer par excellence. His song recitals have been the subject of most enthusiastic approval, his interpretation of the standard German, French and English songs winning for him the highest commendation, and his authoritative rendition of the Swedish folk and art songs lending peculiar interest and novelty to his programs. Mr. Holmquist was born and reared in the little Swedish town of Nora, but came to Minneapolis as a boy of fourteen. Not until twenty- one did he begin to cultivate his naturally musical voice ; His American teachers in turn were A. W. Porter, of Minneapolis ; Burritt and Hubbard, of Chicago. After having already appeared with such success as might satisfy most artists, Mr. Holmquist not many years ago went to Paris for further training and finish under the direction of Jean de Reszke. During the season of 1901 Mr. Holmquist made his first appearance before the larger public as one of the soloists selected for the great Chau- tauqua concerts. The same year he sang in Jamestown also as soloist of the American Union of Swedish Singers. From that time on that organi- zation has called for his services on their festival programs time and again. The Evanston Musical Club chose him as soloist for their appearance at the St. Louis Exposition, where he aided the club in winning a competitive prize of $3,500. There is scarcely a choral society of rank in the United States with which he has not appeared in the principal choral works. In the Messiah Festival at Lindsborg, Kansas, where many of the great singers of Europe and America have appeared during the more than thirty annual renditions, no singer gave greater satisfaction than he. "Never have we heard the 'Messiah' solos, for bass, sung as they have been sung this week by Mr. Holmquist," was the verdict in 1913. In Sweden also, GUSTAF HOLMQUIST. CULTURAL PROGRESS 255 during a tour of fifty Swedish- American singers in 1910, Holmquist's magnificent voice was gladly heard and generously commended wherever he appeared. Since the opening of the fall semester of 1916, Mr. Holmquist is connected, as teacher of voice, with Chicago Musical College. EDGAR NELSON is one of the younger musicians of Swedish extraction who have forged to the front in musical Chicago in the past few years, his ability, both as a teacher and choral director, being now widely recognized. Having begun his piano studies with Emil Larson, he continued with Harald von Mickwitz, and later took instruction in organ from Clarence Dickinson. In the Bush Conservatory he earned the degree of Bachelor of Music, and subsequently took the position of assistant director of that institution. He has been appointed to the following positions : Organist of the First Presbyterian Church of Oak Park, of the Sunday Evening Club and the Apollo Club ; pianist of the Chicago Operatic Club, and direc- tor of Svithiod Singing Club and the Swedish Choral Club. The Chi- cago Artists' Association has named Mr. Nelson president. ALBERT LINDQUEST was studying law at the University of Chicago in the year 1911-12, when Bond, on a casual visit, accidentally heard him sound a few high notes in one of the corridors. He invited the young man of twenty to his hotel to put him to the test, with the result that Lindquest suddenly abandoned his law-books for the music sheet. He became a pupil of Albert Barrow, of this city, his only teachers prior to that being the Victrola records that he had sought to imitate. In 1912 he had his first tryout on a concert tour. The following year he was heard here during a week's engagement in connection with the "World in Chicago" mission demonstration at the Auditorium. The quality of his exceptional tenor voice was generally recognized, and engagements now followed in rapid succession. At his first appearance before an audience of Swedish- Americans at a musical festival in Orchestra Hall, May 30, 1914, this new singer divided honors with Countess Signe Rappe, a noted court singer of Stockholm. Mr. Lindquest went to Europe in 1914 to study with Italian teachers, but the war compelled his early return. He has appeared as soloist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and filled other notable engagements in the last two years. With but four years of musical train- ing back of him, Mr. Lindquest already ranks \vith the best American tenors. As an artist he is in a class with the two other great Swedish- American singers, Marie Sundelius, the Boston soprano, and Gustaf Holmquist, the Chicago basso. Mr. Lindquest is a Chicagoan by birth. His wife, who was Miss Lenora Allen, of Decatur, 111., is an excellent concert singer. JOEL MOSSBERG is a prominent Swedish baritone and musical director, who came to Chicago in 1892 with some musical education and here took up studies under Hinshaw and Ortengren. His excellent voice soon won for him a scholarship at Chicago Musical College, and continued study and training has earned him recognition and a place among the popular bari- 256 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS tones of the country. The music houses handle a number of records of Swedish songs sung by him. Mossberg has directed a number of male choruses of Chicago and vicinity in the past, and recently succeeded his former teacher in directing the American Union of Swedish Singers. Rock Island and Chicago divide the honors for having produced in NICOLINE ZEDELER one of the foremost instrumental artists on the Amer- ican concert stage today. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and brought to this country at the age of five, by her parents, her father coming to take a position as teacher of violin at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kan- sas. There she began to study violin at five and made her first public ap- pearance at six. Later Prof. Zedeler took a like position in the Augustana Conservatory at Rock Island, where she continued her violin studies under her father, until Mrs. L. S. McCabe, of that city, having discovered unusual talent in the girl, sent her to Chicago for further development. While in Rock Island she often played in public at Augustana College, and also di- rected a children's orchestra, all of which brought out exceptional ripe- ness of musical scholarship in one so young. At Chicago Musical College she soon won a free scholarship, and sub- sequently was twice awarded the dia- mond medal for proficiency and scholarship in music. During these years she and her brother, Nicolai Zedeler, organized the Zedeler trio, which on its tours drew the attention of the public and the musical critics alike. At this time Mrs. Shaw-Kennedy, mindful of Nicoline Zedeler's talents, offered to defray her expenses for a course of study abroad. This gave her an opportunity to study with Theodor Spiering in Berlin. \Yhile in Europe she made successful concert tours in Germany and Denmark. After her appearance at Heidelberg she was most enthu- siastically received and given an old-fashioned ovation in having her carriage drawn through the streets by the students amid singing and exuberant demonstrations. The greatest triumph of the young artist came in the season of 1910-11, when she was engaged as violin soloist by John Philip Sousa for the world tour of Sousa's famous band. At Sydney, Australia, a NICOLINE ZEDELER. CULTURAL PROGRESS 257 generous music lover presented her with a genuine Lupot violin in token of his high appreciation. Since that time Miss Zedeler has been engaged in giving independ- ent recitals, when not appearing with the Sousa, Pryor, or other orches- tral aggregations on their tours. There are few American cities of consequence in which Nicoline Zedeler has not already appeared and made her artistic reputation secure. One of the Swedish-American musical artists of Chicago who has toured Europe with success is EBBA HJERTSTEDT, a native of the western metropolis, where her parents have been Lake View residents for many years. Her musical education was founded at the Chicago Musical College, where she studied violin for Prof. Bernhard Listeman, proving one of his honor pupils and capturing two gold medals. She continued her studies with eminent masters abroad, and appeared prior to 1909 in symphony concerts in Berlin, Dresden, London, Stockholm and other cities in Europe. In 1913-14 she toured Europe as violin soloist with a concert company. After her appearance in a great Mozart-Beethoven concert in Dresden, November 6, she received a most laudatory endorse- ment from Hermann Starcke, one of Germany's noted music critics, in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung. He wrote in part: "From among the host of concert virtuosos that encumber the earth there emerged a new and pleasing apparition, Ebba Hjertstedt, a young American, who ap- peared greatly to her advantage in our concert hall. With the rare elegance and charm of her performance she combines a brilliant tech- nique and complete mastery of the scale, the fioritura, and, above all, the artistic style and conception. To me she seems to be an artist to be named among the celebrities, deserving as she does our highest commendation." Miss Hjertstedt has resided for the past two or three years in Stockholm. In January, 1916, she was honored with an engage- ment to appear in a symphony concert in the Royal Opera House. The Swedish critics then spoke with some reserve about the Swedish- American violinist, crediting her, however, with intelligence and talent, which is said to be quite a concession to foreign artists on the part of the average Stockholm critic. Especially as regards musicians of Swedish descent coming from the United States, they are in the habit of speaking in condescending tones, a friendly word from that source being con- strued by the artists themselves as the highest praise. MRS. MINNIE CEDARGREEN-JERNBERG, the violinist, during her studies at the American Conservatory of Chicago, took highest honors in violin and was awarded the Paganini medal by that institution. She is a native of Des Moines, Iowa, where her musical education was begun at High- land Park College, being continued later at Iowa State College. Her early teachers were Mrs. Edmann and Mary Belle Smith, of Boone, Iowa, and Dr. Arthur Heft, of Des Moines. In Chicago she studied with Herbert Butler, and subsequently went abroad, studying with Isay Barmas. of Berlin. She has been heard in many of the leading churches 258 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of Chicago and, besides, in two recitals in the Fine Arts building. She has filled engagements repeatedly at Orchestra Hall and appeared with the Musicians' Club and the Lake View Musical Society. In addition to successful tours of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and the South- west, she has many individual appearances in Illinois, Michigan and New York to her credit. MRS. ELSIE OBERG-BENNINGHOVEN is one of the brilliant pupils of Bernhard Listeman and Herbert Butler. Since her thirteenth year she has appeared as a public performer, showing unusual mastery of the violin. Born in Chicago, October 22, 1888, she took up the study of violin at the early age of seven. At fifteen she graduated from the Chi- cago Musical College, subsequently completing a four years' course of post-graduate study with Herbert Butler in the American Conservatory. Much sought for as an instrumental soloist at concerts and musicales, she has played in practically all the Swedish churches and before many Swedish clubs and societies in Chicago. She is an active member of the Lake View Musical Club. MRS. MARIE SIDENIUS-ZENDT, a soprano of fine quality, is a mem- ber of the faculty of the American Conservatory. As soloist she has appeared with the Apollo Club of Chicago, and has filled many engage- ments in other cities. HARRY WILHELM NORDIN combines teaching ability with proficiency as a singer. During the past two years he has been connected with Bush Conservatory as instructor of the public school music classes. As a baritone singer he has won favor with Chicago audiences, having re- cently appeared in "Elijah," "The Holy City," "Stabat Mater," and many other classical works. Born at Pullman in 1883, he went to New York state at thirteen. After having graduated from the Ithaca Con- servatory in 1904, he studied t\vo years in Berlin, then returned to take a teaching position in the same conservatory. Three years later Nordin was engaged as director of the Brenau College Conservatory in Eufaula, Ala., teaching there for three years, and next in the Woman's College of Alabama, at Montgomery, for a like period. He now holds engage- ments for teaching next summer in the extension courses of the univer- sities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. A call extended to him recently to join the faculty of the Augustana Conservatory at Rock Island was declined. Nordin is with the Weber Opera Concert Company, presenting excerpts from opera under its auspices. He has charge of the music in the high school of La Grange and directs the Suburban Musical Association of that city. AUGUST HYLLESTED, a successful teacher of piano in the Chicago Musical College from 1886 to 1891, was born in Stockholm, but was of mixed Norwegian-Danish parentage. Coming from Sweden and locating in Chicago as vocal teacher and coach to advanced pupils in voice, Mme. RAGNA LINNE has met with the same success here as she previously enjoyed as a vocal artist, abroad. She CULTURAL PROGRESS 259 won many triumphs as a member of the Metropolitan English Grand Opera Company and of the Castle Square Opera Company. OLIVE FREMSTAD, the noted opera and concert singer, who has often been heard in Chicago, in the Wagnerian characters Brunhilde, Kundry, Isolde and in other leading roles, was born in Stockholm of a Swedish mother and a Norwegian father. She studied in Germany and there met with her first operatic successes. Nevertheless, as she has passed the greater part of her life in the United States, she has chosen most often to give expression in song to the Americanism that is in her. A genuinely Swedish vocal artist of the first order is JULIA CLAUSSEN, who for the past seasons has been connected with the Chicago opera. A voice like hers, a rich, colorful contralto, could not help being noted and admired in any aggregation of singers of the highest standard. The high regard won by her from Chicago audiences is richly merited. PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. A sprig of Swedish art began to flourish in this country at an early date, as witness the fact that the Swedish colonial painter Hesselius has been, styled "the father of American art." Of late years we find Swedish names in the catalogue of every exhibition, and these names are usually found as signatures to paintings of rank. In many instances, however, the Swedish painters and sculptors are unknown to their own fellow countrymen here and in the fatherland. Until recently they have met with little or no encouragement from these, and their works have found purchasers almost exclusively among art lovers in general. In the past good art works have usually been looked upon as expensive luxuries beyond the reach of people of moderate means. As a result there was developed a taste for inferior, cheap and trashy so-called art products, which proves hard to overcome, even after the lack of means is no longer an obstacle to the adornment of Swedish-American homes with genuine works of art. By slow degrees it has been discovered that acquaintance with pic- torial and plastic art is no less worth making than the attainment of ability to enjoy the art of music or literature. In single instances this acquaintance has ripened into friendship and devotion. But as yet there is no such common love for these arts as that which prompts Swedish- Americans by the thousands to attend concerts and musical festivals. They have built churches for religious worship, schools for intellectual education, conservatories and concert halls for the cultivation of the esthetic sense through the medium of music, but the founding by them of an art gallery, exhibition hall or museum proper is yet to be recorded. The nearest approach is the art department at their educational institu- tions, established, the first at Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kan., the second at Augustana College, Rock Island. To put fine art in possession of the people, as it was in the classic CULTURAL PROGRESS 261 days of Greece, when the finest specimens of domestic utensils now in our museums may have graced the board of the average citizen that is the purpose of the modern movement in Europe and America towards adorning the schools with art works, establishing art departments in connection with colleges, introducing drawing and designing in the graded schools, and the engagement of artists and expert designers by the manufacturers of porcelain, queensware, pottery, furniture, carpets and textiles. The artist and the artisan are being made to work hand in hand. Esthetic education is becoming recognized as equally essential with purely intellectual development. We shall find this to be the trend of Swedish-American cultural progress more particularly in the last decade or two. Nevertheless, while there are excellent choirs, choruses and musical associations everywhere, and great festivals of music and song are of frequent occurrence in Swedish communities, while there are now art departments in connection with most of the higher schools and art exhi- bitions are being arranged from time to time, yet no general art association has so far been formed to stimulate interest in art by arranging exhibitions of Swedish and Swedish-American art. This shortcoming was deplored many years ago by Birger Sandzen, of the Bethany Art School in Linds- borg, Kan., who, together with Carl Lotave and G. N. Malm, accomplished what such an association ought to have done long ago, by arranging an exhibit at Lindsborg (1899) and later by giving annual art exhibits at his school, and more lately showing similar exhibits in other localities. In Minneapolis the interest in Scandinavian art some time ago took concrete form in an organization named the Scandinavian Art Society. That it exists and works not for itself alone but also for the interest of the entire community was evidenced by its recent act of purchasing for the Minne- apolis Art Institute two paintings, by Gustav Fjaestad and Mas-Olle, from the recent Swedish art exhibit shown in many American cities, these being the first of a proposed Scandinavian art collection for the Minneapolis gallery. In Chicago the absence of a local Swedish art society has been com- pensated for to a degree in recent years by the activity of individual artists and art lovers. Here a society of artists was formed in 1905. It did not long survive, but gave one fairly representative exhibition before its dis- integration. SWEDISH-AMERICAN ART EXHIBITIONS. The ephemeral Swedish-American Art Association was organized Feb. 5, 1905, by a number of Chicago artists assembled on the initiative of Carl J. Nilsson, who was chosen president, Arvid Nyholm being made secretary and Hugo von Hofsten treasurer. An exhibition comprising eighty numbers was opened the following October at the Anderson Art Galleries and continued for three weeks, the following Swedish-American artists participating, viz., Gerda Ahlm, Aug. Franzen, E. Gelhaar, C. E. NYHOLM "HOME FROM THE MARKET.' CULTURAL PROGRESS 263 Hallberg, Hugo von Hofsten, S. Holmberg, Alfred Jansson, Arvid Ny- holm, Carl J. Nilsson, John A. Nyden, Axel Elias Olsson, Henry Reuter- dahl, Birger Sandzen, A. G. Wahlgren. In addition, Anders Zorn, Carl Larsson, Bruno Liljefors and Anshelm Schultzberg had sent canvases from Sweden, and Charles Friberg three sculptures. While attracting no little public attention and drawing a fair attendance, the exhibitors did not receive the encouragement counted upon, a fact responsible for the subse- quent discontinuation of their joint activities. No similar project was launched for the next five years. In 1910 the initiative for a general exhibition on a larger scale by Swedish artists throughout the United States was taken by Mr. Charles S. Peterson, president of the Swedish Club of Chicago. Largely due to the enterprise of the originator and promoter of the plan, backed by his associates of the club, the undertaking proved a success from the artists' point of view, even though it entailed no little sacrifice on the part of the chief promoter and Messrs. Charles E. Hallberg and Arvid Nyholm, the two artists asso- ciated with him in the executive work. The exhibition opened March n, 1911, in the main hall of the newly erected annex to the Swedish clubhouse on La Salle avenue. Prior to the opening, one hundred and forty-two paintings and other art works were passed upon by a jury of four artists, Mr. Wellington J. Dressier and Mrs. Bertha Menzler Dress- ier of the Chicago Art Institute acting with two Swedish-American artists, Arvid Nyholm and Alfred Jansson. Eighty-three paintings by twenty-three artists, and fifteen sculptures by three artiste, were accepted a total of ninety-eight works by twenty-six artists. Those whose works were admitted were : Painters M. J. Ahlstromer, Gerda Ahlm, Oscar Anderson, Eddy Carlson, John Carlson, Aug. Franzen, Olof Grafstrom, Emil Gelhaar, Thomas Hall, Charles E. Hallberg, Ben Hallberg, Henrik Hillbom, Alfred Jansson, Ava Lagercrantz, Carl Lindin, B. G. O. Norden- feldt, Arvid Nyholm, Henry Reuterdahl, Carl Ringius, Birger Sandzen, E. F. Sodervall, Thure de Thulstrup, John Westerberg; sculptors Charles Haag, Carl J. Nilsson, Axel E. Olsson. Of the art works on view thirteen were sold, netting their exhibitors a total of upwards $2,000, and the following prizes were awarded accord- ing to the decision of a special prize jury composed of three artists of the Chicago Art Institute : For paintings first prize, $100, offered by C. S. Peterson, went to John Carlson, New York City, for his canvas, "Solitude" ; second prize, $50, by Andrew Lanquist, to Arvid Nyholm for portrait of himself ; third prize, $25, by John E. Ericson, to Prof. Birger Sandzen, Lindsborg, Kan., for his "Early Moonrise." For sculpture first prize, $50, by Dr. William Scljultze and Dr. O. Lange, to Charles Haag, Winnetka, 111., for his statuette entitled "Effort"; second prize, $25, by Judge Axel Chy- traus, to Carl J. Nilsson for his portrait bust of Dr. J. A. Enander. Hon- orable mentions were accorded Charles E. Hallberg for "The Approach- ing Flood" and Carl Lindin for "Evening Light." NYHOI1M "THE NOVELETTE." CULTURAL PROGRESS 265 In 1912, one year later, an equally successful exhibition was given in the same hall and under the same management. The prizes for oil paintings were awarded to Arvid Nyholm, Birger Sandzen and Alfred Jansson in the order named. Henry Reuterdahl was awarded a prize for water color work and Eddy Carlson one for miniature painting. The prize for sculpture went to Miss Agnes Fromen. No less than thirty art works were sold, including Prof. Sandzen's largest canvas, which was purchased by Mayor Harrison of Chicago. Again in 1913 the Swedish Club, headed by Mr. Peterson, its ener- getic and enterprising president, arranged an art exhibition along similar lines. Owing to a noticeable falling off in the attendance, the next exhi- bition was postponed for two years. The result was increased attendance and a greater measure of suc- cess for the next succeeding art showing, that of 1915. At length it ap- peared that the ice had bsen completely broken between the Swedish- American public and the artists of their own nationality. The position of these artists as representatives of aesthetic culture now seemed fully established. Again Messrs. C. S. Peterson, Arvid Nyholm and Charles E. Hallberg, by appointment of the Swedish Club, cooperated, the last named in the capacity of commissioner, and earned personal credit for the signal triumph now scored. A total of 154 art works were submitted for selection. The jury, composed of W. J. Reynolds, Arvid Nyholm and L. Hartrath, after reject- ing about one-third, admitted 105 numbers, 88 being paintings and the remainder pieces of sculpture. PROMINENT PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS. ARVID NYHOLM is a pupil of Anders Zorn, whom he approaches in his admirable skill in producing likeness in portraiture, without conveying the photographic impression. After studying for more than two years at the Academy of Liberal Arts, he placed himself under the masterly instruc- tion of Zorn. In the fall of 1891 Nyholm came to New York, where he maintained a studio for twelve years, devoting himself to both portrait and landscape painting. His work was frequently seen at exhibitions of the New York Water Color Society and the National Academy of Design. He has made Chicago his home since 1903. He is a prominent mem- ber of the Palette and Chisel Club, and has participated in the exhibitions of the Art Institute, and in all the Swedish-American art exhibits since 1911. While still in Sweden, Nyholm made a name as a skill ful water color artist, and today he is a recognized master in that line, while his landscapes and portraits in oil show a technique of the highest order. Much of the success attending the displays of Swedish-American art work in Chicago in recent years is due to the leadership and energetic interest taken by Nyholm. His father at first intended him for the architect's profession, and pursuant to that plan sent him to the Royal Technical High School of XYHOLM PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF. CULTURAL PROGRESS 2G7 Stockholm, his native city, when he was twenty years old. Probably a very good architect was lost in him, but this has its compensation in a painter whose work takes precedence of much that is adjudged admirable in art circles. In his portraiture. Nyholm has the knack of accentuating the character lines and distinguishing features of his subjects instead of obliterating them, as is often done. This applies equally to the outer and inner man. His reproduction thus bears the hallmark of authenticity. His John Ericsson portrait, ordered by the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois, for presentation as the gift of the League to the National Gal- lery at Washington, in 1912, was a noteworthy achievement of this acknowledged master. His John Ericsson is a man of energy and well- knit build, though not quite the type of scientific pioneer one commonly pictures to himself, but rather a somewhat aristocratic gentleman with fine hands and carefully adjusted tie. Nevertheless, Nyholm seems to have got very close to the true personality of the great inventor and engi- neer. For Ericsson's greatest achievements were of the head rather than of the hands, and a certain disposition to retire into splendid isolation is known to have been a salient characteristic of the man. "A Family Circle," by Nyholm, remarkable for ease and delicacy of composition and group- ing, was well deserving of the first prize. "An Amateur," showing the interior of an artist's studio, with the figure of a woman studying a port- folio of etchings, has been pronounced equally meritorious. The long, rhythmic lines of the figure and the bold, yet harmonic yellow of the gown, are marvelously fetching. A long array of portraits by Nyholm have proved focuses for the public eye in the exhibition series. One of our foremost landscape painters is ALFRED JANSSON, who received his first training in Paris, and located in Chicago a few years ago. He has found a world of beauty in the surroundings of this city, studying them with diligence and intimate understanding. His subjects are extremely simple, for instance, a bit of prairie with a few trees. in the foreground, a sparse grove of oaks with a red barn or a yellow dwelling in the distance, a hillside with a path winding between rocks and shrubbery, a river bank with trees and rocks, and the like. He has a predilection for autumn and winter effects. Take his little canvas, "Winter/' for analysis. A hazy winter day is waning. Daylight still has the upper hand, but the air is shading into a yellowish red ; the snow-covered ground reflects the atmos- pheric glow, but in colder tone. Straight, slender, green-violet trunks form an exquisite decorative pattern against snow and sky. Here and there the sear, brown leaves still left on the limbs add warm, light-brown touches to the screen-like pattern. The touches of his brush are firm and decided. His colors are pure, but subdued. There is not a trace of impur- ity in them. In short, there is an air of solemnity about the picture which at once calms and edifies the spectator. This canvas is now the property of Professor Thorsen, of Lindsborg, Kan. Jansson's pictures combine a highly decorative quality with a refined realism in the treatment. His CULTURAL PROGRESS 269 splendid "Beginning of Fall" was awarded third prize in the 1912 exhibi- tion, and subsequently purchased by the Swedish Club. Alfred Jansson came to Chicago in 1889, after having acquired his artistic education in Stockholm, Christiania and Paris. It was not long before his fine landscape work commanded attention. For his motifs he did not go far afield, his canvases mostly depicting scenery from the regions around Chicago. His work was hung in many exhibitions, not only here, but in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver and else- where. In 1902 one of the not- able pictures in the local ex- hibition in Chicago was his "Approach of Winter," which was purchased by the Clio As- sociation. Through the Swed- ish-American exhibitions his fellow-countrymen have be- come familiar with some of his best work. CHARLES F. HALLBERG has the rare advantage of pleasing both the artists and the public taste. He has the waters under complete command, and is able to reproduce them in all their various moods. He paints rag- ing storms and towering waves, and with his brush, as the magic wand, produces at will moonlight scenes, sunsets, sun- rises, gray clays and sparkling sunlight. His impressions are hurled on the canvas, his brushes are of the broadest and there is a merciless consumption of pigments. To analyze or bury oneself in details is not for him. His art is thoroughly subjective, a . free, personal interpretation of nature. Like Turner, he paints his personal impressions of nature, not nature per sc. He has the ability to translate his mariner's dreams of beauty into colors by few strokes and simplicity of tones a manner evidently in full harmony with his artistic nature. A poetic, one might say musical, strain is characteristic of Hallberg's art. He is himself at all times, never attempting to imitate other marine painters. Let us attempt a description of some of his most typical marines. Across a sky in fresh, cold blues and greens a group of reddish-violet clouds with roseate linings lead a mad race. A strong breeze is blowing, whipping up the heavier waves to a vain attempt at following the pace of the aerial competitors. At the sky line a couple of sluggish sails are labor- CHARLES E. HALLBERG. SANDZEN "LAKE SHORE IN VESTERGOTLAND." CULTURAL PROGRESS 271 iously following the race. Or a morning fog, which almost blotted out the horizon, is slowly giving way to the first rays of the sun. They have not yet broken through the solid front of the mists, but the sky and the water is overcast with a reddish haze. Or an early moonrise on the lake. The air is almost cloudless, the surface calm. A faint yellow moon against a distance in green and blue. It is hard to say which of Hallberg's paintings is his best. Now you prefer his "Summer Morning on Lake Michigan" ; anon his "Clearing After an Atlantic Storm" seems to be first in your favor. Admittedly, Hallberg is one of the men who blazed the trail for Swedish- American art in the West, and his position as an artist, at first questioned, is now secure. BIRGER SANDZEN, a Kansan, who has added greatly to the public inter- est in the Chicago exhibitions from year to year, is probably the most individualistic of Swedish-American painters. A subtle analysis of his work doubtless the best made so far is found in an essay by Mary E. Marsh, published in the American-Scandinavian Review. The essence of this writer's just and intuitive appreciation had better be here given than any general remarks not based on an equally intimate study of his works : "The flat, monotonous prairies of the West have generally been con- sidered ugly and unworthy of artistic expression, while our painters have sought either the majesty of the mountain and the sea or the soft, appeal- ing beauty of the eastern states. Yet one American artist, Birger Sandzen by name, has found a new, strange beauty in the desolate, flat-topped buttes and distant white-walled river banks, in a lonely grove of cottonwood trees or an isolated ranch-house, and has expressed the truth of what he has seen in a personal and straightforward manner. "It was quite a step from Sweden to Kansas. A transplanted tree does not strike roots at once. The work of adaptation is slow. For several years Sandzen painted but little. His work was still inspired by his Euro- pean experiences, and was of slight value. He was neither a Swede nor an American. He had not forgotten the Old World, nor did he yet grasp the New. "As he continued to live on the plains, however, he began to see a kind of beauty in the endless sweep of country. The idea that here at his hand lay a new field for artistic expression began to germinate in his mind. Instead of looking backward, he began to look forward. His career as an artist began. "Sandzen began to solve his problem, namely, to find an adequate per- sonal technique that would interpret the plains he had begun to love. Ten years he spent in constant study and experiment. Some of these experi- ments were failures ; many were very crude, while some were successful. "His wife and a few of his friends realized the value of the experiments and could understand the goal toward which he was striving. The rest looked upon his paintings as the foibles of an otherwise sane and charm- ing man. "Gradually, however, the years of work began to bear fruit. Experi- CULTURAL PROGRESS 273 ments ceased to be only experiments. A friend here and there became interested, and at last some few discerning persons began to buy. A few exhibitions opened their doors to him, although his work is even now comparatively unknown. Yet appreciation is coming. The pioneer days are almost over, and we may hope that this sincere artist will soon obtain the recognition he deserves. "As might be inferred, this artist is an arch-revolutionist against all formulas and rules, good or bad. To him nature is the only teacher, life the only school. He believes that each individual must discover or redis- cover certain truths before these truths can mean anything to him. The popular method of stealing a trick of handling from one master, a tone from another, a composition from a third, he abhors. "The method of working which Sandzen has devised is, like all he does, the product of his own temperament. In studying a landscape he makes as many as fifty sketches of it in charcoal or pencil, followed by studies in color, and the final painting is the very synthesis of the land- scape, sure, clear, and beautiful. "Certain moods of nature fascinate this Western painter. There is a particular hour of twilight often seen on the plains after the sun has set, when the sky is still full of color, but the earth is beginning to darken. A moon rises in the east, and the earth fairly quivers in a transparent light which is neither moonlight nor sunlight, but partakes of both. This mood is a favorite one of Sandzen's, and he has expressed the beauty of this hour with considerable poetry. "Hot sunlight appeals to him, especially when it shines on barren cliffs. The rock formations of the West often assume strange figures, formations which resemble castles or ruined temples are common. He likes to draw these rocks in charcoal and pencil or paint them in sunlight, twilight, or morning light. He loves lonely pines against sunset skies and stately groves of trees seen at a distance. The dry, white-walled creek beds of the plains interest him. Desolate, sun-beaten ranchers' cabins he has drawn and painted, although nature, with no hint of man's nearness, more often appeals to him. "As a painter, teacher, writer, and lecturer, he exercises a powerful influence on the development of the young national art of the Southwest. Birger Sandzen should be named with the group of men and women like Mary Antin, Jane Addams, Joseph Pennell, and Solon Borglum to men- tion but a few who are trying to free America from outworn traditions and are looking forward to a new day." We may add that Birger Sandzen is now a man in the prime of physical and mental vigor at forty-five. From the provincial college in Skara, Vestergotland, he went to the University of Lund. At about twenty his growing desire for art training caused him to go to Stockholm, where he soon joined the Artists' League (Konstnarsforbundet). In the studios of Anders Zorn, Richard Bergh and others, his taste for a personal expression in art was first whetted. After two years he entered the studio of Aman- CULTURAL PROGRESS 275 Jean of Paris. Here he met many Americans and through them he became interested in America. Coming here in 1894, he took a teacher's position in Bethany College, at Lindsborg, Kan., where he remains as teacher and director of the Art School. Prof. Sandzen has made two visits to Europe, studying and traveling in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, also a tour of Old Mexico. He writes enjoyably on art and other topics, a selection of his best essays and stories, interspersed with reproductions of his paintings and with pictures from his travels, having been published under the title, "Med Pensel och Penna." Prof. OLOF GRAFSTROM, of Rock Island, has grown liberal and modern in his later works, as shown particularly by his exhibits in 1912, when he surprised those who may have expected to find him still representing the old conservative school of landscape painting. Of the three canvases shown that year his "Autumn" undoubtedly excelled. It showed a hillside with a wooded foreground, with blue air and white clouds above. The fore- ground was firmly drawn and fresh in color, with patches of green, red and yellow. Professor Grafstrom, head of the art department of Augustana Col- lege, has done much as a teacher and painter to develop the art instinct of the Swedish-American public. In North Central Sweden, his birthplace, he imbibed with the very atmosphere his great love for the Northland, whose scenic beauty he never tires of reproducing on canvas. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where he worked side by side with Zorn, Liljefors, Berg and Tiren. He made extended tours for landscape sketching in North Sweden. One of his canvases painted there was pur- chased by King Oscar II. In 1886 Grafstrom came to America, locating in Portland, Oregon. The magnificent sceneries of the far Northwest were finely reproduced by him in many pictures now found in public buildings and private collections on the Coast. He showed a number of landscapes in Portland and Spokane exhibitions, a scene from Lapland capturing a silver medal. In recent years Grafstrom has devoted most of his time to teaching and to the painting of altar pieces for Swedish- American churches. At twenty years of age HUGO VON HOFSTEN came to the United States equipped with an art education acquired in the art schools and studios of Stockholm. Here he began as illustrator on the New York Graphic and other periodicals. Coming to Chicago in 1893, he was similarly employed on the Chicago dailies and their Sunday editions in particular. Mr. Hofsten made a specialty of portrait drawing, an art soon after supplanted by the half-tone. Aside from the routine work in the illus- trating department of the daily newspaper, he devoted himself to legitimate art, as exemplified in his wash drawings and oils, exhibited at various local exhibitions. He has been successful as a book illustrator, his pictures drawn for the "Mother Goose Jungle Book" published some years back- exhibiting a sense of humor as keen in the artist as in the author of the book. A number of his works have been seen in the Swedish-American art exhibits in Chicago. TANSSON "COUNTRY HOME." CULTURAL PROGRESS 277 Hugo von Hofsten comes from a Swedish family raised to the nobility in 1726. He was born in 1865, in Vermland, where his father was a man- ufacturer at Karlskoga. Many of the family attained positions of honor in the state, others became prominent in commerce and the industries, still others became known through literary pursuits. Among the latter is J. C. von Hofsten, an authoress who enriched the literature of Sweden with many delightful sketches and stories of life in the province of Vermland. CHARLES HAAG, the sculptor, has lived and worked in Chicago long enough for us to claim him as a home artist. During several years of resi- dence at Winnetka he has been highly productive and entered with keen interest in the movement here begun in recent years to make known and popularize the work of Swedish-American artists. Haag came to this country some thirteen years ago, after having studied the sculptural art in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland, also having been actively engaged as a producing artist, and a teacher of art at Zurich. Thence he came to this country, spending the first six years in New York and other eastern cities. His works attracted notice and elicited much favorable comment wherever exhibited. Born and reared in poverty, Haag deals feelingly with the problem of depicting in plastic form the life of the lowly, the toiler, the man under the burden. He was the first Swedish sculptor to have his work accepted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. A work of his entitled "Accord" was shown there in 1906 and subsequently purchased for the permanent collections of that institution. A replica was shown in Chicago at the first Swedish exhibition in 1911. Other works by him seen here are : "Emigrants," "The Universal Mother," purchased by Mr. Stickney, publisher of The Craftsman, and "Effort," awarded first prize in 1911. A large number of smaller works by him, which grace his studio, have never been placed on exhibition in Chicago. In April, 1916, Haag exhibited jointly with Charles P. Gruppe, the painter, at the gallery of the Milwaukee Art Society. At that time Dudley Crafts Watson, the director, wrote with evident appreciation of "some na'ive and wholly individual works of sculpture of American creatioi, which come by the way of the traditions of the Norsemen" the particular Norseman being Charles Haag. We quote his words from the Milwaukee Free Press: "The presence also of Charles Haag, of Silvermine, Conn., who was born at Norrkoping, Sweden, and who has with him the joyous collection of wood carvings and bronzes, which he has done with a big sculptural spirit, has lent much to his exhibit. "However, no personal presence, or outside human interest, can add much to the art which is contained in every statuette shown. Somehow, we prefer the wood carvings, although the bronzes are magnificent to a universal degree. There is something thrilling, something inexplainable, in the genius of every bit that he has done. The limb of a human tree has been taken and tenderly brought to life in a beautiful reincarnation. It HAAG "EMIGRANTS." CULTURAL PROGRESS 279 still remains the limb of a tree, its sap cells, its tissue, its upward reaching, its very life has been the material through which the new life is expressed. "A sad, crushed old woman ; a weather-beaten, ancient man ; a woods- man, in search of himself, a pioneer's face speak eloquently from the brown wood of bygone trees, which have been chiselled and carved by a master woodsman. The joy of touching these things, of feeling their life in one's hands, glorifies, not only the artist and the tree, but the art of man and the life of those who toil. ''These wood carvings are not all profoundly serious ; there are some which are unbelievably funny, full of delicious humor, that only well done EDSTROM "CLOUDS." grotesque caricatures can ever convey. I am not sure, but I like these grotesques the most, they add much to the fun of living. "In bronze, Charles Haag, this giant sculptor, who is but five feet tall, with a pair of laughing blue eyes, a finely chiselled nose and a delightful red beard, with a bountiful waist line, a radiant humor and a childlike joy in all things of life, is always profoundly serious. His relief, 'For- gotten,' sends a shudder of loneliness over one ; 'The Emigrants,' mighty moving mass of clay, bearing their load onward to the making of this America; his 'Hayman,' lifting the great load over his shoulders, are typical examples. "It is interesting to note the contrast in feeling between the wood and bronze. The bronze is heavy, metallic, of the earth; the lines are solid, realistic, deeply emotional. In wood the carving is light, the lines are tender, but never soft, and the surfaces are left directly the intention is suggested. Everyone in our midst who is interested in sculpture, should not fail to spend hours with these beautiful things. It is seldom that we have seen such eloquence in such small dimensions. It proves again that GUSTAFSON "EXCELSIOR." CULTURAL PROGRESS 281 priceless things may come in small parcels, and nat the bigness of a work of art does not depend upon its size." DAVID EDSTROM, the Swedish- American sculptor, whom European art critics have taken the trouble to discuss from all points of view, is less known in America than abroad, and he has not shown enough of his work in exhibits here to give Chicagoans an adequate conception of his talent. Two pieces of his sculpture were sent one year, but with the reservation that they were not entered in any contest for awards, Edstrom, with other non-academic artists, being opposed to such artificial verdicts upon art. Lkit if we have not seen much of Edstrom here in the past, that oppor- tunity may come any time, hence, a review in this connection may serve to cast his shadow before and a shadow, too, that looms large from the intense light thrown upon him from across the water. Of Edstrom, John Hertz, the Swedish author, says : ''The battle between different tendencies in art and the changeableness of a sensitive artist's nature with varying sympathies, can be read clearly in any of his works. Hellenic purity of form with Egyptian line-style seems to him as important at times as models are at other times. At certain stages of his development it has been necessary to fly to a summary realism, at another time he finds expression in an art of merely suggested contours. David Edstrom brings forth the objective less than the subjective truths, except in some of his portraits. His art is to throw a veil over his objects, to wrap them in a magic mantle which reveals a mysterious form beneath. He is the subjectively seeing thinker who sees beneath the sur- face and seeks the motive, the will, the mighty power beneath the obvious and superficially tangible, but when the hidden refuses to be unveiled he constructs his own solution and creates new values where the world has been habituated to conventional ideas. This artist thinks plastically, even when the modeling is made secondary to the power of freedom, of con- ception. Therefore, many of his works carry conviction because of their inner compellingness rather than because of their outward form. * * * Conventional conceptions have little place in Edstrom's art." Dr. Axel Romdahl, director of the Gothenburg Museum, and author of "History of Swedish Art," sums up Edstrom's art in these categorical words : "Both sense of style and deepened observation bring Edstrom's ideals nearer and nearer to what is and will be the Alpha and Omega of sculpture the antique. Occasionally one might take one of Edstrom's heads for some unearthed antique fragment, not because of any, however unconscious, imitation in form, but because of the affinity of feeling. Especially these pieces of work give us the promise of a monumental sculp- tor of the highest rank." A German critic, Georg Hartmann, has this to say : "Edstrom is a sculptor of the purest idealism and the kind of man who would devote himself to a cause for which he would be willing to sacrifice his life. Everything he does gives evidence of intense personal analysis. Edstrom, as an artist, goes beyond pure impressionism. One mav mention him in the same breath with Rodin, but one must not call IPW L !^;-lL itmJ CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE. APARTMENTS DESIGNED BY ANDREW SANDEGREN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 283 him a pupil. He stands, so to speak, between Rodin, Meunier and Van der Stappen. Occasionally one is reminded of the Italian Medardo Rosso, for example, in the charming head of a child. With a technique like this, Rosso seeks to express life, and yet Rosso and Edstrom are two different natures. Edstrom is much deeper, more imaginative and passionate. * * * As he himself says, he seeks to express in his 'Rhapsody' how organic life rises toward the sun. The figure is intended for a park, where the light falling through the leaves may play on the upturned face. He says, "I have con- structed the lines just as a poet constructs the metre in his poems, to express the thought of aspiration, the soul of the flower which forces its way through the hard soil, pouring forth its fragrance as a holy sacrifice to life. * * * Wherever he is, he shows himself to be an artist with new ideas and new impulses. Even when we do not like to follow the flight of his thought, he compels respect because he is one who has some- thing to say* * * ." Writing in the London Obscrrcr, P. G. Connody essayed to define Edstrom in this paragraph : "After the barrenness of the two sculpture rooms at the Royal Acad- emy, it is a delightful experience to stroll into the little Patterson Gallery in Old Bond Street, and to spend an hour or so among the fascinating crea- tions of a sculptor who not only has something to say that is worth saying, but who also expresses himself in a language as forcible as it is personal. Mr. David Edstrom is Swedish by birth, American by bringing up, and cos- mopolitan in his art. He studied art at Stockholm, Florence, and Paris, but, to judge from the examples of his work now shown, he owes little or nothing to any particular master or modern school. He has assimilated the teaching of the ages, of the great periods of glyptic art, following invariably the spirit rather than the letter, and adopting this spirit to his very individ- ual conceptions. "In the course of his artistic evolution he has taken hints from the primitive Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans, and Gothic stone-carvers, the Renaissance masters, and the modern impressionists, but he has never been an imitator of the superficial appearance of the work of different periods. The treatment of the material always remains his own. He seems to have a sort of contempt for surface quality, and depends entirely upon the point of view of construction. He is ever searching in his portraiture for expressive angles which enable him to seize the psychological sig- nificance of each head. It is the accentuation of these angles that make his busts so strangely interesting. I do not know whether he has been par- ticularly fortunate in finding sitters of pronounced individuality and intel- lectuality, but it seems to me more likely that the psychological acuteness of these portrait busts, most of which are of a colossal scale and left in a somewhat rough and uncouth state, owes more to the artist than to the sitters. Each head gives not only a convincing impression of the most char- acteristic aspect of the model, but represents, at the same time, in a boldly synthetized form some particular general type of humanity." f W 9 W wm * lira 1 1 1 1 CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE. THE GAS BUILDING, ERECTED BY ANDREW LANOUIST. CULTURAL PROGRESS 285 Another English writer, Haldane MacFall, author of "History of Art," etc., has given this estimate : "The American-Swede, David Edstrom, is creating so fine a move- ment in the art of the North that it is impossible, nay imprudent, to ignore him. His career reads like a romance, and out of that astounding career has evolved a personality and a vigorous soul such as was bound to utter itself in rare fashion and compelling art if the desire for utterance came to him. * * * . "Above all, the small clay sketches reveal a man gifted with powers extraordinarily trained to design large sculptural schemes for the decora- tion of great spaces. There is a bigness and simplicity in the man's vision ; an intensity of feeling and impressionism that have scant concern with the academic and cold tradition." One American critic, at least, has discovered Edstrom, Christian Brinton, author of "Impressions of the Art at the Panama-Pacific Exposi- tion," who remarks : "In the Swedish section the powerful and broadly monumental con- ceptions of David Edstrom dominated all others. Most modern sculpture is fictile, that of Edstrom is glyptic. He gets his effects from the hardest granite, not the ready tractability of clay." Some of the works of this artist we find described thus : "Idealism, a self-conscious battle against an earth-bound naturalism, the redemption of the promise, finds expression in the fantastic allegories of 'Envy,' 'Fear/ and 'Pride,' as well as in the symbolic compositions, 'Clouds' and 'The Cliff' ; in 'Rhapsody,' his free-giving exaltation in praise of light. If the tangible expressions of the lower propensities are interest- ing in their delineation of the toil of achieving purer heights, 'Clouds' and 'The Cliff' witness still more to the stern conviction of their original creator. Full of dreamy motion, whole and compact as composition, 'The Clouds' give with dreamy sweet poetry the contours of two lovers in airy flight toward distant harmonious spheres. In a rare way he gives his massive ma- terial a soul of movement. Such a head as 'Doctor Oppenheimer,' is stone lit up with spirit ; extraordinarily his dead material seems to flicker up with indwelling life ; looking so you would swear that they had just moved, almost imperceptibly, and had again composed themselves to immobility. Such works as are best in the exhibition are not produced unless one is very much of a genius, said a Gothenburg critic, after studying Edstrom's por- trait busts of Baron Beck-Fries, Countess von Trolle and others. One must go a long way to find such excellent portrait busts as those of Fran- cisco D'Andrade, Frederik van Eeden, Dr. Franz Oppenheimer, his Excel- lency Erik von Trolle, and others. He is a splendid psychologist. His 'Old Italian Soldier' is a masterpiece." Carl Larson and David Edstrom exhibited together at Amsterdam, and the Dutch papers contained columns of enthusiastic praise. "It is difficult to judge which of the two artists had the greater success. Both sold works at high prices," commented the Allehanda of Stockholm. u c/0 c/3 Si 35 CULTURAL PROGRESS 287 Edstrom has exhibited successfully in London, Paris, Florence, Vienna, Munich, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Gothenburg. He was born in Smaland, bred in Iowa, and his art studies he pursued in Stockholm, Paris and Florence. He is the only non-member who has entered sculpture in the exhibitions of Konstnarsforbundet of Stockholm. AGNES VALBORG FROM EN, of Chicago, is the only Swedish woman sculptor in the United States. She came here from Australia in 1905, on her way to Paris for study, and concluded to stay. She en- tered the sculpture classes at the Art Institute, and after three years her work was on display in the exhibition rooms. Soon after, she was honored with an invitation to join the artists in Lorado Taft's studios, on the Midway, where she is working under his direction in the pro- duction of sculptural works for municipal ornamentation on a grand scale. Besides regular contributions to the exhibitions at the Art In- stitute, Miss Fromen's work has been displayed at the Panama- Pacific Exposition, and two ex- amples are now in the traveling exhibition of the National Sculp- ture Society. Her "Spring Fountain," a permanent feature, in marble, at the Institute, won the 1912 Municipal League prize. Twice her compositions have received first prize at the annual art exhibit of the Swed- ish Club. An excellent speci- men of her graceful modeling is her small bronze statuette labeled sim- ply "A Dancing Figure." Miss Fromen is enthusiastic in furthering American appreciation of Scandinavian art, and aided in promoting the success of the recent Scan- dinavian and Swedish circuit exhibitions in Chicago. Her favorite sub- jects are ideal studies and sculptural portraiture. From Valdemarsvik, Sweden, her place of birth, Miss Fromen went to Australia, then to Paris to study designing, and back to Australia. Almost by accident she turned her talent to sculptural work after matricu- lating at the Chicago Art Institute. FROMEN "DANCING FIGURE." Ill III III II! CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE. TWENTIETH CENTURY BUILDING, ERECTED BY HENRY ERICSSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 289 AXEL ELIAS OLSSON is one of the few Swedish-Americans who have made a success at the sculptor's art. He prepared at the Academy of Liberal Arts in Stockholm, and worked as a carver and modeler until 1881. when he decided to try his fortunes abroad. He located in Boston, where he was engaged until coming to Chicago shortly before the World's Fair. Here he worked for months on models for the Machinery Hall, the Live AXEL ELIAS OLSSON. Stock Building entrance, and for the great obelisk at the exposition, and in 1892 spent the summer on the exposition grounds reproducing his models full size. Among the places where Olsson's plastic work may be seen are : the U. S. postoffice, Del Puento, Colo. ; Normal School, DeKalb ; court house, Fort Wayne, Ind. ; Edison Electric Building, Chicago ; State Historical Library, Madison, Wis. ; Carnegie Library, Muncie, Ind. Examples of his decorative art work while in the East are found in the interior plastic decorations of The Breakers, Cornelius Vanderbilt's villa at Newport. Two of his reliefs, "Spring" and "Autumn," were exhibited and sold in Boston. These and other work in high relief show a certain delicate refinement THE LINNE MONUMENT IN LINCOLN PARK. CULTURAL PROGRESS 291 and daintiness in his handling of the human figure which betray a pro- nounced poetic instinct. He is the romantic poet of the modeling board and the marble block, chiseling lines and forms comparable to the subtlest beauties created by the pen. His "Football Scrimmage," to be seen in the Chicago Athletic Club, strikes one as almost too idealistic a presentment of that virile and roughshod sport. In 1903 Olsson completed a marble group in high relief, representing "Psyche and the Zephyrs," also a statuette, "The Whisper." Both were received with public appreciation when placed on exhibition at the Art Institute. The Psyche group had a place in the art hall of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, while "The Whisper" adorned the art room of the Swedish Building. An art critic writing on the conception and production of the Psyche bas relief concludes with the statement that it was undoubtedly one of the sculptural attractions of the exposition, adding : "How could it be otherwise? Note the wonderful beauty of form and the energy displayed by the Zephyrs, or Cupids, as others might term them, while the figure of Psyche herself and the suggestion of air amid the bit of drapery is superb. Mr. Olsson has the true art temperament, creating his own art atmosphere, rather than seeking for it elsewhere." "The Whisper" is a delicately modeled creation, extremely refined, showing the little love god whispering his message in the ear of the young maiden, whose figure, slightly draped and exquisitely posed, presents a fine conception of virgin beauty and modesty. CARL JOHAN NILSSON studied in the private studio of the Swedish sculptor Oscar Berg and later at the Academy of Liberal Arts in Stock- holm, under the tutorship of the noted Johan Borjeson. In 1899 ne se ^ ut for the United States to exhibit here a Biblical Gallery, comprising sixteen groups of statuary depicting incidents in the life of Christ, these works having been shown at the Stockholm Exposition in 1897. In 1905 Nilsson located in Chicago as modeler in a terra cotta plant. Since that time he has been prolific in the execution of decorative groups and bas reliefs for architectural ornamentation. He designed the group "Justice, Law and Bondage" for the courthouse in Greensburg, Pa. He has exhibited busts of August Strindberg, Oscar II. and of Dr. J. A. Enander at art exhibits in this city, one or two winning prizes. While in Sweden, Nilsson executed a number of portrait busts and groups for the Panoptikon in Stockholm, plastic and sculptural work for the Northern Museum, the Royal Armory, the Royal Artillery Museum, the Gothenburg Museum and for other public institutions. For two years he was assistant to Borjeson in modeling the monumental statues of Charles X. and Magnus Stenbock for the cities of Malmo and Helsingborg, respectively. For the Russian war department Nilsson de- signed a collection of plastic figures which were part of the Russian exhibit at Paris in 1900. -Probably impelled by circumstances, Nilsson has turned his artistic talent mostly to purely commercial uses. 292 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS RESUME OF EXHIBITIONS. The results of the fine art exhibitions heretofore given at the Swed- ish Club are enheartening. They have brought out a large number of Swedish artists able to qualify for the exhibitions. The list of twenty- seven exhibitors in 1911 included no less than sixteen names of artists living permanently in Illinois, or who have spent some years here. The next year there were eleven new participants, seven of whom were Chicagoans. Three Chicago artists and two outsiders entered the exhibi- tion in 1913. Two years later there were five new artists represented, all of Chicago. The most notable new acquisition was FRANK GUSTAF- SON, a man of mature years, who suddenly evinced sculptural talent of a character to command respect. His "Resting Athlete" and "Excelsior" elicited comment and admiration. The 1916 catalogue of exhibits pre- sented nine new names, seven of Swedish artists in Chicago. The most notable new participant was David Edstrcm, now of Sewanee, Tenn., who unfortunately did not have any of his most representative work to send. The works of no less than fifty-seven artists fifty painters and seven sculptors have been brought to public notice through the good offices of the Swedish Club of Chicago. The fact that something like forty of these artists are exponents of Swedish-American art in Illinois and the middle \Yest is gratifying and significant. THE LINNE MONUMENT. The most notable example of Swedish art in Chicago is the Linne monument in Lincoln Park. This magnificent memorial to the world- renowned "Flower King'' of the North, was reared by the Swedes of Chi- cago with funds solicited here and in other populous Swedish centers through the efforts of a temporary organization known as the Linne Mon- ument Association. The idea, after having been discussed for some time, took definite shape in June, 1887, when the association was formed and the work of gathering the required funds was started. At the initial meeting Charles J. Sundell presided, and the principal promoters were John A. Enander, the first permanent president; Robert Lindblom, Pehr S. Peterson, Olof Gottfrid Lange, P. M. Almini, Andrew Chaiser, Per. W. Nilsson, Law- rence Hesselroth, H. P. Brusewitz, Charles Eklund, C. Widestrand, and John R. Lindgren. The enterprise was of national scope, and no less than five hundred solicitors were appointed all over the United States. Differences of opinion as to the location of the monument soon arose, New York and Minneapolis bidding for it, and when the Chicagoans refused to yield, after having originated the idea and taken active measures towards its realization, their countrymen in many sections withdrew their aid, leaving the task of realization chiefly to the people in Chicago. CULTURAL PROGRESS 293 The proposed monument was to be a replica of the statue of Linne modeled by Dyfverman and erected in Humlegarden, Stockholm. In November, 1888, the order was placed, amounting to 28,000 crowns, with the elimination of the allegorical figures surrounding the main figure. Later, however, it was decided to reproduce the monument in its original form, whereby an additional expense of 34,000 crowns was incurred, making the total cost 62,000, exclusive of the base and pedestal. The means were eventually raised, in part by the publication of a volume of verse suitably entitled "Linnea," to which the Swedish Chicago writers contributed, including J. A. Enander, C. F. Peterson, Jakob Bonggren and Ernst Lindblom. Before the necessary funds had been collected, the heroic bronze figure was mounted on its gray granite pedestal, and on May 23, 1891, the i8-j.th anniversary of the birth of Carl von Linne, the monument was unveiled with imposing ceremonies in the presence of a great concourse of Swedish- Americans of Chicago and elsewhere. The association continued to solicit funds up to July, 1893, when the total had reached $18,970, or a little more than 70,000 crowns. By elimi- nating; the bronze tablets on the original, it seems that the total cost of the monument was brought within that limit. Presidents Enander and Lindblom of the monument association re- signed in turn and to Andrew Chaiser, as acting president, seems to be due the credit for the completion of the required fund. ARCHITECTURE. The artistic tone in modern Chicago architecture is very largely due to the skill and good taste of Swedish architects. Many of Chicago's hand- somest apartment buildings were designed by ANDREW SANDEGREN, who opened an architect's office in this city in 1893. His work is of the highest grade, as exemplified also in public buildings, such as churches, hotels, hospitals, schools and institutional buildings. Mr. Sandegren is a native of the Swedish city of Halmstad. The Ralph C. Otis apartment building, erected at Fullerton Park- way and Lincoln Park, is a fine specimen of the builder's art, designed by Mr. Sandegren ; as is also the apartment building designed by him for Mr. Francis A. Larson and erected by Mr. Strandberg. A progressive young architect is ARTHUR HUSSANDER, whose ability- is shown in the monumental lines of the new Robert Lindblom high school. The work of these men and many of their fellow countrymen in the same line means much to the city of Chicago in the way of making its exterior aspect attractive, and the interiors of its collective homes known as apartments comfortable and pleasant to live in. The massive and attractive structure named the Gas Build- ing, is probably as fine an example of the combination of the useful with the beautiful in modern business blocks as any to be seen in Chi- cago. The rearing of this imposing pile was the work of ANDREW LAN- HENRY ERICSSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 295 QUIST, of the Landquist & Illsley Company. This is but one of a number of the largest and most representative buildings in the down-town district erected by them. Mr. Landquist is said to be one of the largest building contractors in the United States, and there is no limit to the size of con- tract that he is willing to undertake. HENRY ERICSSON is one of the men who have aspired to the ideal of not only a greater, but a higher Chicago. He was a pioneer in the era of sky-scrapers. The Manhattan Building of sixteen stories, erected by him in 1891, was the second building of great height to go up in Chi- cago the Masonic Temple being the first. In the construction of large buildings he was one of the leaders for years the Monon, the Harvester and the Borland blocks being among the early examples of this Swedish builder's skill. Others are the Chicago Musical College, the two Mc- Clurg blocks, the Railway Terminal and the Pugh Terminal ware- houses, the latter being the largest in Chicago in point of area. Thirty- seven of Chicago's school buildings have been built by Ericsson, and the great City Hall Square and Conway buildings are his architectural achievements. Among Swedish Chicagoans who are conducting building operations on a large scale we find ERIC PETER STRANDBERG. He started in business as a building contractor at Joliet in 1885, three years after coming to America, and soon after established himself in Chicago. Among his earlier work were such structures as the Chicago Orphans' Asylum, Reed Memo- rial Library and Chapel, Smith Hall at Lake Forest University, a number of large railway stations, and splendid residences for Simon Mandel, Fred T. Haskel, Noble B. Judah, Wm. Dickinson and Mrs. Wm. Hoyt. In 1902 Mr. Strandberg's business was incorporated as the E. P. Strandberg Company. Since then this concern has erected a great number of the largest and finest new buildings in Chicago and vicinity. Some of Mr. Strandberg's best recent work in construction is evi- denced in the magnificent private homes of W. V. Kelley, Clyde M. Carr and J. E. Ryerson in Lake Forest, and that of Adolph Lichtenstern in Glencoe. The complex of new buildings for the Wartburg Seminary at Dubuque, Iowa, is as interesting a piece of architecture as any he has done. A close competitor with the master builders just named is C. E. CARSON, who has erected many of the modern public school buildings in Chicago, and has other large accomplishments to his credit. Several of the Northwestern University buildings are his work, as also the Sec- ond Regiment Armory in Chicago, and the new County Court House in Rockford. Another Swedish specialist in residence building is CHARLES BO- STROM, the present building commissioner of Chicago. Swedish builders in Chicago might be named by the score. Those who have shown more than common ability and enterprise, both as con- tractors and as private builders, are John E. Ericsson, connected with the 296 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Lanquist firm, Frank Gustafson, August West, Charles T. Green, Alvin Nelson, arid many others. ANDREW E. NORMAN has erected a number of public and private buildings, notably churches. The Ebenezer church, the first of a number of very fine modern Swedish Lutheran churches in Chicago, was built by him, as was the plainer structure known as the Viking Temple. The veteran of Swedish architects and builders in Illinois was LARS GUSTAF HALLBERG (1844-1916). Coming here shortly after the Chicago fire, he became one of the men who built the city literally from the ground up. Hallberg was among the first to introduce concrete construc- tion here. He died Jan. 4, 1916, after having been engaged in business here for almost forty-five years. COMMERCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND ENTERPRISES. BANK OF CHICAGO. The history of the State Bank of Chi- cago is an honorable record of uniform and unimpeded gro\vth, due in the first place to the sagacity and conservatism of the two men who founded and continued to manage this commercial institution as long as they lived. On December 8, 1879, m modest quarters at 57-59 La Salle street, the firm of Haugan and Lindgren, bankers, first opened its doors. The partners H. A. Haugan, a native of Norway, aged thirty-two, and John R. Lindgren, a Swedish Chicagoan born and bred, aged twenty- four, were known in their circle of friends and acquaintances as busi- ness men of ability and promise. They were impressed with the idea of the opportunities for a well-managed bank which would enjoy the patronage of the ever-increasing Scandinavian element in Chicago and vicinity. On this foundation they hoped in time to establish an institu- tion large and strong enough to attract the deposits of other nationalities as well. The anticipated business with Scandinavian residents was at first slow in coming, the disastrous ending of two former Scandinavian banks being still fresh in mind. Gradually, however, the substantial character of the new institution inspired confidence, so that at the end of the first year's business the deposits were $33,860 and at the close of the second year $66,597. The venture was proving a success. In 1884, Mr. H. G. Haugan, of Milwaukee, land commissioner of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway, was admitted to part- nership, and the capital stock was increased to $100,000. The total de- posits had grown to $346,551 in 1887. Gradually the institution was acquiring additional business among non-Scandinavians, while extend- ing its clientage among the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish people. Haugan and Lindgren saw their business expand until, in 1890, theirs was one of the foremost private banks in the city. A statement issued January 2, 1891, showed deposits of $831,747, total assets of $1,034,541 and a cash capital of $200,000. CULTURAL PROGRESS 297 At this time the members of the firm were occupied with the plan of enlarging the scope of the business and placing it on a more enduring basis by forming a corporation to succeed the firm of Haugan and Lindgren. Their original purpose was to organize "The Northern Na- tional Bank," and in the summer of 1890 this plan had proceeded so far that part of the proposed bank's stationery had been printed and delivered. The advantages of a state charter to an institution doing business as a savings bank, however, became so apparent to the members of the firm that the idea of a national bank was abandoned and in its place the State Bank of Chicago was organized and duly chartered early in 1891, with a capital stock of half a million dollars fully paid up. Thus the banking firm of Haugan and Lindgren, after an honorable career of more than eleven years, transferred its business to its successor, the present institution. Among the Scandinavians chiefly interested with H. A. Haugan, John R. Lindgren and H. G. Haugan in forming the State Bank of Chicago were : C. Jevne, grocer ; P. S. Peterson, nursery- man ; Theodore Freeman, grocer, and A. P. Johnson, president of the Johnson Chair Company. Among the eleven members of the first board of directors were elected Theodore Freeman, H. A. Haugan, A. P. John- son, John R. Lindgren and P. S. Peterson. At their first meeting the directors elected H. A. Haugan president, John H. Dwight vice president and John R. Lindgren cashier. The executive management rested with Messrs. Haugan and Lindgren. Among stockholders not in the board of directors were the following: William Anderson, Axel Chytraus, Nels Johnson, John Mountain and Peter Svanoe. During the panic of 1893 the State Bank of Chicago weathered the storm bravely and withstood a run on it lasting several days by paying out in a constant stream several hundred thousand dollars in gold coin. The crisis had in no wise affected the solvency of the institution. The more auspicious times inaugurated early in 1897 gave the State Bank of Chicago a second impetus to growth. At this time it moved into its present quarters in the Chamber of Commerce Building. In November, 1899, the capital stock was increased from $500,000 to $1,000,000, the old stockholders being privileged to subscribe for an amount of stock equal to their holdings. At the same time a dividend of 40 per cent, or $200,000, was ordered paid from the surplus account. The deposits had grown from $2,261,381 on Feb. 13, 1897, to $4,696,- 403, a net increase of $2,435,022, or 108 per cent. Dividends at the rate of 6 per cent per annum had been continuously paid since the incorpora- tion in 1891, an aggregate of $270,000, making with this extra dividend of 40 per cent a total of $470,000 paid to stockholders under the old capitalization of $500,000. During the years 1900-1904 dividends were continued at the same rate on the new capitalization of one million. These dividends, aggregating $300,000, added to former dividends paid, make a grand total of $770,000 paid to shareholders since Feb. 10, 1891. To- these earnings should be added the surplus and undivided profits on hand, JOHN R. L1NDGREN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 299 which on Dec. 4, 1904, were $556,000. This, added to $770,000 in divi- dends distributed, showed the net earnings of the bank since its incorpo- ration to be $1,326,000. In January, 1894, the State Bank of Chicago qualified under the laws of Illinois to act as a trust company, and deposited with the State Auditor at Springfield $200,000 as a guaranty fund. Ever since the bank was established it has conducted a real estate loan department. STATE BANK OF CHICAGO. INTERIOR OF THE COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT. Another branch of the bank is its foreign department, through which it has connections with hundreds of foreign cities, drawing drafts on them and issuing letters of credit for travelers, a branch developed largely by the fact that the bank's clientage embraces a large number of foreign- born citizens. The development of the export and import business also has created an increased demand for foreign exchange facilities. In April, 1898, the bank inaugurated its bond department, at a time when but one or two Chicago banks had taken up this branch of banking, which has since become a recognized department of so many other bank- ing houses. Shortly after the establishment of the bond department the United States government floated its Spanish War loan of $200,000,000, and in placing these bonds with the public the bank took an active part. In 1900 it was the western agent in this country for the 2,000,000 Swedish government loan, the bank negotiating for its participation in HENRY S. HENSCHEN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 301 the loan through its bond department manager, who went to Stockholm at the time. Messrs. Haugan and Lindgren founded the Bank of Galesburg in 1889, together with Philip N. Granville, who has held the office of cashier of that institution ever since. On June 12, 1902, the State Bank of Chicago became a member of the Chicago Clearing House, an association of the city's leading banking houses for mutual protection in times of financial stress and for con- serving the common interests of these institutions. A statement published in December, 1902, showed deposits of $10,- 092,557. Three years later they exceeded $15,000,000. In June, 1909, the figures were $20,105,724; in September, 1911, $25,287,447, and ac- cording to the published statement of January, 1917, the deposits reached the enormous figure $32,000,000. In 1909 the capital was increased to $1,500,000, and today the sur- plus and profits amount to $3,660,000. Dividends have been paid at a rate which has steadily increased since 1905, being then raised from 6 per cent to 8 per cent, two years later to 10 per cent, in another year to 12 per cent and in July, 1915, to 16 per cent. Death has recently removed the two founders of the bank, and one of its directors for many years, Mr. Theodore Freeman. At present five of the ten directors are Scandinavians, among these two Swedish businessmen of prominence in other fields, Andrew Lanquist, of the Lanquist & Illsley Company, and William A. Peterson, proprietor of the Peterson Nursery, formerly known as the Rose Hill. Henry S. Henschen is cashier, and one of the assistant cashiers is C. Edward Carlson, while Henry A. Haugan has succeeded to the vice presidency. Among the one hundred and fifty stockholders of the bank a num- ber of the twenty-five bearing Scandinavian names hold large blocks of shares, and the institution continues to be very largely Swedish and Norwegian in its constituency. JOHN R. LINDGREN, BANKER AND PHILANTHROPIST. A worthy son of a noble sire these words best describe John Richard Lindgren, the Swedish partner in the Scandinavian banking firm on whose enterprise the State Bank of Chicago was founded. His father, Captain Charles M. Lindgren, was a ship-owner, whose benevolences did much to estab- lish the Swedish Methodist Church in Chicago. Born in this city Feb. 20, 1855, the son was educated in the grammar and high school and entered business life as an insurance and vessel agent. Upon his father's death, in 1879, he abandoned the shipping business to engage in that of bank- ing, in which he was highly successful. In 1892 he was appointed consul of Sweden and Norway, and was consul for Sweden only from 1905 until his death, April 29, 1915. He was one of the founders of the old people's retreat of the Swedish M. E. Church, known as Bethany Home, an institution to which he donated $20,000 at the time it was founded. 302 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS In his latter years he extended his generosity to the promotion of causes other than those of his church. With the Northwestern Univer- sity he deposited the sum of $25,000 as a foundation for the promotion of universal peace. About the same time the chair of Scandinavian languages and literatures was established at the same university, after Mr. Lindgren had made financial provision for its maintenance in an equal amount. Mr. Lindgren was a man of simple habits and modest, unassuming ways. His home in Evanston was like the average comfortable home. He had a marked predilection for music, and served at different periods as president of the Evanston Musical Club and the Apollo Club of Chi- cago and as trustee of the Theodore Thomas Orchestra. Despite his many large and varied donations, benevolences and charities, he left at his death an estate of $1,200,000, the accumulations of a fair-sized in- heritance well handled during a banking career of thirty-five years. In his will Mr. Lindgren made ample provision for his family and remembered a number of relatives with handsome bequests. But the institutions favored by him in his lifetime were not forgotten. When the estate shall have been settled, there will be added to his list of benevolences gifts which may be given in tentative figures as follows : Bethany Home, $30,000 ; Young Men's Christian Association of Evans- ton, $10,000; Swedish Theological Seminary of Evanston (the Swedish Methodist Episcopal Theological School), $8,000; the Northwestern University (estimated), $112,000. This faithful churchman and capable man of affairs, while accu- mulating one of the few large fortunes amassed so far by Swedish- Americans, is thus found to have given his tithe for public uses in double measure roundly while he lived, but still more amply at his death. THE UNION BANK OF CHICAGO was organized May i, 1905, upon the initiative of Gustaf Hallbom. It started in business as a state bank with a capital of $25,000. The first board of directors consisted of nine men, namely : H. A. Boedker, Nils Arneson, Fritz Franzen, C. W. Johnson, Tom Olson, Charles E. Schlytern, John M. Erickson, G. Hallbom, John S. Rydell, F. A. Lindstrand, E. Hegstrom. Of these men, Arneson, Linstrand, Johnson and Boedker have since died. The first board consisted entirely of men of Scandinavian birth, prin- cipally Swedish-Americans, and out of eleven directors today eight are of the same nationality. Out of approximately $3,000,000 of deposits at present the larger share belongs to Swedish depositors. Within three years the original quarters on La Salle street proved inadequate for the growing bank, and an effort was made to find a larger bank room and one more centrally located. A long time lease was obtained on the bank floor at 115 Dearborn street (old number), and the building was renamed Union Bank Building. CULTURAL PROGRESS 303 In the year 1910 the capital was increased to $500,000.00 and the sur- plus to $100,000.00. The following year the bank purchased the building, thereby giving it a permanent home in the very center of Chicago. The continued increase in business necessitated the remodeling of the building, which was accomplished during the year 1915, and the bank now occupies additional space on the ground floor of its building for the Real Estate and Savings Departments. The officers are : Chas. E. Schlytern, president ; G. Hallbom, vice- president and cashier ; W. W. Holmes, assistant cashier ; John Gulliksen, assistant cashier. The present directors are : G. L. Clausen, John M. Erickson, Henry Ericsson, Joseph B. Fleming, G. Hallbom, Emory Nonnast, Olaus O. Krabol, Tom Olson, John S. Rydell, Chas. E. Schlytern, Werner A. Wieboldt. OTHER SWEDISH BANKERS. In the banks of the state not controlled by Swedish capital, a large number of Swedish names are found in the list of directors and officers. Not to mention lesser cities, Swedes are largely connected with banking in- stitutions in Chicago, Galesburg, Rockford, Rock Island and Moline. The Bank of Galesburg was founded by the banking firm of Haugan & Lind- gren, of Chicago; the Swedish- American Bank of Rockford has been in existence since 1912, and in the banks of Moline the Swedish element is heavily interested, without, however, controlling any of them. Recent bank elections in Chicago reveal Swedish names in the directorates and on the roster of officials of no less than twenty-five banking institutions, not including the State Bank of Chicago and the Union Bank, both strongly Swedish. The Swedish-American National Bank of Rockford is exclu- sively what the name implies, the present personnel being as below : President John A. Alden ; vice-president William Johnson ; cashier G. A. Peterson ; assistant cashier C. A. Rohlen. Directors C. A. Haddorff, August Eklund, Carl Isaacson, A. E. Freburg, William Johnson, J. T. Peters, J. A. Alden, A. E. Anderson, G. A. Rohlen och G. A. Peterson. Among the organizers of the People's Trust and Savings Bank of Galesburg was Moses O. Williamson, who was made president of this strong financial institution. SCANDIA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. The Scandia Life Insurance Company of Chicago was organized in 1905, but as the successor of the Scandinavian Mutual Aid Association of Galesburg its history goes back to the year 1883, when this last-named assessment insurance association was organized, as recorded in foregoing pages. Like so many of the earlier assessment insurance societies, the Mutual Aid had established an inadequate rate, and after operating successfully for over fifteen years, the average age grew so high and the death losses so heavy that reorgan- ization was compulsory. This was accomplished, and under the new name N. A. NELSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 305 of Scandia Mutual Life Insurance Company the association began busi- ness with headquarters in Chicago. The first set of officers of the reor- ganized company were : Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, president ; Charles H. Boman, secretary, and N. A. Nelson, treasurer. An effort was made to continue writing insurance on the assessment plan under a new rate. The outlook, however, did not promise well, and from April, 1902, when the transfer was concluded, until late in the year 1904 the new company met with but moderate success. Then Mr. Nelson, the treasurer, pro- posed the organization of an old line insurance company as the best and probably the only way to per- petuate the concern. The trial had made it clear that the younger gen- eration had lost confidence in the assessment plan, as heretofore fol- lowed, and upon this initiative the board of directors, after a two days' session, decided to organize a new company on the legal reserve basis. For the new company $100,000 was raised as the requisite capital stock, and after several preliminary meetings the members of the mutual company at their annual meeting in January, 1905, ratified the decision of the hoard to remain in the new legal reserve company. For some technical reason the action was not sanctioned by the State Insurance Department, hence a second meeting of members was held in April, when, after a two-days' session, the reinsurance proposition carried. This action was ratified by the state department, and the new concern, named the Scandia Life Insurance Company, forthwith assumed the business of the mutual company. On April 14, 1905, the transfer was consummated, and on May 25 the first policy was issued under the legal reserve plan. At the time of the second reorganization, or transfer, there were between 8,000 and 9,000 assessment members. Quite a number of these transferred to the old line plan, and they have continued to transfer ever since. In the meantime many deaths have occurred among the earliest members, leaving a total of only about 3,000 assessment members carrying approximately $3,000,000 insurance. On the other hand, about 16,000 legal reserve members have been added, with insurance in force of $23,- 000,000. The total assets today are about $2,500,000, with a total of $26,000,000 of insurance in force. Scandia Life is one of five strictly level premium companies in the 306 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS entire West, and is the youngest of the thirty-two companies which do not have the preliminary clause in their policies. It is purely mutual in that it now has no stockholders to draw any part of the profits, the original $100,000 stock having been cancelled shortly after the second transfer. Scandia furnishes absolute security to its policyholders by operating under the Deposit Law and Registration Act whereby securities covering the legal reserve on every policy are deposited with and held in trust by the State of Illinois. The company operates in nine states, namely, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Connecticut, North and South Dakota, Michigan, Nebraska and Washington. In 1916 all its policy forms were revised so as to contain the latest and best features known to the life insurance science, one being the elimination of the preliminary term clause, the company now operating under what is known as the full legal reserve plan, paying dividends at the end of the first year, and giving thirty days of grace for the payment of all premiums. N. A. Nelson has served as president since the organization on the legal reserve basis in 1905 ; Charles H. Boman has been secretary since 1902, and Edwin A. Olson has had charge of agencies and served as the company's legal counsel, serving now also as vice president. Dr. William A. Peterson is medical director, and Nels Nelson, the veteran secretary of the old Scandinavian Mutual Aid, was actuary until his death four years ago. The growth of the business of the Scandia Life is shown by the following figures : 1906, one year from the time of reorganization, a total of $9,330,000 of insurance had been written; 1908, $10,761,000; 1910, $14,074,000; 1912, $17,202,000; 1914, $20,303,000; 1916, $26,000,- ooo. In the same period the total resources of the company increased from $552,000 to $2,250,000. THE ROSE HILL NURSERY. A commercial enterprise on a large scale started by a Swedish landscape gardener and nurseryman, while Chicago was still a small city, is the Rose Hill Nursery, the work of Pehr S. Peter- son, and still managed by his son, William A. Peterson. The creator of this establishment, which has grown to very large proportions, came to Chicago with long experience and expert training for his chosen vocation. The story of the man and the establishment began and developed by him is well worth the telling, inasmuch as he was a pioneer in his field, and became the most widely known Swedish horticul- turist and nurseryman in America, his only competitors in skill and tech- nical insight being the Germans. Born at Nobbelof , near the Swedish city of Kristianstad, June 15, 1830, he early manifested a love of nature, and acquired a practical knowledge of horticulture while employed on various large estates, principally Ovedskloster and Maltesholm. To fit himself scientifically for his work he spent three years in Germany and Holland, studying at the leading horticultural schools and establishments at Ham- CULTURAL PROGRESS 307 burg, Erfurt and Ghent, in the last-named city under the famous Van Houtte. Peterson emigrated in 1851, going first to Toronto, then to Rochester, the great center of the nursery industry. He worked for Frost & Co. as a day laborer for several years, while acquiring the English language, then secured a better position with Ellwanger & Barry. In 1854 he went to California to prospect for gold, but aside from his budding of a lot of fruit trees the venture was unproductive. Returning east, Peterson located in Chicago. In 1856 he established a nursery in a modest way, on a small plot of rented land some miles beyond the city limits. The next year a ten-acre woodland tract was pur- chased. This was added to from time to time. The nursery soon made a name for itself throughout the west, not least by virtue of its specialty of transplanting large trees at the proprietor's risk. This proved a paying propo- sition, such orders yielding anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred dollars per tree. In 1879, Mr. Peterson had increased the area of the nursery to 200 acres, and then had about 3,000,000 young trees growing, chiefly park trees, such as elm, ash, maple, larch and pEtm s. PETERSON. spruce. He imported from Europe many of its finest varieties at one time as much as 800,000 in one order from Scotland. Naturally, he introduced a number of Swedish varieties that would do well in the soil and climate of the Central West. The property has since been more than doubled, and when in 1889 the outlying district in which it was located was annexed to the city, this tract, then 495 acres, became the largest single piece of acre property in Chicago. It lies seven miles north and somewhat west of the City Hall, and embraces one of the finest collections of ornamental nursery stock in the United States. Mr. Peterson's attainments in horticulture found appreciation at home and abroad, being recognized by many scientific societies. He was the second man in more than half a century to be elected an honorary member of the Horticultural Society of Stockholm, and King Oscar II. showed him signal honor in decorating him with the Order of Yasa. In 1865. Mr. Peterson was married to Mary A. Gage, of Boston. Their only child was William A., who succeeded to the management of the establishment in 1895. After his retirement from active business, the elder Peterson spent much of his time abroad. Upon his death, Jan. 19, 1903, the entire property passed to the son, who conducts it on the broad lines laid down by his father, having renamed it the Peterson Nursery in honor of the founder. The OAK HILL CEMETERY is an enterprise founded and managed by Swedish-Americans. It was organized in 1902, when E. P. Strandberg 88 CULTURAL PROGRESS 309 was elected president and N. A. Nelson secretary. Mr. Nelson, under the direction of the board, sold $100,000 of stock in the company, which is known as the Chicago Cemetery Association. A tract of 160 acres of land was purchased, lying directly south of of HQth street and west of Kedzie avenue. After the cemetery had been surveyed, driveways, drains and an entrance built at HQth street and Kedzie avenue, the association had a debt of about $30,000. About three years ago the capital stock was increased to $150,000, and enough stock was sold to clear the debt, so that today the association has no encum- brance. Oak Hill is a public cemetery and not for the exclusive use of Scandinavians. In order to reserve the main tract for the white population, a separate cemetery for colored people has been established, known as the Lincoln Cemetery, with entrance four blocks farther south. About five thousand interments have taken place here in the past fourteen years. The enterprise is on a sound basis, and the management a responsible one. Mr. Strandberg continues at its head, with Louis Olson as secretary, treasurer and superintendent. HOSPITALS AND BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS. AUGUSTANA HOSPITAL, the foremost eleemosynary institution estab- lished so far by Swedish people in Illinois or anywhere else in the United States, is owned and controlled by the Illinois Conference of the Augustana Synod. The direct management is vested in a board of directors elected by the Conference. The first attempt by Swedish Lutherans here to care especially for the sick and suffering among their own countrymen was made by the Rev. Erland Carlsson of Chicago, who early in his pastoral career in this city opened a home for sick and destitute immigrants. His enter- prise was subsequently merged with a charitable institution founded by the Rev. Dr. Passavant. This was destroyed in the fire of 1871, but it was soon rebuilt and is known today as the Passavant Memorial Hospital. In the year 1888 Prof. Olof Olsson, upon his return from a tour abroad, resuscitated the old idea of Dr. Carlsson and advocated the establishment of a Swedish Lutheran hospital in Chicago. A number of pastors and influential laymen seconded him, among others Pastors C. A. Evald, M. C. Ranseen, G. Peters, C. P. Rydholm, C. B. L. Boman, and Messrs. C. P. Holmberg, Peter Colseth and John Erlander. The Im- manuel Church of Chicago was the first to render material support, by donating the sum of $70. The plan was to combine a hospital and a deaconess institution to be located in Chicago. The Illinois Conference approved the plan and in 1881 stood sponsor for the new-born child. In 1882 the leaders of the movement resolved to locate the institution in Lake View. The Conference authorized the purchase of ground not to exceed $10,000 in cost. In the meantime hospital work was to be carried on in rented CULTURAL PROGRESS 311 quarters. On February 13 the institution was incorporated and the first officers were chosen from the hoard elected by the Conference shortly be- fore, Erland Carlsson being made president, O. Olsson vice president, C. P.. L. Roman secretary, and C. P. Holmberg treasurer. Other members of the first board were Rev. M. C. Ranseen and Messrs. G. A. Bohman and John Erlander. After two years, in March, 1884, the hospital was opened in the Carlsson residence, located on the present grounds of the institution, at the intersection of Lincoln, Garfield and Cleveland avenues. The dedication took place May 24. At this time the board accepted an offer from Dr. Passavant to lease for twenty years four acres of certain grounds in Lake View donated for hospital purposes and controlled by him. A building costing from $5,000 to $10,000 was to be erected for use by the Augustana Hos- pital on condition that a certain number of patients be given free care at the new institution. This agreement was sanctioned by the Confer- ence. Hospital work was carried on for some months in the old frame structure until October 29, when a fire put a stop to the work. In the meantime the offer of Dr. Passavant was re- jected, although it offered apparent advantages over the present arrangements. The small wooden structure was unfit for the purpose to which it was put, and would have been condemned under modern build- ing ordinances. Not heeding the warning given by the fire, Carlsson and the board had the house renovated and another story added, and early in 1885 the enlarged frame structure was again filled with patients. It soon proved too small and wholly inadequate to the growing needs. In 1886, Rev. Carlsson set a price of $35,000 on the house and several lots adjoining its site, offering $1,000 of the purchase price as a donation another way of asking $34,000 for the property. His offer was not at once accepted, the directors first purchasing four lots at Belden avenue and Larrabee street for $12,000 from a real estate firm. When it was found that the owner himself had sold the same site for $500 more to another party, the board relinquished its efforts to obtain possession, and in February, 1887, closed the deal with Rev. Carlsson at his own figure. The wedge-shaped piece of ground secured at Lin- coln and Cleveland avenues cost the board almost three times what the somewhat smaller site a few blocks away brought at this time. February 12, 1893, the corner stone of a new building, 68x84 and six stories high, was laid, the structure being completed in the fall of 1894. The cost was $85,000, the conference members contributing but a few thousands, while large sums were realized in Chicago by means THEODORE FREEMAN. 312 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of bazaars. A debt of $50,000, incurred through a building loan, was subsequently paid off with the earnings of the hospital, as had the bulk of the purchase price of the realty. The first section of the hospital building accommodated 125 patients, but after two years the institution was again crowded for room and had to resort to the expedient of housing the nurses in the old Carlsson house and in rented quarters, thereby increasing materially the capacity of the hospital. In 1900 the number of. patients for the year passed the 1,500 mark. Two years later the Conference authorized the completion of the building in accordance with the original plan, and the directors took the necessary steps, but an ugly fight on those in control delayed building operations for some little time. The addition, completed about December i, 1904, at a cost of $100,000, increased the capacity by about 100 beds, making the total present capacity of 220 beds. In 1894 a training school for nurses was opened, comprising a two years' course. This school took the place of the deaconess work origi- nally contemplated by the institution and implied in its corporate name, the Augustana Hospital and Deaconess Institution. In the natural course of development the hospital has ceased to be an exclusive hospital for patients of a particular faith or nationality, and has become an institu- tion for the general public, entirely controlled, however, by the Swedish Lutherans and pervaded by the religious and moral influences of that church. The men who have rendered most efficient services to Augustana Hospital as members of its board are : Dr. M. C. Ranseen, who has served from the organization to the present time, except for one term of three years; Dr. C. A. Evald, from 1884 until his death in 1909; Dr. L. G. Abrahamson, from 1886 to the present; Samuel Anderson, for many years, and Theodore Freeman, from 1892 until his death in 1916. The present superintendent and hospital pastor, Dr. Matthias Wahlstrom, former president of Gustavus Adolphus College at St. Peter, Minn., has served in that position since the year 1904. Events of the year last past point to a new period of progress for the Augustana Hospital. The Illinois Conference in 1916, upon the presentation of new plans by the board, authorized the expenditure of $250,000 for development. The institution having practically reached the limit of growth in its present site, a new and larger building site has been purchased for $100,000. It fronts on Garfield avenue and adjoins Sedgwick street, being only one block removed from the present location. The new plan contemplates the erection of a new and larger hospital building, an apartment building for nurses, and a residence for the superintendent, all grouped together on the hospital grounds, which measure about 380 by 250 feet. The old hospital property is offered for sale for about $350,000. Building operations probably will begin in the summer of the present year. All signs indicate that the Augustana CULTURAL PROGRESS 313 Hospital will continue to be, as it has been in the past, the largest and most representative Swedish hospital in the United States. The greatest single factor in one individual making for the suc- cess of this institution is Dr. A. J. Ochsner, the noted German- American surgeon. This man and the institution have literally grown up together. Dr. Truman W. Miller, who was the first chief physician, resigned in 1890 and was succeeded by Dr. Charles T. Parkes, with Dr. Ochsner as attending physician and surgeon. Upon the death of Dr. Parkes one year later, Dr. Ochsner succeeded him as chief surgeon, a position in which he has rendered invaluable service these twenty-five years. Under him many Swedish-American physicians have been con- nected with the hospital during this period, but nationality has always been subordinated to professional skill under his administration of the technical branch of the institution. The following statistical data for 1915 will show the magnitude of the work done : Patients admitted during year 3>5 10 Surgical cases 1,760 Medical cases 970 Ophthalmic and Otological 58 Obstetrical and gynecological 356 Rhinological and Laryngological 456 Gastro-enterological 2,007 Roentgenological 2,678 Discharged 3,323 Deaths 188 Death rate, per cent 535 Number of days of treatment 58,278 Daily average of treatments 160 Average number of nurses in Training School in 1915 92 Earnings of Training School, special nursing $12,504.30 Number of graduates from Training School in 1916 32 Total number of graduates from Training School since 1896 377 Total earnings of hospital from all sources $151,224.25 Total cost of maintaining hospital 112,392.34 Charity to patients 16,128.29 Cash income from patients 132,689.15 Cash income from church collections, Illinois and Superior conferences 805.61 Cash income from all sources 153,634.56 Cash disbursements 149,254.19 Down to a very recent date all Swedish institutions, be" they schools, hospitals, orphanages or homes for the aged, were the product of religious activity and received their support almost exclusively from some one LUTHERAN HOSPITAL, MOLINE. PRESENT BUILDING. LUTHERAN ORPHANS' HOME, ANDOYER. CULTURAL PROGRESS 315 church denomination. Now such institutions are growing up by the united effort of fraternal organizations, members of various church bodies, or by the efforts of individuals or groups, regardless of affiliation. In Illinois there are several young institutions called into existence in this wise, such as, the Old People's Home in Evanston, the Englewood and Washington Park hospitals of Chicago and the Swedish-American Hospital of Rockford. The OLD PEOPLE'S HOME at Evanston is an institution maintained jointly by a large number of societies in Chicago, organized under the name of the Swedish Societies' Old People's Home Association. The idea of founding such an institution first germinated in the minds of Dr. C. W. Johnson and Hans Anderson about 1893. The following year the Swedish Societies' Central Association was formed, but the establishment of an old people's home was not made part of its plans until several years later. In 1896 a building fund was started, and in 1899 grounds, with a building, were purchased in Park Ridge for $4,500. This property was used as an old people's home from 1900 till 1909. The association, after having reorganized in 1908, purchased a new site in Evanston and began raising funds for a new and larger institution. The corner stone of the new building was laid June 12, 1909, and the central portion of the build- ing was completed forthwith. The completed building, as shown in the illustration (p. 308), represents the result of the united efforts of Chi- cago societies and individuals, who have unselfishly put themselves back of this laudable undertaking. So many have co-operated in this work that to give clue credit all around would extend the sketch of the institution beyond all bounds. Among its staunchest supporters have been the lodges of the Svithiod and Viking orders, many individual societies, and a num- ber of persons of influence, means and interest for the cause. The ENGLEWOOD HOSPITAL, now an institution not controlled by any one nationality, was founded by Swedes. Several meetings were held by Swedish -representatives on the south side who felt the need of a Swedish hospital on account of the large Swedish population. Finally in 1904 an organization was effected. Dr. A. P. Fors was elected its president, Fred Westberg, secretary, and Carl Lundberg, treasurer. Ground at the corner of 6oth and Green streets was secured. Plans for a building were im- mediately drawn by Architect Hallberg of Chicago. At this time the association was approached by the Englewood Union Hospital Association, then located at 64th street and Union avenue, with the result that in 1905 a consolidation was effected, the Englewood Union transferring all its furniture and belongings to the Swedish-American Hospital Association, owners of the Englewood Hospital. The same year a building was erected. Dr. Fors continued for some time as president and Miss Amelia Dahlgren was elected superintendent, which position she held for ten years or until a year ago, when she resigned to take charge of the Moline Lutheran Hospital. Today Mr. Wm. Rathje is president, Mr. A. F. Eidman vice- president, Mr. Ruppstorf treasurer, and Mr. John Nylen secretary. Al- CULTURAL PROGRESS 317 though it was understood and agreed in writing that the Swedes should always hold the offices in the Englewood Hospital Association, there are now very few left in official capacities. The present superintendent, Mr. Olsen, is a Norwegian by birth. E. P. Strandberg, Carl Lundberg, N. A. Nelson, Robert Anderson, and Fred Westberg still continue as members of the board of directors. The WASHINGTON PARK HOSPITAL was organized in 1904 and opened on September 4. The officers were : George E. Q. Johnson, president ; Ed- ward H. Olson, vice-president ; V. Hegstrom, treasurer ; Dr. O. Theo. Johnson, secretary, and Dr. C. O. Young, general manager and superin- tendent. It was opened in a temporary building at 6010-12 Vincennes avenue. The corner stone of the first wing was laid on Labor Day, 1905, and the building was opened for patients in February of 1906. A second addition was built in 1909, and a third addition in 1913. The hospital has a capacity of one hundred and ten beds. The institu- tion conducts a training school for nurses. THE SOUTH SHORE HOSPITAL of Chicago was founded in 1912 and owes its rapid success to the reputation of its chief surgeon, Dr. Axel Werelius, a man who in the short space of twelve years of independent practice has taken his stand at the head of his profession. Together with his colleague, Dr. Andrew Dahlberg, he opened the institution at Eightieth street and Luella avenue in November, 1912. Located in a remote district, the hos- pital nevertheless attracted five hundred patients during the first year, and since then has been filled at all times. The entire personnel of the institu- tion is Swedish. Many notable operations performed here by Dr. Werelius have served to give the new and comparatively modest institution a renown similar to that of the famous hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Werelius was born at Holje, Blekinge, in 1871, and came from Sweden with a college education. He taught gymnastics at North Park College prior to taking a course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. His surgical achievements, elsewhere noted, are attracting patients from every quarter of the United States. THE SWEDISH-AMERICAN HOSPITAL OF ROCKFORD has just been estab- lished through the enterprise of the Swedish element in general. They organized themselves into the Swedish-American Hospital Association of Rockford during the month of June, 1911. A board of twenty-five trustees was elected, consisting of the following named persons: J. A. Alden, Gust Ekstrom, John Erickson, Alf. Turnstrom, Mrs. Emma Rehn- berg, Carl Roseland, Hjalmar Lundquist, Hjalmar Bergsten, Carl Isaac- son, G. Adolph Peterson, Gust Holm, Frank Hogland, Rev. N. P. Sjo- strom, W. A. Brolin, William Johnson, Levin Faust, Nels Swenson, John Kullberg and Robert Lind. The first officers of the Association con- sisted of the following: William Johnson, president; Rev. N. P. Sjo- strom, vice-president ; G. Adolph Peterson, treasurer ; Hjalmar Lund- quist, secretary. The present officers are : Robert C. Lind, president ; C. 318 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS A. Roseland, vice-president; William Johnson, secretary; G. Adolph Pet- erson, treasurer. The Association purchased a site consisting of practically two acres on Charles street, between Qth and loth streets, in the city of Rockford, at a cost of $11,500.00. A four-story hospital building is now under construction and almost completed. The hospital will have modern equip- ment and will cost approximately $100,000. The funds for the site and building are being raised by popular subscription among the Swedish- American people in the city and county. It is the plan of the Association to have the building and equipment fully paid when completed and ready for occupancy. The corner stone of the hospital was laid on September 24, 1916. BENEFICIARY AXD TECHNICAL SOCIETIES. THE INDEPENDENT ORDER OF SVITHIOD is a large Swedish fra- ternal and beneficiary society in Chicago and vicinity, dating back. to the 3rd of December, 1880, when the Order had its inception. Its founder was one Simon Hallberg, who, aided by seven other gentlemen, formed the first lodge and gave it the name that is still retained and cherished. He departed this life July 7, 1882, only thirty-two years of age. Several of the members who joined during 1880 and 1881 still survive, namely: Charles Lundstrom, Andrew Benson, P. G. Johnson, Ludwig Johnson, A. G. West, Emil W. Stylander, C. O. Peterson, John Wolgren, P. J. Rosberg, Swan W. Johnson, Frank Lindquist, J. P. Johnson and Oscar Stuberg. The new society increased and prospered, and the need of a charter was soon felt. Articles of incorporation were submitted, and on Sept. '2, 1 88 1, a charter was granted, liberal in scope and all the more valuable now that recent legislation has narrowed the rights and privileges of similar orders. The constitution adopted laid down these fundamental provisions: "The purpose of the order shall be to unite in brotherly love and cooperation Swedish men of sound health and good character; to exercise among its members an influence for moral betterment, and to render material benefits ; to give assistance to members in need and affliction, and to pay, upon the death of members, certain beneficiary sums to their nearest kin." In spite of the early loss of its organizer and energetic promoter, the order continued its wholesome growth. Among the men who have since carried forward the work perhaps no man deserves greater credit than Axel Blomfeldt, who succeeded to the post of Grand Master. By January, 1885, the order numbered two hundred members. That year John P. Johnson was chosen Grand Master, succeeded later by Bernhard Peterson. Prior to this time other societies had been formed among our Swed- ish-born citizens for the purpose of rendering aid to needy people and CULTURAL PROGRESS 319 to furnish sick and funeral benefit to its members, but Svithiod was the first organization formed with the idea of branching out and through the formation of subordinate lodges to extend its activity and scope of influence. It required several years, however, before the plan could be carried out, and not until October 12, 1890, was the second lodge in- stituted, namely, Manhem Lodge No. 2, located on the west side. On October 25, of the same year, followed the institution of Verdandi Lodge No. 3, then located in Lake View. From time to time other lodges were instituted, until now the lodges number fifty-four and the field of operation extends to the states of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Minnesota and Washington, with a total membership touching the 10,000 mark. SIMON HALLBERG. JOHN SANDGREN. After the lodges numbered five or six the members began to realize the need of a representative central organization, or grand lodge, to transact their common affairs. On June 25, 1893, the Grand Lodge, I. O. S., was organized. Its first chief officers were : High Grand Master, Axel Blomfeldt, Verdandi Lodge ; High Grand Secretary, Bern- hard Peterson, Svithiod; High Grand Treasurer, John Peterson, Ver- dandi. The first executive board was made up of the following: Gust Oman, H. E. Hanson, Sigfrid Franson, Frank Lindquist, and John P. Johnson. The organization of the grand lodge marks the beginning of a period of greater progress. During the first twelve years of its existence the order had acquired a membership of 750. Its rate of growth in subse- quent years is far greater. At the end of 1908, the number of lodges was thirty-nine and the total membership exceeded 6,000. During the last eight years no less than fifteen new lodges have been formed, and the older ones have had a phenomenal increase in membership. 320 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS On July 2.2., 1894, the order had been extended beyond the city limits of Chicago and the state boundary line, by the organization of Bjorn Lodge No. 7, in East Chicago, Indiana. The names of lodges were originally selected from early Swedish history or the Norse mythology, a practice not later adhered to without many exceptions. Thus the earliest lodges were named successively VERDANDI HALL. Svithiod, Manhem, Verdandi, Mimer, Frithiof, Gylfe, Bjorn, Ring, Hilding, Odin, Thor, Balder, followed by Stockholm, Svea, Linden Park, Frej, Vasa, Nore, Andree, Irving Park, Linne, Tegner, John Ericsson lodges, etc., all going to show the general trend of Swedish patriotism throughout the order. The original charter granted no right to levy assessments for the creation of a reserve fund. Many members saw in the absence of such a guaranty fund a danger which ought to be removed. This was done when on April 17, 1901, the order agreed to comply with the new insur- ance law of 1893 and thereupon was licensed to do business on the legal reserve basis. CULTURAL PROGRESS 321 In the conduct of the business and the ceremonial work the Swedish language is used, except in Central Lodge No. 42, Unity Lodge No. 44, Alpha Lodge No. 50, and North Shore Lodge No. 53, where English is used exclusively. The North Shore is the youngest lodge, having been organized in October, 1916. Membership is restricted to men of Swedish birth or descent, from eighteen up to fifty years of age. The Svithiod Order has been a leader in Swedish fraternal work. It was the first Swedish death benefit organization to adopt the National Fraternal Congress Table of Rates, successfully operating under that OFFICERS OF MILITARY COUNCIL, UNIFORM RANK, I. O. S. plan since Jan. i, 1913, and its financial standing is the best. During its thirty-six years of operation it has paid all just claims promptly upon presentation of death proofs. Other charitable and benevolent organizations have also received loyal and consistent support in their various undertakings for the benefit of the Swedish-born people, and clubs and societies formed for purely social or cultural purposes have always found strong supporters among the Svithiod membership. A very marked factor in the success of the Order is the economy with which its affairs are managed, the total expense averaging only ninety to ninety-five cents per capita per year, which is from one-half to one-seventh of what other similar organizations expend in conducting their business. This fact is recognized and commented upon by several insurance departments. 322 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Since its organization the Independent Order of Svithiod has paid out in benefits a total of $1,200,000, including $30,000 in donations, pure and simple. The total assets of the Order, Grand and subordinate lodges combined, are, according to reports from headquarters in October, 1916, $350,000. Mr. John A. Sandgren has served as grand secretary of the Order continuously for the past fifteen years. The other officers of the Grand Lodge for 1916 were: High Grand Master, Andrew P. Olson, Chicago; Vice High Grand Master, Col. F. Warner Karling, Kansas City, Mo. ; treasurer, John G. Carson, Melrose Park, 111. ; chief medical examiner, Dr. A. P. Paulson, Chicago ; the trustees were : Charles A. Carlson, chair- man ; Nels H. Olson, Peter J. Plantin, John A. Swanson, Albert Swan- son, all of Chicago. The Verdandi Lodge was the first to build a home of its own, a $20,000 lodge hall located at 5015-17 North Clark street. A large number of auxiliary lodges known as Independent Order of Ladies of Svithiod have been formed. In 1916, by amendment of the Constitution of the Grand Lodge, woman members are admitted on the same terms as men, and a number have already joined under the new regulations. The total insurance now in force exceeds six millions. INDEPENDENT ORDER OF VIKINGS. A small group of young men in Chicago who met for outdoor exercise and athletic sports on the north side formed the nucleus for the Viking Society, which, in turn, was the original lodge of the present large organization known as the Independent Order of Vikings, of which the fifty-third and fifty-fourth lodges were recently organized. The young men who first came together for the purposes aforesaid were: Ed. J. and C. W. Meurling, C. J. and G. A. Carlson, A. J. and R. Wallden, G. E. Johnson and Charles H. Viktorin. After they had been joined by Charles Henry, N. Hallers and August Johnson, they met June 2, 1890, in a private room at 86 Sedgwick street and formed a properly constituted society which was named "Vikingarne/' The purpose for which they were organized was not defined at the time, the only formality being the election of officers. Edward Meurling was chosen president ; August Wallden, secretary, and Charles J. Carlson, treasurer. The question whether to make it a pleasure club, a debating club or a benefit society hung fire for a time, whereupon the members agreed on the latter object, and in September a committee reported a constitution which made the objects clear in these paragraphs : Objects. i. To acquire moral, intellectual and economic strength by unity and cooperation and to support all good and noble endeavors on the part of its members. 2. To establish and maintain a library of Swedish and English literature and to provide a reading room. 3. To render sick benefit and funeral aid to its members. CULTURAL PROGRESS 323 The society held its early meetings at Horn's Hall, Sedgwick street and Beethoven place, and at Meyer's Hall, Sedgwick and Sigel streets. During the first year the membership stopped at thirty. Early in 1891 the society was incorporated, and before the end of that year the mem- bership had grown to 232. One of the first events of note in the history of the Viking Society was its participation in the festivities attending the unveiling of the OFFICERS OF THE GRAND LODGE, I. O. V. OSCAR HANSON, Grand Chief, 1916. NILS J. LINDSKOOG, Grand Secretary. ALFRED HULT, Grand Treasurer. HENRY LIND, Member Executive Committee. Linne monument, in Lincoln Park, on May 23, 1891, when the Vikings made a splendid appearance, their new uniforms and regalia being pat- terned after the costumes of the Viking age. When the membership reached four hundred, the society set about changing its organization for the purpose of enlarging its scope. After having revised the constitution and by-laws, the society, on Oct. 3, 1892, organized the Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Vikings, the original society forming lodge number one of the new order. In one month a second lodge was added, and in the course of the winter three more, their names being Brage, Drake, Angantyr and Frej. The names CULTURAL PROGRESS 325 selected were Norse, and this system of nomenclature has been con- sistently adhered to in the Viking Order. When the time was ripe for the establishment of an insurance plan it was found advisable to secure a new charter, which was granted in 1895, November 30. The incorporators on the new plan were: Andrew A. Carlson, Otto Anderson, Alex. Holm, Nels L. Anderson, Gustavus J. Bird, Gust Myhrman, Peter E. Almberg, Andrew Soderlin, John An- derson and Bengt A. Wester. The new insurance plan was put into effect Jan. 2, 1896. THE VIKING VALHALLA AT GURNEE, ILL. The first roster of officers of the Grand Lodge was as follows : Grand Chief, A. Holm ; Vice Grand Chief, C. Viktorin ; Grand Secre- tary, Alfred Carlson ; Grand Treasurer, P. A. Noren ; Grand Organizer, G. Carlson. In 1901 the order outgrew the boundaries of Chicago and Cook county, when the Thor lodge was organized in Moline. Later it ex- tended beyond the state lines, and its fifty-four lodges are now scattered throughout Illinois and neighboring states. In 1899 the official mouthpiece of the Order was started under the name of Vikingen. Brage Lodge, No. 2, in 1909 began to formulate plans for the erec- tion of a lodge hall of its own, and a club formed by its members saw the enterprise through, the result being a building completed and dedicated in August, 1910. The building, completely equipped and furnished, repre- sented a total outlay of $62,000. 326 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS \Yith a forward look, the leaders of the Order in 1908 began to realize the future need of a retreat for aged members. The following year, after a small sum had been given for that purpose by an individual, a committee set to work in furtherance of the enterprise. Four men put in charge of the work were Frithiof Malmquist, Herman Carlson, John A. Linden and A. W. Johnson. The result was the incorporation of the Vikings' Valhalla Association, March 29, 1909. The object for which it was formed, as stated in the application for a charter, was to render all possible assistance to worthy and needy STAFF OF. THORSTEN LODGE, NO. 19, JOLIET, ILL. members of the Order and to those dependent upon them, and to the widows, widowers, orphans and dependents of deceased members, as well as to others of Swedish nationality, by the establishment of bureaus for the care of the aged and infirm, for hospital service and medical aid, for employment and for legal advice ; also other bureaus and agencies for benevolent and philanthropic activity ; furthermore, by acquiring lands and erecting buildings for the accomplishment of these object, the resultant institution to be known as the "Vikings' Valhalla." In June, 1911, the association resolved to purchase a tract of thirty- six acres on Deep Lake, in Lake county, for $6,500, paying down $3,500 of moneys raised principally at a "yule market," arranged in December, 1910. But in August, 1912, a property in the village of Gurnee, five miles west of Waukegan, was offered for sale. It was a forty-three acre tract CULTURAL PROGRESS 327 laid out into a private park, with orchard and garden, surrounding a large modern residence, with keeper's lodge and outbuildings for all practical purposes. Upon their visit, the beauty of the place took the delegates of the association fairly off their feet. They voted almost to a man to purchase the place, the owner (David Beidler) agreeing to take the equity in the Deep Lake tract in part payment. The sum of $30,000 was offered, and the property was finally acquired at a price of $36,000, inclusive of the $3,500 equity. The association assumed the property in February, 1913, and suc- ceeded by means of raffles, bazaars and otherwise in raising funds to meet the payments, until $18,000 remained, when the Grand Lodge stepped in and decided to purchase the mortgage and to replace the Valhalla Association by a board of directors chosen by the Grand Lodge of the Order. The Valhalla home is as fine a property as any owned and controlled by a Swedish fraternal organization in any state, and is calculated to serve well the purposes of an old age retreat for members of the Viking Order in years to come. It should be added that hereto- fore the need has been little felt, few members so far having attained to veteran age and fewer still having been reduced to the necessity of accepting charity. The institution, therefore, has been operated partly as a summer resort. In April, 1904, the first lodge of the Ladies' Independent Order of Vikings was organized, the Valkyria Lodge, No. i, being the forerunner of the woman's auxiliary organization. Six other women's lodges fol- lowed within the year, and these in January, 1905, organized a Grand Lodge of their own. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Order of Vikings (1915) this comprised no less than thirty-four lodges. The I. O. V. Band was organized in 1895 and officially authorized by the Order the following year. It has been under the direction of William Walters, Mr. Janssens, Knut Holmberg and, principally, Gustaf A. Carlson. The Order completed its first quarter century with a splendid cele- bration at Medinah Temple, Chicago, on Sunday, May 30, 1915, fol- lowed by an excursion to the Valhalla institution at Gurnee on the following day, then celebrated as Decoration Day. In connection with the anniversary there was published a volume of almost 400 pages, en- titled "Runristningar" (Runic Inscriptions), containing a wealth of de- tailed information relating to the history of the Order and each and every one of its lodges and subsidiary organizations. For a long term of years Nils J. Lindskoog has served as grand secretary of the Inde- pendent Order of Vikings. At the close of its twenty-fifth fiscal year the Order comprised 8,000 members, carrying $1,631,600 of fraternal insurance. THE NORTH STAR BENEFIT ASSOCIATION. The organization of The North Star Benefit Association is mainly due to the efforts of Dr. E. A. Edlen of Moline. Early in his practice of medicine he became interested 328 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in life insurance and, after a thorough study of the different kinds of life insurance, he came to the conclusion that fraternal insurance offered the best and cheapest protection. But fraternal insurance societies being gen- erally secret organizations, they excluded a large part of the people who, from religious convictions or early training, objected to secrecy. He also found that the by-laws of fraternal societies could be improved upon. In the latter part of 1898 Dr. Edlen called together a number of repre- sentative men of Moline and Rock Island and laid before them his project. The idea was favorably received and it was generally admitted that a society such as was proposed, without secret and religious formalities, would be acceptable to a great many people. New features, such as scaling of benefit certificates, paying old age and also accident disability benefit, and later the gradual increase of amount due beneficiaries by giving 10 per cent of the amount paid into the benefit fund, were acknowledged to be a great improvement. Committees were appointed to draft a constitu- tion upon the principles outlined and to secure the necessary five hundred members, required by the law of Illinois, for the purpose of organizing a fraternal insurance society, to be known as The North Star Benefit Asso- ciation. On July 1 8th, 1899, incorporation papers were issued by the Insurance Commissioners of Springfield, 111. The incorporators were : Rev. J. L. Murphy, G. L. Peterson, Dr. E. A. Edlen, F. A. Landee, J. A. Godehn, Prof. V. O. .Peterson, Dr. Jas. F. Myers, Geo. W. Johnson, Wm. Carstens, A. C. Peterson, A. G. Edlen, Chas. G. Carlson. The members were called to meet at the first Grand Observatory on August ist, 1899, in Moline, 111. The constitution and by-laws, as well as the jritual, were adopted at this meeting. The following men were elected the first officers of the Grand Observatory : Chief Astronomer Rev. J. L. Murphy, Rock Island. Asst. Chief Astronomer Geo. W. Johnson, Moline. Chief Recorder G. L. Peterson. Chief Treasurer F. A. Landee. Chief Medical Director Dr. E. A. Edlen. Members of the Board of Directors Prof. V. O. Peterson, Rock Island ; Ole O. Roe, Des Moines ; Rev. Oscar Nelson, Batavia ; Dr. Olof Sohlberg, St. Paul ; C. G. Carlson, Moline ; Dr. Jas. F. Myers, Rock Island ; M. O. Williamson, Galesburg. Chief Conductor Frank Hubenet, Joliet ; Chief Sergeant-at-arms Joshua Hasselquist, Rock Island. On January ist, 1900, after five months of existence, the Association had 1,009 members, and since that time it has had a steady growth. Owing to the great care in the selection of risks, the death rate has been exceptionally low, which has greatly assisted in building up a large reserve fund. The chief officers have, by careful management, avoided legal entanglements and thus retained for the Association the goodrwill of the general public, as well as considerable sums of money. Until the time of the meeting of the Grand Observatory at Galesburg, CULTURAL PROGRESS 329 in August, 1911, there was only one class of insurance. At that time, however, it was deemed prudent to add two other classes in order to give the Association greater strength and stability, as well as to meet the require- ments of certain states. The Association is, financially, in first class condition. At present there is in its hands one-third of all the money paid by the members into the benefit fund. The funds of the Association are placed in first class mortgages, bearing 6 per cent interest. The membership on January ist, 1917, was somewhat over seven thousand. The assets reached nearly one-quarter million of dollars, 01 more than $35.00 per member. At the last Grand Observatory, held at DeKalb, in August, 1914, the present Chief Officers were elected. They are : Chief Astronomer Dr. Jas. F. Myers, Rock Island. Asst. Chief Astronomer Rev. J. B. Iclstrom, Hibbing, Minn. Chief Recorder John A. Swanson, Moline. Chief Treasurer Rev. Carl J. Johnson, Chicago. Chief Medical Director Dr. E. A. Edlen, Moline. Chief Conductor E. J. Dalander, Joliet. Members of the Board of Directors C. J. Searle, Rock Island ; |. C. Coster, Muscatine, Iowa ; P. E. Holmstrom, Joliet ; John S. Bloom, Rock- ford; C. J. Peahl, Minneapolis, Minn.; Rev. F. H. Burrell, Clinton, Iowa; Arthur A. Peterson, St. Paul, Minn. The North Star Benefit Association, although very largely Swedish in point of membership, was never designed to exclude members of other nationalities. THE SWEDISH ENGINEERS' SOCIETY. A number of Swedish civil engineers and other men of technical training in Chicago, after having been members of the Scandinavian Technical Society, seceded on Septem- ber 5, 1903, and at a meeting held October 10 formed a society of their own, which was named the Swedish Engineers' Society. Preliminary action had been taken by an investigation committee headed by G. A. Aker- lind, who presided at the organization. The names of others prominent!) connected with the organization of the society appear in the first roster of officers and directors, to wit: president, Henry Nyberg; vice-president, Albin Rissler ; recording secretary, Mr. Akerlind ; financial secretary, F. Seaberg; directors, John Brunner, Henry Ericsson, A. G. Lund, F. Norlin. The present society succeeded a former Chicago organization of Swedish engineers which flourished in the nineties, but expired from waning interest and gradual loss of vitality. The new organization, on the contrary, has been growing more vigorous in the course of years. The membership book published in June, 1916, conveys information show- ing the growth by years to have been as follows : first year, 74 ; second, 120; third, 179; fourth, 209; fifth, 265; sixth, 276, seventh, 279. This number includes all classes of members, honorary, life, active, associates, and corresponding, the active class numbering 157. The -honorary mem- JOHN ERICSON. CULTURAL PROGRESS 331 bers are Mr. G. A. M. Liljencrantz, asst. U. S. engineer (retired), and Dr. Anton J. Carlson, professor of physiology, University of Chicago. A study of the yearbooks of the society shows how extensively Swedish mechanical talent and technical skill is employed. Of the leading manufacturing establishments in this, as in other states, there are few if any that do not draw on the talent of Swedish engineers, drafts- men, master mechanics, technical experts, and others, prepared either by the thorough theoretic courses in the technological schools of Sweden or in the preeminently practical institutes or establishments here, or, best of all, in both. Of a society of this character it is, in a sense, true that the parts may be greater than the whole. Men of large caliber, technically, do not have their efficiency enhanced or their standing raised by the medium of an association, most of the benefit being conveyed by the member to the society, not vice versa. Yet the organization promotes a sense of strength and solidarity that is wholesome to the newcomer or the man who feels the need of contact with those more energetic, aggressive and successful than he. In strengthening the morale of the technical brotherhood the society serves its chief purpose. The presidency of the society has been held by the following in the order named: Henry Nyberg, G. A. M. Liljencrantz, Dr. Ernest J. Berg, John E. Ericson, Henry Ericsson, Albin P. Rissler and John Brunner, John Ericson having served two different terms. The congress of Swedish Engineers held in Chicago in 1915 was made a reality through the joint efforts of the Swedish Engineers' societies of Chicago and New York and that of Sweden. The congress opened September 9, with 173 delegates present, including fifteen from Sweden. The congress was divided into two technical sessions and several excur- sions to points of interest from the engineer's point of view, closing with a banquet. Many of the participants connected their attendance with a visit to the exposition in San Francisco. GUSTAF AEOLPH MATHIAS LILJENCRANTZ was one of the noted men of the civil engineer's profession in Chicago for more than a generation. A native of Upland, Sweden, born 1842, the son of Baron J. C. Liljencrantz, he was graduated from the Royal Technological Institute of Stockholm as civil engineer in 1866. ,He served as assistant engineer in the construc- tion of the Dalsland canal for three years, whereupon he came over and located in Milwaukee. Coming to Chicago in 1871, he entered the U. S. engineering office as draftsman, soon advancing to the position of assistant engineer which he held until a short time ago, when he resigned to return to his native country, after death had bereaved him of his wife and his daughter, Ottilie, who made the family name noted in American litera- ture through her successful novels on old Norse subjects. In the federal service at Chicago we find, along with Mr. Liljen- crantz, STEPHAN CREUTZ, who in 1889 entered the civil service as U. S. inspector of river and harbor improvements. At various times he has GUESTS OF HONOR AT THE JOHN ERICSSON DAY BANQUET, 1912. Governor Charles S. Deneen. Governor A. O. Eberhart. William H. Taft, President of the United States. Congressman George E. Foss. Hon. Charles F. Hurhurgh. CULTURAL PROGRESS 333 superintended construction work also for the Illinois Steel Company and the Illinois Central Railway. He was born in Stockholm, 1856, the son of Baron Creutz, captain of the Grenadier Corps of the Royal Life Guards. ---..POLITICAL ACTIVITIES. THE SWEDISH-AMERICAN REPUBLICAN LEAGUE. For many years Swedish-American citizens, mostly loyal to the Republican party, exer- cised their civic duties without the aid of any political organization among themselves. They were members of the local clubs and county organi- zations, but did not usually exert sufficient influence to compel due recognition and give them their due share of the offices. In time, there- fore, they found it expedient to organize distinctly Swedish-American clubs in localities where the number of Swedish voters warranted such action. In Chicago, Rockford, Galesburg, Moline and at other points such clubs sprang up, and in Chicago the ward clubs were combined into what was termed the Central Republican Club of Cook County. Then the idea of a state-wide organization naturally suggested itself a repre- sentative body capable of speaking for the great bulk of Swedish voters in the state. In the fall of 1894 this idea took definite form. A meeting was called for December 4, at Chicago, and that day saw the birth of the Swedish- American Republican League of Illinois. The organization was incor- porated on the thirty-first of the same month. Among those present and participating in the organization were : Edward C. Westman, Will S. Hussander, Charles Hoglund, C. A. Edwards and Gustaf L. Nelson, of Cook county ; M. O. Williamson and A. W. Truedson, of Knox county ; A. L. Anderson and John S. Smith, of Henry county ; Rev. C. O. Gustaf son, of Will county ; George W. Johnson, Frank A. Landee, Alfred Anderson, Frank A. Johnson, C. G. Carlson and G. L. Peterson, of Rock Island county ; A. J. Anderson, L. M. Noling and Carl Ebbesen, of Winnebago county. The organization was perfected by the election of officers, as follows : Edward C. Westman, of Chicago, president ; Hjalmar Kohler, of Moline, vice president ; Will S. Hussander, of Chicago, secretary ; A. L. Anderson, of Andover, treasurer. The league was first planned by the leading men of the Central Republican Club, the most actJve of whom was Mr. West- man, and his election as the first president of the new organization was merely just recognition of his initiative in the matter. The league is made up of delegates chosen by the local Swedish city or county clubs, and the representation is by counties on the basis of one delegate for the first one hundred voters of Swedish descent in each county, and one additional delegate for every three hundred such voters. Q 8 P-H C ^ o O *<> CULTURAL PROGRESS 335 In casting about for some historic anniversary as a fitting date for holding the annual convention, the organizers happily selected March 9, the day on which the memorable battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac was fought in 1862. In the greatest single achievement of a Swedish-American, the construction of the Monitor by John Ericsson, was found a most worthy cause for celebration by fellow countrymen of the great mechanical genius. Hereby was established the annual com- memoration of that historic event on the ninth of March, now known as John Ericsson Day, by the Swedish-born citizens of Illinois, and the example set by them has been followed by their countrymen in other states organized in leagues patterned after that of Illinois. The sequel to each annual convention and the one outstanding feature of the occasion is a banquet at which the name and fame of the great naval constructor and inventor is invariably toasted. Many of these banquets, all planned on a large scale, have been brilliant affairs, at which the president of the United States, members of the cabinet, governors, senators, the famous wits and orators of the nation, and even rival candidates for high offices, have talked and fraternized under the inter- twining colors of the United States and Sweden. Moreover, many favorable opportunities have been afforded representative Swedish- Americans to appear in an open forum, to plead their cause and air their grievances, if any, before men of large caliber, open minds, high station and a wide sphere of political influence. On the whole, the social and intellectual intercourse at these political feasts have proved profitable and enlightening to both the hosts and their guests. The league convened for the first time on March 9, 1895, in Chicago. Delegates representing voters of eighteen counties were seated to the number of 119, with a like number of alternates. The first officers were all re-elected for the following year. The business sessions were held at the Masonic Temple and the banquet was given at the Grand Pacific Hotel, under the auspices of the Central Republican Club. Subsequent conventions have been held in Rockford, Paxton, Aurora, Joliet, Gales- burg, Bloomington, Princeton, Moline, Peoria and Chicago. A list of the presidents of the league from its inception follows: Edward C. Westman, Chicago ; Moses O. Williamson, Galesburg ; Frank G. Stibb, Rockford ; Frank A. Landee, Moline ; C. A. Nordgren, Paxton ; Edwin A. Olson, Chicago ; A. W. Truedson, Galesburg ; Carl R. Chind- blom, Chicago ; M. A. L. Olson, DeKalb ; Julius Johnson, Lynn ; P. A. Peterson, Rockford ; Justus L. Johnson, Aurora ; Oscar Dell Olson, Chicago; Charles F. Hurburgh, Galesburg; John Kjellander, Chicago; George W. Johnson, Moline ; Axel E. Thompson, Chicago ; John E. Johnson, DeKalb ; G. L. Peterson, Moline ; Palmer E. Anderson, Prince- ton ; Joseph E. Westerlund, Cambridge. In the campaign of 1896 a committee from the league had charge of the Swedish bureau of the Republican National Committee headquarters in Chicago. From this bureau were sent out 7,300 letters, 789,975 books COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE JOHN ERICSSON DAY CELEBRATION IN 1912. JOHN E. ERICSSON. ALFRED A. NORTON. EDWARD C. WESTMAN. EDWIN A. OLSON. HENRY S. HENSCHEN. CULTURAL PROGRESS 337 and campaign documents, and 700,000 copies of Swedish newspapers, all of which material served to strengthen Swedish-American loyalty to the Republican party. In 1900 the league aided materially in the election of M. O. \Yil- liamson, one of the ex-presidents, to the office of state treasurer, and it has made its influence felt in various other instances during the past twenty years. At the outset the league undertook to publish a small paper whereby its interests might be promoted. In 1895 one number of this paper, called the Monitor News, was published, with G. Bernhard Anderson as editor, but a second number never appeared. The John Ericsson Monument Association of Illinois, founded by resolution of the league, was incorporated April 27, 1905, with Dr. Gustav Andreen, of Rock Island, president ; P. A. Peterson, of Rockford, vice president ; Edwin A. Olson, of Chicago, secretary, and John R. Lind- gren, of Chicago, treasurer. Its object was to provide for the erection and maintenance in Illinois of a worthy monument to the memory of the great Swedish-American inventor. Few, if 'any, traces of activity on the part of this auxiliary organization are apparent in the records, and the plan was apparently abandoned. The recent act of Congress in appropriating $35,000 for a John Ericsson monument in Washington, although prompted chiefly by Swedish-Americans of New York City, was earnestly urged also by citizens of Chicago and members of this league.' A national John Ericsson monument in Washington will naturally discourage the idea of erecting another one in Illinois, so the miscarriage of the first plan will doubtless be the end of the local project. Probably the most brilliant event in the life of the league up to 1906 was the great Ericsson memorial banquet given at the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, that year, when eight hundred persons sat at table and Charles J. Bonaparte, then Secretary of the Navy, graced the occasion with his presence. That event was, however, totally eclipsed by the convention and banquet of 1912, the occasion being the fiftieth anniversary of the mem- orable Monitor and Merrimac fight. There were celebrations in numerous centers of Swedish population in Illinois and elsewhere. At the Rock Island arsenal, at the suggestion originally made by the present writer and warmly seconded by Mr. A. G. Anderson and a number of other influential citizens, Colonel Burr, the commandant, authorized by the Ordnance Department at Washington, had the national salute of 1862 fired at sunrise, in honor of the day. 1 1 It may be mentioned as a curiosity that some time after this salute had been fired the writer had a request for simultaneous salutes at certain other military posts returned from the War Department, through Major Bergland of Baltimore, with a memorandum to the effect that the ordnance department did not favor so unwarranted an expenditure of ammunition. PORTRAIT OF JOHN ERICSSON, BY ARVID NYHOLM. Presented to the National Gallery in Washington by the League. CULTURAL PROGRESS 339 The semi-centennial celebration, however, centered in Chicago, and it was Swedish-American day in that city as on but two occasions before the visit of Christina Nilsson in 18/0 and the Swedish Day at the World's Fair in 1893. Two circumstances lent national distinc- tion to the league convention and banquet this year the presence of the President of the United States and the fact that he chose this occasion to state his views on many political questions, making it his keynote address in the West prior to the national campaign. President William H. Taft, the chief guest of honor, was surrounded on this occasion by a number of guests of no small consequence, including Mr. W. A. F. Ekengren, then charge d'affaires, now minister for Sweden ; two state governors, Charles S. Deneen of Illinois and Adolph Olson Eberhart of Minnesota ; Hon. George E. Foss, member of Congress, and State Senator Charles F. Hurburgh, the Swedish-born candidate in the race then on for the gubernatorial nomination ; Charles D. Hillis, the President's private secretary, and several army and navy officers com- posing the President's retinue. The number participating in the John Ericsson banquet approximated eleven hundred. The presidential party was met at the station early in the morning by a small delegation on behalf of a reception committee of forty, which met the President at the Congress Hotel later. Mr. Taft then spent the day visiting various institutions and clubs, making addresses and giving informal receptions. In the meantime the delegates to the con- vention held their usual sessions, with Hon. George W. Johnson, of Moline, presiding. It was pointed out as evidence of increasing interest in the league that while at the organization meeting in 1894 100 delegates represented ten counties, twenty-four counties were now represented by about 500 delegates. After an informal reception, the banqueters filled the Gold Room and overflowed into two adjacent rooms of the Congress Hotel and sat down at festal boards most sumptuously spread. Mr. Edward C. West- man was named toastmaster by Mr. Edwin A. Olson, who placed in his hand a gavel said to have been made from a piece of the old wreckage of the Merrimac. President Taft prefaced his political address with a brief but eloquent tribute to John Ericsson, from which the closing sentences may be here quoted. "Ericsson lived in New York from 1839 to 1889, or for fifty years, and during his long career in America he made many inventions," said the President, "but that which earned him the especial gratitude of the nation, that which put the American nation under obligation to Swedish inventive genius, was the construction of the Monitor, which in 1862 saved our fleet and thereby our country. I rejoice to be present and together with you commemorate this fiftieth anniversary and on behalf of the American nation to acknowledge the debt of gratitude it owes to the land of Gustavus Adolphus and John Ericsson." SI W '3 W S H o H - 1! O u u - (I 1 W -c ffi S H "E CULTURAL PROGRESS 341 At the close of the President's address Mr. Henry S. Henschen introduced Mr. W. A. F. Ekengren, the Swedish representative, who read the following greeting from King Gustaf V. : "To the Szvcdish Committee: "It is with great pleasure that I learn that so many American citizens of Szvedish origin are assembled to commemorate this day, on which, fifty years ago, the genius of a son of my country contributed to the welfare of the American people and to the cause of freedom. "I see in the fact that the President of the United States honors your assembly with his presence, a proof of the esteem and sympathy the Swedish people has zvon in America, and I need not say how glad and proud I feel on that account. "With these sentiments I send the Szvedish- Americans of Chicago my friendly greetings on this memorable day. GUSTAF." The royal message was acknowledged by cablegram. The Monitor anniversary was extended to the following day, when the wives of the members of the reception committee were the hostesses at a public reception to view the memorial paintings ordered by the league for presentation to the National Gallery. These were a John Ericsson portrait by Arvid Nyholm, of Chicago, and a depiction by Henry Reuterdahl, of Weehawken, N. J., of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac. On the same occasion Mr. Westman, the organizer of the league, was presented with a silver loving cup subscribed by his many friends. The President appeared at this reception for a few moments just prior to his return to the capital. The two paintings, commemorative alike of the historic event and its fiftieth anniversary, were presented to the National Museum on March 23rd following, a committee having gone to Washington to act on behalf of the league. This committee was composed of Messrs. Edward C. Westman, Henry S. Henschen, John E. Ericsson, N. A. Nelson, C. S. Peterson, J. G. Bergquist, Frank Gustafson, Edward J. Lindsten, N. H. Hultin and John A. Thortenson. The presentation was made by Mr. Henschen. The committee in charge of the arrangements for this notable Swedish-American celebration consisted of the three first-named gentlemen and Messrs. Edwin A. Olson and Alfred A. Norton. SWEDISH-AMERICANS IN PUBLIC LIFE. Recent years have shown greater activity in political life on the part of the Swedish element in this state than might have been conjectured from the former aloofness and apathy displayed by the average Swedish- born citizen towards so-called practical politics. This change is no doubt due in great measure to the work and influence of the Swedish-American Republican League, the other factor of prime influence being the com- 342 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS plete assimilation and Americanization of the second and third genera- tions. With no attempt to make a complete enumeration of Swedish Illi- noisans who have attained to leading positions in the public service in later years, we believe the subjoined data are sufficient evidence of the birth of the civic spirit in the present generation of Swedish-Americans. The old complaint of being denied proportionate representation in the matter of public office, if at one time justified, no longer fits their case. a'fr "tx ttJain-oUAlv v-vvvwiAXlM . .'t vi ' \olUv o.Uftt ttltllW/U. tittt 5.) ticit _i.tJUvx!> f ij^ndltllv ftUoA-w ttU Cl UwvCtJt .TO otci'ii. ao/e tkt otiMu Cmryg- geri" and others ; also short songs and poems for stag parties, ban- quets, weddings and similar occa- sions. He has rewritten and adapted for Chicago Frans Hedberg's com- edy, "Anna-Stinas Illusioner," re- naming it "Anna-Stina i Chicago/' and produced the play in November, 1899; translated from English the comedy "A Pair of Spectacles," calling it "Farbror Knut fran Norr- koping," and produced it several times. He has translated into Eng- lish the Swedish comedy "Till- heter," calling it "A Mere Chance," and produced .it at the Swedish Club in May, 1914. Besides in Chicago Mr. Behmer has given Swedish theatrical per- formances in Moline, Rockford and De Kalb., 111.; Duluth and West Superior, Minn., and Evanston, Waukegan and Joliet, 111. He has also appeared at several of Chi- cago's largest theaters, such as the Auditorium, the Studebaker, Grand Opera House, Powers, Garrick and Illinois. On September 19, 1896, Mr. Behmer was married to Miss Frederique Wilhelmina Lindstrom, and has two children, Lisa Hilde- gard and Erik Hugo. LOUIS CARSON, whose business is that of manufac- turer of interior finishings and stairs, was born in Grenna, Smaland, Sweden, August 8, 1865. His par- ents were Carl Jonsson, a farmer, and his wife Anna Brita, nee Nils- son. Having received a good public school education, Mr. Carson at the age of twenty emigrated to America in 1885. He lived one year at St. Charles, 111., and then moved to Chi- cago, where he has been working at his trade since the year 1890. His first shop was located at 51 Institute place. This soon proved to be inadequate to the growing business, wherefore larger quarters were procured. The Louis Carson Company, of which Mr. Carson is the president and treasurer, since many years has a large manufac- turing establishment at 1240 Fuller- ton avenue, with an annual output of quite respectable dimensions. Mr. Carson is also a director in 380 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Carpenter Contractors' Associa- tion of Chicago, and a member of Builders' and Traders' Exchange. In politics he is a Republican, and his religions home is the Elim Swedish Methodist Church, of Lake LOUIS CARSON. View, where he has been trustee for a number of years. Mr. Carson was married on May 24, 1893, to Miss Amanda Carlson, and has two children. The family resides at 5406 Wayne avenue. EDWARD THEODORE CARL- SON, dealer in wall paper and paints, was born in Tanumshede, Bohuslan, Sweden, July I, 1863, where his father, Carl J. Andreason, was a farmer and blacksmith. He re- ceived a good public school educa- tion in his native place and attended high school for one term. At the age of twenty-three years he arrived in America, May I, 1886, and obtained work immedi- ately in a paint shop, working in different shops for about four years, when he went in business for himself on Milwaukee avenue, near West Chicago. In 1898 he opened up a paint store in Irving^ Park, where he saw a more profit- able outlook for the future and located at 4327 North Crawford avenue. Subsequently, the name of the firm was changed to E. T. Carl- son & Co. His business has been growing constantly until, two years ago, the firm felt constrained to erect a new and commodious build- ing, making it one of the best equipped paint houses in Chicago. In 1893 Mr. Carlson visited his old parents in Sweden, and finding them enfeebled by age and the old homestead seriously encumbered, he purchased the farm and turned it over to his eldest sister and her husband, they in return having pledged themselves to care for the aged parents, thus relieving them of worry and insuring them a com- fortable home for the remainder of their lives. While in Sweden on this errand of filial duty, Mr. Carlson formed the acquaintance of Miss Emilia Tobiason, to whom he was mar- ried in 1894. The couple have now a comfortable home at 3827 N. Monticello avenue, where they are raising a fine family of two girls and three boys, one son being dead. Mr. Carlson and his family are charter members of the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has served for four years as chairman of the board of trus- tees and one year as treasurer. He is a member of the Myrtle Masonic Lodge and the Irving Park Chap- ter, and a director in the Irving LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 381 Park National Bank since its be- ginning three years ago. Mr. Carlson has taken an active part in charity work as well. In 1902 he assisted in the organiza- tion of the Irving Park Lodge, No. EDWARD THEODORE CARLSON. 20, I. O. S. He was elected the first treasurer of that lodge, served as chairman for three terms, and was delegate to the I. O. S. Grand Lodge for more than ten years. During those ten years in the Grand Lodge he served as a mem- ber of the board of trustees for five years and member of the exec- utive committee for five years. At the annual convention in 1911, he was elected high grand master of the I. O. S. for one year. Mr. Carlson has been president of the Swedish Old People's Home Association for one year and a member of its board of directors for five years, serving as chairman of the board of directors and man- ager of the Old People's Home in Evanston for two years. In this capacity he has performed a large amount of good work without any compensation, except the gratitude of those who enjoy the benefits of his labor. A. R. GROSSTEPHAN was born in the city of Norrkop- ing Sweden, June 6, 1858, but shortly thereafter moved with his parents to Stockholm, where he re- ceived his elementary education until 1867, when the family moved to Orebro. There he entered the Collegiate School for Boys and con- tinued his studies till 1871, when he came to Chicago, where he con- tinued his school work in the San- gamon Street school. In 1875 Mr. Grosstephan re- turned to Sweden, ostensibly for a short visit, which, however, was extended till 1881. During this time he performed clerical work mainly, for relations and others, and in 1879-81 held the position of chief operator of the telegraph sys- tem of the new fire department of Stockholm. Upon his return to Chicago he was engaged as salesman, book- keeper and cashier for various firms and individuals, until 1899, when he was offered a position as secretary to the Swedish and Nor- wegian vice consul, Mr. John R. Lindgren, and since 1909 under his successor, Consul Henry S. Hen- schen, also filling other positions under him in the State Bank of Chicago, until October, 1915. Then Mr. Grosstephan and At- torney George E. Q. Johnson or- ganized the Swedish Law Bureau (Svenska Lag-Byran) for the pur- pose of collecting inheritances in 382 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Sweden (Norway and Denmark) for heirs in the United States, ren- dering legal services and otherwise assisting the Swedish people in this country and Canada professionally. The bureau is located at 69 West Washington street, suite 610-616. Mr. Grosstephan was married February 3, 1886, to Miss Caroline T. Wallander, and has three chil- dren, Mrs. Mabel L. Emrich, Ruth A. R. GROSSTEPHAN. Evelyn and Arthur R. Grosstephan, and the family are all members of the First M. E. Church at Austin, where they have resided at 5906 West Erie street since 1905. HENRY SAMUEL HENSCHEN, banker, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 29. 1873. He is the oldest son of William Henschen, Ph.D., the clergyman, educator and editor, and his wife, Hilda Johanna Maria, nee Lilljebjorn. Mr. Hen- schen attended public schools at Evanston, 111., and Jamestown, N. Y. When the family returned to Sweden for a few years' stay he attended high schools in Stock- holm and Upsala during 1885^9. After his return to America in 1889, he entered the employ of the banking firm of Haugan & Lind- gren, subsequently incorporated un- der the name State Bank of Chi- cago. He attended evening classes in the Chicago College of Law from 1893 to 1896, when he graduat- ed and received the degree of LL.B. Though admitted to the bar of the State of Illinois, he has never prac- ticed law, but devoted himself to a business career, in which he has been eminently successful. In 1901 Mr. Henschen was elect- ed assistant cashier of the State Bank of Chicago, and in 1908, after Mr. Lindgren's withdrawal from business, Mr. Henschen de- came his successor as cashier. This bank is not only the largest Scan- dinavian bank in America, but is also one of the most stable finan- cial institutions of Chicago, owing to the prudence and skill of its ex- ecutive officers. It has one hundred and sixty employees and thirty- seven million dollars of assets. Being a public-spirited man, Mr. Henschen is holding many offices of confidence and trust in political, religious and social organizations. Between 1909 and 1914 he was act- ing consul for Sweden in Chicago, and for his efficient service in this capacity he was knighted by King Gustaf Y., who bestowed upon him the Vasa Order at the end of his term. It was chiefly due to his ini- tiative that the Swedish language was introduced as one of the elec- tive studies in some of the high LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY schools of Chicago. He is a trustee of the Chicago Academy of Sci- ences, the Wesley Memorial Hos- pital and of Grace M. E. Church, of which he is an honored member. He also holds membership in vari- ous clubs and organizations, as the Union League, the Bankers and the City Club, the Art Institute and the Chicago Bar Association. Though still a young man, Mr. Henschen HENRY SAMUEL HENSCHEN. has to his credit a record that would do honor to a much older person. On March 5, 1898, he was mar- ried to Miss Edith Mountain. They have two sons, Robert, born 1904, and Richard, born 1910. SAMUEL E. ERICKSON was born in Linkoping, Sweden, in 1860. At the age of two years he came to Chicago with his parents, and at nine years he had the mis- fortune to lose his father, which made it necessary for him to leave school to help support the family. He secured employment as mes- senger boy with the Western Union Telegraph Company, after which he held various responsible positions with that company. In 1881 he resigned his position to go abroad and spent four months touring Eu- rope. On his return he resumed his position with the Western Union. In 1885 he secured a position in the recorder's office of Cook count}' and was employed in the abstract department. Later he resigned to accept the appointment of deputy sheriff of Cook county and served under five different sheriffs of the county. In 1890 he was elected to the legislature of Illinois and served six terms as representative. During his services in the legisla- ture he was instrumental in the enactment of many laws of great value affecting the welfare of the commercial and industrial interests of Chicago and the state. As a legislator he received special notice from the press when he refused to draw double pay, giving the scrip- tural text, "Xo man can serve two masters," a practical and personal application. He requested the speaker of the house to strike his name from the salary list, as he held office under the county at the same time. He was appointed on the steering committee in the legis- lature by the Hon. Lawrence Y. Sherman, speaker of the house of representatives. In 1903 he introduced a bill for the relief of the destitute people of northern Sweden and Finland, se- curing an appropriation of $5,000 from the state of Illinois for their aid. In 1904 he was appointed as- signment clerk of the Circuit and 384 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Superior courts of Cook county, assigning trial cases to the various courts. In 1911 Governor Deneen appointed him parole commissioner of Joliet penitentiary. In 1910 he opened a real estate office at 1 80 North Dearborn street, Chicago, where he is still in business. He is also connected with the trust department of the State Bank of Chicago as real es- SAMUEL E. ERICKSON. tate man. He is past grand orator of I. O. O. F., grand marshal Grand of the Royal Arcanum of Illinois, past grand marshal Grand Lodge Encampment I. O. O. F., member of the Hamilton Club, Cook County Real Estate Board and the Chicago Board of Underwriters. Though Mr. Erickson is thor- oughly Americanized, he is deeply interested in Swedish-American af- fairs, being one of the organizers of the Swedish-American Repub- lican League of Illinois and a mem- ber of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, where he holds the office of vestrvman. He was married in 1896 to Miss May S. Noling, of Rockford, 111., and the union has been blessed with four children. The family lives at 532 Aldine ave- nue, Chicago. ANDREW PETER FORS, pastor of the Bethel Swedish Luth- eran Church of Chicago, was born at Forsby, Vestra Tollstad, Ostergotland, Sweden, December 1 8, 1860. His father, Andreas Petterson, now deceased, was a farmer ; his mother, Hilda Petter- son, nee Nilsson, is still living in Sweden. At the age of twenty he left his parental home and came to America in 1880, settling in Min- nesota. After a year's study in Mankato, he entered the Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. From there he went to Augustana College, Rock Island, in 1884 an d graduated in 1887, receiving the degree A. B. In the same year he was sent as a missionary teacher to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he became prin- cipal of Augustana Academy 1887- 88. From there he returned to Rock Island to enter the Augustana Theological Seminary in order to complete a course of theological studies, and in 1889 he received the diploma from that institution. After his ordination at Moline, 111., 1889, he accepted a call to the Swedish Lutheran Church at Wa- hoo, Nebr., where he also served as professor in Luther College, 1889-90, and was editor of IVahoo- Bladet. August 24, 1889, he mar- ried Ada Toline, of Moline, 111., \vho died September 19, 1912. In 1901 he was pastor of the Emanuel LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 385 Lutheran Church at Rockford, 111. His next field of labor was the Swedish Ev. Lutheran Church of Geneseo, 111., which he served for seven and a half years, from 1892 to 1899, during which time he earned the degree of Master of Arts at Augustana College in 1894. His present charge is that of the Bethel Swedish Lutheran Church at 62d and Peoria streets, with resi- ANDREW PETER FORS. dence at 6206 S. Peoria street, Chi- cago, where he has been laboring since May, 1899. Under his effi- cient ministry the congregation has erected a new church edifice at a cost of $50,000 and parsonage cost- ing $6,000, this property almost clear of debt. Rev. Fors also has found time during his busy pastorate to study for his Ph. D. degree at Chicago University from 1899 to 1902. His thesis for final promotion to the degree was presented in April, 1904, on the subject, "The Ethical World Conception of the Norse People," the University Press, Chi- cago. In 1894 he published "Ra- tional Grounds of Christian Truth." He has also written an extensive review of "Teutonic Mythology," by La Saussaye. Dr. Fors has been an industrious contributor to va- rious theological magazines, as the American Journal of Theology, Augustana and Augustana Journal. For the "Lutheran Cyclopedia" he has written an article on the "Char- ity Work of the Augustana Syn- od." Since 1900 he has edited Bcthcl-Bladct, a monthly publica- tion devoted to the various inter- ests of his congregation. His executive ability has made him a prominent figure in the administrative work of his church. From 1896 to 1000 he was a mem- ber of the Board of Directors of Augustana College, acting as secre- tary. He was member and secre- tary of the Church Extension So- ciety of the Augustana Synod 1893- 1896, and member of the Board of Directors of Augustana Hospital 1902-5. From 1904 to 1909 he was president of the Board of Directors of Englewood Hospital, an institu- tion of which he was one of the founders. Dr. Fors is a charter member of Chicago Cemetery Asso- ciation, which was organized in 1902. He served as president of Southern Chicago District and of the Lutheran Ministerial Associa- tion of Chicago for one term. Since 1912 he has been treasurer of the China Foreign Mission Board of the Augustana Synod ; he has been a member of the Board of Charities of the Illinois Conference, and has been member and chairman of its Chicago Executive Committee since 1911. 386 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Dr. Fors was married to Miss Hannah Desideria Johnson, of Mo- line, Sept. 22, 1914. A daughter, Ruth Hilda Lovisa, has been born to them. The only surviving son of a previous marriage, Adolf Fred- rick, graduated from the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Js a mechanical engineer with Good- man Manufacturing Co., Chicago. WAHLFRID WILLIAMSON, has for a number of years been one of the most noted book and job printers in Chicago. He is a na- tive of Trelleborg, Sweden, where he was born April 18, 1850. Mr. Williamson was reared and edu- cated in the city of Helsingborg, to which place his parents had moved shortly after his birth. The first training in the printer's art he obtained in the office of Oresnnds- Posten and worked afterwards for some time on the University Press in Lund, subsequently returning to his old place in Helsingborg. At the age of nineteen, in April, 1869, he left his fatherland with Chicago as his destination. In this city he tried to get employment at his trade, but found the gates closed against him, as the two Swedish newspapers in Chicago at that time had no need of his serv- ices. In Missouri he found work- on the Southern Pacific Railway, which was then under construc- tion, and remained there until the following winter, when he was of- fered a position on the Swedish weekly Hcmlandct. In the spring of 1871 he became foreman in the printing office of Nya Verlden, aft- erwards Svenska Tribunen, and worked on that paper up to the time of the great Chicago fire, also- for a time after the paper was re- established. Mr. Williamson started a print- ing office of his own at 1-3 N. Clark street in 1872, where he remained until the building, together with his printing office, was destroyed by fire on February 18, 1903. For many years Mr. Williamson was WAHLFRID WILLIAMSON. the only Swedish job printer in the city and has gained reputation as a reliable and skillful printer. A large number of excellent works in Swedish and Norwegian have been published from his office, of which may be mentioned "Sverige och Svenskarna," by W. W. Thom- as, and "Unions-perioden og Nor- ges Gjenreisning," by Hagbert Miller. For some time he pub- lished a periodical, Vid Aftonbra- san (At the Evening Fireside}. After his printing plant was de- stroyed by fire he took a vacation from business, but in August, 1905, he opened a new office at his home, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 387 1702 Winona ave., where he still conducts a progressive business. In 1907 he published a harmony of the four Gospels, entitled "Det femte evangeliet, eller de fyra evangeli- erna sammanvafda till en fullstan- dig berattelse om var Fralsare Jesu Kristi lif, ordnad i tidsfoljd." Mr. Williamson has since 1882 identified himself with the Swedish Methodist Church and has held many important offices in the local churches where he has been a mem- ber, in the First Church on Oak street and in the Bethany M. E. Church, where he now holds his membership. From 1882 to 1899 he was secretary of the Swedish Methodist Aid Association, a mu- tual life insurance society. ERNST A. ALGOT.H, a prominent masseur and medical gymnast with offices in Summer- dale Bank Building, Chicago, was born in Ekeby parish, Mariestads Ian, Sweden, March 30, 1874. Hav- ing graduated from the collegiate school of Orebro in 1894, he con- tinued his studies at the University of Upsala, where he passed the pre- liminary examination for the degree of doctor of medicine in 1897. In the same year and at the same institute of learning he passed ex- aminations in massage, medical gymnastics and orthopedics. In 1898 he graduated with honor from the Gymnastic Orthopedic Institute at Stockholm. The following three years he spent in studies at the Carolingian Medico-Surgical Institute of Stock- holm. In the summer seasons he served as practicing masseur and medical gymnast at the following Swedish health resorts : Adolfs- berg, 1897; Osthammar, 1898; Loka, 1899; Mariehamn, Finland, 1900-1901. From January to Oc- tober, 1903, Dr. - Algoth acted as superintendent for the department of Swedish massage and medical gymnastics at the Medical Insti- tute at Marseilles, France, and in the summer seasons from 1904 to ERNST A. ALGOTH. 1908 he was practicing massage at the sanitarium of Nybro, Sweden. In 1908 he emigrated to Amer- ica and made his home in Chicago, where he has had an extensive and growing practice, especially in the Swedish settlements. Since 1914 he has studied medicine in the Jen- ner Medical College, where he received his doctor's degree in June, 1916. Dr. Algoth is a member of the Ebenezer Lutheran Church at Sum- merdale, Chicago, and of the Or- der of Vikings. Since his arrival in this country he has been very active in imparting a better knowl- 388 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS edge, both among gymnasts and in the medical profession, of the scientific methods of massage and medical gymnastics as taught and practiced in Sweden, the land of its origin. Dr. Algoth is married to Miss Regina Maria Johanna Westrom of Gottland, Sweden, and has two young daughters. ALBERT THEODORE LUNDGREN, physician and surgeon, was born in Woodhull, 111., August 5, 1877. He is the son of S. J. Lundgren and his wife, Ida Sophia Lundgren. His early boyhood days were spent on the farm near Woodhull. Having completed his public school educa- tion, he entered Knox College, where he graduated in 1901 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Afterwards he took up studies in Rush Medical College and gradu- ated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1907. Dr. Lundgren subsequently be- came attending surgeon at Lake View Hospital in Chicago and in- structor in surgical pathology at the Graduate School of Medicine. He is now in partnership with Dr. Edward H. Ochsner, the office be- ing at the corner of Cleveland and Webster avenues. Dr. Lundgren, who is a Republi- can in politics, and a member of the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran Church, is also connected with sev- eral professional organizations, as the American Medical Association, Chicago Medical Society and Illi- nois Medical Society. He belongs to the Edgewater Masonic Lodge, the Independent Order of Vikings and Svithiod, Phi Rho Sigma Med- ical Fraternity. He is an honor- ary member of the American Med- ical Association of Vienna, Austria. ALBERT THEODORE LUNDGREN. Married to Miss Beda Maria Munson of Vadstena, Sweden, since 1912, he has one daughter. The family resides at 5125 North 'Clark street. CARL FREDRICK ANDERSON was born in the city of Laholm, Sweden, November 25, 1866. He is the son of Anders Person and his wife Sophia Nelson. Having attended the public schools, he emi- grated to America in 1887, where he first found employment in a steam forge plant in Pullman. Af- terwards he located in Chicago, working in various shops till 1891, when he was made foreman of the forging department of G. L. Cros- by & Co., which firm later was con- solidated with the American Com- pany. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 38!) Air. Anderson remained with this company till 1902, when he started for himself in the steam forge busi- ness with A. A. Shumaker, under the name of Anderson, Shumaker CARL FREDRICK ANDERSON. & Co., located at 2024 South Mor- gan st., Chicago. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Lutheran Church and is a Re- publican in politics. He was married in October, 1890, to Miss Josephine Johanson of Laholm. They have two children. He is a member of the Swedish Club, the Swedish En- gineers' Society, the Masonic order, Odd Fellows and Knights and La- dies of Honor. JOHN E. NORLING was born in Bishop Hill, 111., Jan- uary 13, 1859. The parents were Anders and Elizabeth Norling from Stalbo in the parish of Nora, Vest- manland, Sweden, who came to America in 1858 and settled in n Hill. As John had no desire for farm life and the parents were unable to give him an academic education, he took a course in the high school in his neighborhood and decided to become a druggist. At the age of twenty he was manager of L. P. Ek's drug store in Galva. In 1880 he bought this store in partnership with two brothers, and the firm Norling Bros, soon was in a con- dition to open branch stores in Ne- koma and Bishop Hill. In the fall of iSSi Mr. Norling began to buy up large tracts of land west of the Mississippi and secured options on many larger areas with a view of leading the influx of immigrants in that direc- tion, and with his brother, A. D. Norling, he started in Sherman county, Nebraska, a large stock farm, which soon became a model for similar enterprises. Having sold his drug stores in 1889, Mr. Norling was instrumen- tal in organizing the Mulford Steam Heating Co. in Streator, 111., and was its first secretary and treasurer. The factory was later transferred to Galva. In 1891 be moved to Chicago and devoted his time to the real es- tate business, dealing not only in Chicago property but also in farms and colonization enterprises. In August, 1900, he became an impor- tant factor in the Swedish-Ameri- can newspaper world, when he, to- gether with his brother, P. O. Nor- ling, and S. E. Carlsson, bought the large well-known weekly, Svcnska Tribuncn, and shortly afterwards I'ostcrlandct. Within a year he bought the interest of his two part- ners and became sole proprietor of 390 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS both papers, whose influence and reputation were greatly enhanced during his efficient administration. Mr. Norling can also claim the honor of being one of the pioneers of the Automatic Telephone sys- JOHN E. NORLING. tern. His attention was called to the possibilities of the new system, when a promising inventor, by the name of F. A. Lundquist, laid out the plan before him. Seeing that the new system would be much more economical, since the central stations could be eliminated, he be- came deeply interested in the new invention and organized in 1901 the Globe Automatic Telephone Co., and became its first president. As an example of Mr. Norling's in- sight in the value of the automatic telephone, suffice it to say that after six years of expensive and hard fought patent litigation, instituted by the other telephone interests, Mr. Norling's company won and was granted the basic patents for the automatic telephone, and in 1911 his company sold these pat- ents to the Western Electric Co. for $650,000. In 1905 he sold his newspapers to Mr. C. F. Frikson in order to get more time for his other busi- ness enterprises. In 1907 he or- ganized the Monitor Automobile Works for the purpose of manu- facturing automobiles, trucks and light commercial cars. He was sec- retary and treasurer of the com- pany and remained in that capacity until January, 1914, when he re- signed in order to give more time to his lumber and land interests on the Pacific coast and in Wisconsin. Mr. Norling was united in mar- riage to Miss Christine Ericson in 1870, and this union has been blessed with two daughters, Lillian and Ruth, 21 and 18 years old. CARL-JOHAN NELSON, general contractor and builder, re- siding at 529 N. LeClaire ave., Chicago, was born in Hogerud par- ish, Vermland, Sweden, October 23, 1871. The parents were Nels Carlson and Johanna Bodin. After leaving the public school in his na- tive village, he worked on a farm till he was 21 years old, when he emigrated to America and learned the carpenter's trade, at which he worked four years. Then he en- tered the contracting business with Martin Mickelson, staying with him for a year. Afterwards he went into partnership with August Su- rey under the firm name of Surey & Nelson. After sixteen years this partnership was dissolved and he is now conducting the business alone. He is a member of King Oscar LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 391 Lodge No. 855, A. F. and A. M., became the Whitely Exerciser Co. the Odin Lodge No. 8, Ind. Order and Chicago Fuse Wire Mfg. Co., -of Vikings. Mr. Nelson adheres which position he held until 1899, to the Republican party and has when he was appointed assistant his religious home in St. Paul's superintendent of the Springfield Swedish Lutheran Church in Aus- Drop Forging Co., Springfield, CARL-JOHAN NELSON. tin. He was married to Miss Anna Brunzell, of Vermland, Sweden, December 28, 1892, and has six children. ALBERT IVAR APPLETON was born March 20, 1872, in the village of Onsala, Halland, Swe- den. His parents were Carl Johan Appelbom, a sailor, and his wife, Paulina Justina Christiansen. Hav- ing received a good public school education in his native country, he arrived in America with his par- ents in 1885, located in Chicago and took up the machinist, tool and die making trade. Having ac- quired proficiency in his trade, he accepted the position as depart- ment foreman with the Independ- ent Electric Co., which afterwards ALBERT IVAR APPLETON. Mass., a firm that was affiliated with the above mentioned concerns. With this firm he remained until it was sold in 1900 and then returned to Chicago. In 1901 he purchased one-third interest in the Harvard Electric Co., of which firm he became presi- dent and which position he held until October, 1903, when he re- signed and sold his interest. On November i, 1903, he organized the Appleton Electric Co., then located at 224 Washington st, Chicago, of which firm he became president and treasurer. From 1904 to 1907 he was also master mechanic for the Chicago Fuse Wire Mfg. Co., but resigned from this position to devote more time to the Appleton Electric Co., now located at 212- 230 N. Jefferson st. Mr. Apple- 392 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ton is president and treasurer of this company, and director in the Inland Electric Co. and Beach Theatre Co. He is a member of several civic and fraternal organizations, attends the Presbyterian Church and is a Republican in politics. Mr. Apple- ton was married on August 31, 1910, to Miss Lillian C. Wihk and. has two children. IVAR HOLMSTROM is chief clerk of the International Mercantile Marine Company, with offices at 14 North Dearborn st., Chicago. He was born in Gote- borg, Sweden, April 14, 1859. His parents were Bengt Herman Holm- strom and his wife, Maria Gustava. After attending the public schools in his native town, and a few classes of the collegiate school, he secured a position in his uncle's office, who at that time was general agent of the Inman Line. He remained in this place till iS/S, when he was transferred to the offices of the same line in Liverpool. Afterwards he returned to Goteborg, where he acted as general agent during his uncle's leave of absence. In 1884 Mr. Holmstrom was of- fered a position with the Inman Line in New York. He accepted the offer, left Sweden in August and for a time traveled in the West, establishing agencies for his com- pany. During the World's Columbian Exposition, Mr. Holmstrom had charge of the magnificent dis- play of the International Navi- gation Company in the Trans- portation Building, a trust that he executed to the satisfaction of his company as well as of the public at large. Shortly after- ward he was appointed chief clerk in the passenger department in the Chicago office of the company, subsequently changed to the Inter- national Mercantile Marine Lines. The White Star, the Red Star and IVAR HOLMSTROM. the American Lines are affiliated in and owned by this corporation. Mr. Holmstrom is a member of the Swedish Club and is now serv- ing his fourth term as one of its di- rectors. He was married to Miss Anna Rosenquist, August 17, 1901, and has one daughter, Viola. CARL WINTON KELLMAN, attorney at law, was born in Chi- cago, May 29, 1890. His parents were Carl W. Kellman and Au- gusta M. Matson. Mr. Kellman pursued his studies in the high schools of Elgin and Lake View, and graduated from the North Park College, Chicago, in 1907. He LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 393 continued in the Illinois University at Champaign, and graduated from the Chicago Law School in 1913, with the degree LL.B. conferred upon him. In politics Mr. Kellman is a Re- publican. He is a member of the Swedish Covenant Church. Mr. Kellman has the honor of being CARL WINTON KELLMAN. director and president of the North Park College Alumni Association. Married since November 15/1913, to Miss Esther Anderson of Chi- cago, he has one son, Carl W. Kell- man III. JOEL MOSSBERG, a noted singer and vocal teacher, was born in Kumla, Nerike, Swe- den, January 30, iS/o. He is the son of Carl Mossberg, a musician in the Swedish army, and his wife. Johanna Carlson. Having received his elementary education in the public schools in Sweden and worked for four years as a stone- carver in Visbv, he came to Chi- cago in 1892. Here he worked for some time at his trade, devoting his spare time to musical studies, showing signs of extraordinary talent. He studied first with W. W. Hinshaw and afterwards with John R. Ortengren and oth- ers. His fine voice and master- ful technique soon made him fa- JOEL MOSSBERG. mous as a barytone of rare ability and secured for him the position as soloist of the North Shore Jew- ish Synagogue and the Sixth Pres- byterian Church. He has also done a great deal of concert work and sung in twenty-two states in Amer- ica. He is now choral conductor and teacher in the Mendelssohn Conservatory of Music, McClurg Building, Chicago, and Director in Chief of the American Union of Swedish Singers.- Mr. Mossberg is a member of several fraternities and holds hon- orary membership in the Orpheus Singing Club and Bjorgvin Singing Society. He was married Decem- ber 10, 1906, to Mrs. Olga Meine. 394 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS PETER C. PEARSON was born in the city of Gefle, Swe- den, March 14, 1863. The parents were Olof Pearson and Elizabeth Hellstrom. At the age of five years he came to America with his par- ents, who settled on a farm in An- PETER C. PEARSON. dover, 111. Afterwards the family removed to Lindsborg, Kan., where Mr. Pearson attended Bethany Col- lege and was graduated in 1894 with the degree of B. A. He arrived in Chicago in 1890 and became editor of Framat, a Swedish weekly, which had just removed from Lindsborg. With this paper he was connected in an editorial capacity till 1902, but did not sever his connection with news- papers until 1906. Between 1903- and 1905 he was president of Western Oregon Or- chard Co. and was for some time secretary of Telma Gold Mining Co. In 1905 he took up real estate advertising and is now selling Southern farm lands in Mississippi and Louisiana, being treasurer of the Southern States Land & Lum- ber Co., with offices at 29 E. Madi- son st., Chicago. He is enthusias- tic for the sunny South, where "na- ture is beautiful, the climate mild, the people hospitable and women sweet and mild-tempered." Mr. Pearson is a member of the Swedish- American Republican League of Illinois, a Freemason and was for three years president of North Star Benefit Association. In religion he leans toward Chris- tian Science. Having lost his first wife and a child, he was married to Miss Marie W. Vennerstrom, who is a native of Christiania, Norway, November 17, i goo. They have two children. FRANK JOHN CHAISER, president of Lake Zurich Dairy Company, with offices at 218 West Chestnut street, Chicago, is a native of Sundsvall, Sweden, where he was born October 4, 1861. His par- ents were Captain Jonas Magnus Keijser and his wife, Emelie Elisa- beth, nee Enquist. Having pursued his studies for five years at the Maria Collegiate School of Stockholm, he left the old country and came to New York from South America in 1879. To Chicago he came a few years later, and entered the John Marshall Law School, where he received an excel- lent training for a political career. From 1888, when he became in- terested in politics, he held sev- eral clerical positions, and from 1894 to 1896 he was cashier in the comptroller's office of Cook county. The following nine years he served LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 895 as cashier in the office of the clerk of the Superior Court. Mr. Chaiser is a Republican, and life member of the Hamilton Club and Illinois Athletic Club, member of the Chicago Association of Com- merce, the Swedish Club, and a number of fraternal societies. FRANK JOHN CHAISER. He was married July 31, 1902, to Miss Ruth E. Peterson, a native of Jonkoping, Sweden. They have one child. JOHN A. NYDEN, architect, was born in Moheda, Smaland, Sweden, March 25, 1878. Educated in the public schools of Sweden and Chicago, he began his technical training in the Columbian Trade School of Chicago, took up a scientific and art course in Val- paraiso University, Ind., 1898-99, and passed the architect's examina- tion in 1904, in the University of Illinois at Urbana, having made an extended journey through England, France and Germany in the sum- mer of 1902, for the purpose of studying his art. Mr. Nyden has been connected with a number of firms before he opened his present office at 64 W. Randolph street, Chicago. In 1900 he was working with Geo. A. Ful- ler Construction Company in New JOHN A. NYDEN. York. The following year he was appointed assistant chief draftsman of the Northwestern Terra Cotta Co., Chicago, and in 1906 he was chief draftsman with Barnett, Hay- ner & Barnett, of Chicago. The following year he occupied the same position with Arthur Heun, architect. During this time he had under his direction the building of some of the most pretentious archi- tectural structures in Chicago and vicinity, as the new Illinois Athletic Club, the design for the twelve- story New Southern Hotel and the million-dollar residence of J. Og- den Armour in Lake Forest. Since commencing his own business in 1907 he has erected about two hun- dred buildings, among which may 396 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS be counted a number of new of Bush Conservatory and con- churches and apartment buildings, ductor of the Swedish Choral Club Mr. Nyden is a member of the and the Svithiod Singing Club. Trustee Board in the Edgewater Besides these many musical ac- Swedish Mission Church and was tivities Mr. Nelson is president of president of the board from 1910 to 1914. He is a director in the Swedish Historical Society of America and a member of Amer- ican Institute of Architects, Illi- nois Society of Architects and Swedish Engineers' Society. He was united in marriage to Miss Alma Ottilia Hemings of Kristdala, Sweden, April 9, 1902, and has two children. EDGAR ANDREW NELSON is one of Chicago's noted musicians of Swedish descent. He was born March 14, 1882, at 142 Sedgwick street, Chicago. His father, An- drew P. Nelson, was superintend- ent of the postoffice. Having completed his elementary education in the Ogden School, he entered the Bush Conservatory, where he earned his Bachelor of Music degree in 1908. Since then he has grown in public favor as a teacher, pianist, organist and con- ductor of choruses. He served as organist of the First Swedish Bap- tist Church, Chicago, from 1895 to 1898; Grace Methodist Church, 1898-1904: St. James Methodist Church, 1905-1907, and the First Presbyterian Church, Oak Park, Til., 1908. At present he holds the following positions, to wit : Organist of the Apollo Musical Club, the Sunday Evening Club, organist and director of music of the First Presbyterian Church, Oak Park, assistant director EDGAR ANDREW NELSON. Chicago Artists' Association and was president of Illinois Music Teachers' Association. On November 4, 1908, he was united in marriage to Miss Harriet Schuettler, of Chicago, and has one child. The family resides at 4441 Beacon street. ADOLF F. ANDERSON is a manufacturer of builders' iron material, at 5836-44 Loomis street, Chicago. Born in the parish of Habo, Skaraborgs Ian, Sweden, No- vember 5, 1867, he was educated in the schools of his native place. At the age of nineteen he emigrated to America and settled in Chicago. For eighteen years he has been en- gaged in the manufacturing busi- ness and is the owner of the A. F. Anderson Iron Works, employing LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 397 about 60 men. The yearly output of his plant is about $220,000. Mr. Anderson is an active work- er in the Swedish Baptist Church of Englewood, where he is a mem- ADOLF F. ANDERSON. ber of the Board of Trustees. He is also a trustee of the Fridhem Bap- tist Old People's Home. He was married in April, 1901, to Miss Carolina Anderson and has five children. ALFRED HAKANSON, physician and specialist in ear, eye and nose diseases, was born May 12, 1866, in Geneseo, 111., where his parents were among the earliest Swedish settlers. Of five children in the family Alfred was the young- est. The family moved afterwards to Nebraska, where the future physi- cian received his public school edu- cation, and his high school course he completed in Oakland in that state. Afterwards he entered Lu- ther College in Wahoo, Neb., where he graduated in 1886. In 1887 he took up special studies at Augus- tana College, Rock Island, and then became a student in the M;edical School of Nebraska University at ALFRED HAKANSON. Omaha, graduating with the degree M. D. in 1890. Dr. Hakanson began his practice first in Rockford, 111., but moved in 1892 to South Chicago. During his residence here he was for two years, 1894-95, county physician for that territory. At the same time he was one of the founders of South Chi- cago Medical Society and its first secretary ; he also assisted in the organization of the South Chicago. Hospital and served during 1899-90 as attending physician. In 1895 Dr. Hakanson completed a special post-graduate course at the Post Graduate Hospital of New York. Four years later he took up post-graduate work in the Chicago Polyclinic Hospital, giving special attention to the diseases of the ear, nose and throat. During the year 1901 he made an extensive tour 398 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS through Great Britain, Germany and the Scandinavian countries, doing clinical work at the London Ophthalmic Hospital; while there he received the appointment of junior assistant to Dr. A. Stanford Morton, the celebrated ophthalmol- ogist of London, and served in that capacity for six months. Dr. Hakanson is the chief of the department of nose, throat and ear diseases at Augustana Hospital, a member of the American Medical Association, Illinois State, Chicago and Scandinavian Medical associa- tions. He is one of the founders of the Washington Park Hospital, Chicago, and was attending ophthal- mologist and laryngologist from 1903 to 1907 in Chicago Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital. The American Red Cross, the National Geographic, the American-Scandi- navian and Swedish Historical so- cieties count him as a member. Dr. Hakanson, who resides at 1442 Bryn Mawr avenue, has his office in 900 Reliance Building. He was united in marriage to Miss Bertha W. Lindberg in 1892 and has one daughter, Ethel Evelyn, born September 13, 1905. CHARLES LAGERQUIST. Professor Charles Lagerquist was born May 4, 1873, in Chanute, Kans. His parents were Anders Jonas Lagerquist, a lumber dealer and contractor, and his wife, Sara S. Carolina. Young Lagerquist graduated from the public school of Braceville, 111. He later studied piano with Charles E. Watt and Maurice Aronson ; voice with Clem- ent B. Shaw. At the age of six- teen he took up newspaper work, and served as a solicitor, business agent and, for some time, as local news editor of the Morris (111.) Daily and Weekly Herald. In later years he has been a frequent con- tributor to some of the most noted musical publications of America, as Etude, Musician, Miisical Record CHARLES LAGERQUIST. and Review. He holds a certificate from the State Normal School, Mt. Pleasant, Mich., in music ; has a state life certificate to teach music in Michigan. He passed perfect in entrance examination for teaching music in the Chicago public schools, in Harmony, Musical Composition, Musical Literature and History. Thoroughly equipped by nature and training for a musical career, he has already occupied a number of prominent positions in the mu- sical world. In 1898 he became Supervisor of Music for Grundy County, Illinois, and the following year the same position at Dwight was added to the above. From 1901 to 1907 Prof. Lagerquist de- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 39J) voted himself to private teaching of piano and voice, chorus conduct- ing and church playing, and still found time for literary work. In 1907 he accepted the position of Minister of Music in the First Bap- tist Church of Adrian, Mich., act- ing as organist and director of all the musical activities of the church. Two years later he was engaged for similar work at the Ashland Ave. Baptist Church, Toledo, Ohio. In addition to these various duties he continued private teaching and con- ducted singing schools, Sunday school and kindred conventions, re- vival meetings, etc. After a three- year term as Supervisor of Music in Adrian (Mich.) city schools, he became a teacher of music in the Chicago High Schools in 1912, a position which he now holds. Since coming to Chicago he has twice been on the examining board for applicants to teach music in the schools of this city, is president of the Chicago Teachers' Music Coun- cil, was a member of the Commit- tee on Course of Music Study, and is secretary-treasurer of the Music Teachers' Club of the Chicago Pub- lic Schools. He is an active member in the National Education Association, a member of the American-Scandi- navian Foundation and the Society for Advancement of Scandinavian Study. Prof. Lagerquist has also written several musical compositions, for piano and voice, which have been accepted in lieu of a study course for credits in a university extension course. Musical and literary critics have bestowed the most unstinted praise upon Prof. Lagerquist's work as a conductor of choirs, pianist and singer, assigning to him a promi- nent place in the musical world ; and his ability as teacher is com- mended by some of the most com- petent and exacting music teachers in America. Prof. Lagerquist was married December 22, 1891, to Miss Alice F. Barker, of Wilmington, 111. Three children are born in this union. NILS TUVESON, dentist, is a native of Helsingborg, Sweden, where he was born April TO, 1885. His father, Ola Tuve- NILS TUVESON. son, was interested in an express corporation, and his mother was Sophie Swenson. He emigrated to America in 1906. He entered the dental school of Northwestern Uni- versity in Chicago, and graduated in 1911, with the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. The following year he served as demonstrator in 400 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the dental school of his Alma Ma- ter. Since then he has had his office at 5333 X. Clark street, Chi- cago. He was married October 22, 1915, to Karin Ostbom from Kop- parberg and resides at 1616 Rasher avenue. Dr. Tuveson is a member of the Alumni Association of the N. W. Dental School, and of the Scandi- navian Dental Society. He takes a lively interest in the Svithiod Sing- ing Club, and belongs to Paul Re- vere Lodge, A. F. and A. M., Three Links Lodge of I. O. O. F., and Verdandi Lodge of I. O. S. THOMAS LINDSKOG, attorney at law, is a native of Rock- ford, 111., where he was born Oc- tober 21, 1884. His father was Rev. THOMAS LINDSKOG. Herman Lindskog, rector of St. Ansgarius' Church, and his mother's maiden name was Adolphine Shel- don. Mr. Lindskog received his education in the public schools and high schools of Chicago. Afterward he attended the Law School of the Northwestern University, where he graduated with the class of 1908, receiving the degree of LL.B. He was associated for several years with the office of Chief Justice Harry Olson and later was ap- pointed assistant corporation coun- sel. He is now a member of the law firm of Igoe & Lindskog, with offices in the Title & Trust Building in Chicago, engaged in the regular practice of law. Mr. Lindskog votes the Republican ticket, and has his religious home in St. Ansgarius' Church, where he holds the position of vestryman. He is also a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Inde- pendent Order of Svithiod, Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity, and was a member of the Supreme Board of the last named organiza- tion 1911-12. Mr. Lindskog was married to Miss Gertrude E. Clettenberg, of Chicago, April 18, 191 1, and has one daughter. GUSTAV ALFRED ELLIOT, pastor of the Messiah English Lu- theran Church of Chicago, was born in Altona, Knox County, Illi- nois, January 26, 1875, where his father was a shoe dealer. Having attended the public school and grad- uated from the High School of his native town in 1890, he entered the third class of the Augustana Col- lege, Rock Island, 111., and grad- uated with the class of '95, receiv- ing the degree A. B. From 1899 to 1902 he studied for the ministry in the Augustana Theological Sem- inary and received the degree of B. D. For a period of four years he LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 401 taught history and German in Rice Collegiate Institute of Paxton, 111., and served the last year as prin- cipal. His first pastoral charge was the Swedish Lutheran Church at May- wood, 111., whose pastor he was for three and a half years. Then he accepted a call to the Messiah Swedish Lutheran Church in Aus- tin, where he served for a little GUSTAV ALFRED ELLIOT. more than two years. Since Octo- ber, 1907, he has been the pastor of Messiah English Lutheran Church in Chicago. This church, which ranks among the largest English Lutheran churches of the city, has a communicant membership of about 500 and has lately, under the efficient leadership of Rev. Elliot, erected a new brick parsonage. Plans are also being laid for en- larging the church edifice. The ad- dress of the church and parsonage is 3307 Seminary avenue. Rev. Elliot is president of the Chicago Inner Mission Society and president of the Association of English Churches of the Augustana Synod. He was united in marriage to Miss Ellida Rosberg, of Linds- borg, Kan., June 25, 1902, and has three sons. F. A. LARSON, publisher of the Swedish weekly, Si'enska Amerikanaren, was born in Orion, 111., March 3, 1872. His F. A. LARSON. parents were A. G. Larson, a farm- er, and his wife, Helena Sophia Johnson. Having received his common school education in his na- tive town, Mr. Larson took up a business course at Augustana Col- lege and subsequently was engaged in the real estate business in Chicago. In February, 1908, he purchased the Svenska Amerikana- ren, one of the largest and best edited Swedish newspapers in America. In September, 1914, Mr. Larson bought the Hetnlandet, which was merged with the former. Mr. Larson is a Republican in politics and member of the Swedish 402 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Club and Illinois Athletic Club. He was married on October 26, 1898, to Miss Othelia Engquist. Their home is at 2305 Commonwealth avenue. CARL J. STENFELT, jeweler and optician, was born Oc- tober 27, 1870, in the city of Halm- stad, Sweden. He is the son of CARL J. STENFELT. Per Larson, a coachman and gar- dener, and his wife, Johanna Bengt- son. When he had graduated from the public school in his native town, he learned the trade of watchmak- ing in the same place. At the age of twenty he decided to go to Amer- ica and set out for Manistee, Mich., where he secured a position with C. D. Gardner, one of the old-time jewelers of the Michigan Lumber Belt. He remained with the firm for two years, came afterwards to Chicago and worked in a whole- sale jewelry house for seven years, when he got a position with C. D. Peacock. He stayed with this firm for five years, till he opened a jew- elry business for himself at 5752- West Chicago avenue, where he is still located. Mr. Stenfelt is a member of the Austin Swedish Mission Church, holding the office of trustee. He is also a member of the Illinois Re- tail Jewelers' Association and Aus- tin Business Men's. Association. Mr. Stenfelt was married to Miss Anna A. Higginson, of Manistee, Mich., in June, 1899, an< ^ nas three daughters. JOHAN EINAR FABIAN SODERWALL, assistant librarian of the Elbert H. Gary Library of the Northwestern: University, Chicago, was born in Vasby, Sweden, April 10, 1869. The parents were Sven Johan S6- derwall and his wife, Nathalia, nee Afeldt. Having graduated from the: collegiate institute of Helsingborg, Mr. Soderwall continued his studies at the University of Lund, where- he obtained the degree Master of Arts. In 1904 he emigrated to America, and after having studied for some- time at the University of Illinois at Urbana, he was appointed assist- ant librarian of the Northwestern University Law School in 1908 and is still serving in that capacity. Mr. Soderwall is not only an ef- ficient librarian and a scholar ; he is a very talented writer and an artist of no small ability as well. In 1913; he contributed to the Hemlandet, over the pseudonym of "Dr. Fa- bian," a series of short articles, commenting in a humorous, oft- times satirical, way upon the events, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 403 of the week. By competent critics these articles were considered as ranking among the best that have ever appeared in the humor col- umns of the Swedish-American press. Mr. Soderwall, during the last few years, is said to have de- voted his spare moments to writing humorous sketches from Swedish- American club life in Chicago, with a view to their publication. JOHN EINAR FABIAN SODERWALL. The several marine paintings ex- hibited by Soderwall at the Swe- dish-American art expositions at the Swedish Club of Chicago have amply testified to his genius and skill as an artist. Mr. Soderwall is a member of several associations and fraterni- ties, among which may be men- tioned S. A. A., "Strindbergarna" Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, F. B. (Hel- singborg), Chicago Library Club, and the Swedish Club. Mr. Soderwall, who in Sweden was a valued member of the cele- brated Student Chorus of Lund, was about two years ago elected director of the Swedish Glee Club of Chicago, which under his effi- cient leadership has regained its former position in the front ranks of the Swedish male choruses in America. ERNFRID R. JACOBSON was born in Goteborg, Sweden, on Christmas day, 1877. His father was Charles Frithiof Jacobson, who died in 1896, and his mother is Helena Jacobson. Mr. Jacobson received his public school education in Chicago, as his parents came to America in 1882 when Ernfrid was a mere boy. But he has learned a great deal more in "the college of hard knocks." He began his career as office boy, afterwards bookkeeper and general office utility man for various concerns till August, 1898. Then he entered the employ of Straube Piano Company as book- keeper and stenographer. In a few years he purchased a small interest in the company and became secre- tary, acquiring stock from time to time, until March, 1911, when he purchased the entire interest of the remaining partner and became presi- dent of the company. Thereupon his brothers, C. H. J. Thorby and Tas. F. Jacobson, became associated with him as owners and actively connected with the further devel- opment of the business. The Straube Piano Company manufac- ture the Straube pianos and player pianos and represent an output of ten to twelve finished pianos and player pianos a day. The Chi- cago office of the company is in the Republic Building, the general of- THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS fices and factory being located in Hammond, Ind. Mr. Jacobson is the president of the company, is part owner with his brothers in the Straube Piano & Music Co., operating several music stores ; he is also president of the Fidelity Security Co., dealers in piano paper and other securities, and treasurer of the Hammond Machine and Forge Works. ERNFRID R. JACOBSON. Politically he is a Republican. He is a member of the Bethlehem Swedish Lutheran Church of En- glewood, where he has been a trustee since 1898, and is also the treasurer of the church. Mr. Jacobson resides at 5754 Fifth avenue. CARL J. JOHNSON, a building contractor, was born in Ool parish of Elfsborgs Ian, Swe- den, March 25, 1866. His parents, Johannes Anderson and Anna Stina Johanson, were farmers who gave their son as good an educa- tion as they could afford. He as- sisted his father on the farm till he was seventeen years old, when he moved to Alingsas, working at the printer's trade for a couple of years. Finding that this work was injuri- ous to his health, he decided to learn the carpenter's trade. In 1886 he emigrated to America and found profitable employment in Chicago. In the evening schools CARL J. JOHNSON. he learned the English language and took up a course in architectural drawing. He remained at the car- penter's bench till 1903, when he launched out in business for him- self, taking up real estate as a side issue. He is a member of the Car- penter Contractors' Association of Chicago. He is a member also of the First Evangelical Free Church in Chi- cago, where he holds the office of trustee. His home and business ad- dress is 4821 North Winchester avenue. Mr. Johnson was united in mar- riage to Miss Hilma S. Anderson LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 405 of Horla parish, Sweden, October 29, 1898. Mrs. Johnson died March n, 1913. Two sons and one daughter are living ; one son has died. FRANK EBERT SANBERG, dentist, was born in Blakeley, Min- nesota, February 3, 1880, where his father, John Sanberg, was a FRANK EBERT SANBERG. blacksmith. After completing his grammar school course in his na- tive town, he studied for some years in the State Normal School at Man- kato, Minn., and then taught a country school for two semesters. In 1900 he entered the Northwest- ern University Dental School at Chicago and graduated three years later with the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery, all the time sup- porting himself with work in den- tal offices and on the farm. After passing his State Board examina- tion, he was employed in the office of Dr ; O. T. Johnson for a year, and in 1904 he opened an office at 1 66 West Garfield boulevard, where he has been successful in establishing a large practice, mak- ing it necessary for him to employ a graduate assistant. Dr. Sanberg is a great lover of outdoor sport and an active mem- ber of the Chicago Gun Club and the Flambeau Game Club of Park Falls, Wis., as well as a large num- ber of professional and secret so- cieties. He was united in marriage, June 24, 1908, to Miss Hilma C. Matt- son, of Chicago. His residence ad- dress is 218 East Fifty-seventh street, Chicago. JOHN SODERBERG was born September 21, 1850, in Sundsvall, Sweden, where his fa- ther L. P. Soderberg was a whole- sale dealer. His mother was Kris- tina Wilhelmina Sellstedt. He studied in the high school of his native town and continued his studies in the New Collegiate School of Stockholm. Then he spent six months in the military academy at Carlberg in order to be- come an officer in the Swedish army. In 1867 Mr. Soderberg came to America, where he found employ- ment as bookkeeper for Wm. Coker & Co., who were in the pork pack- ing business. From 1870 to 1873 he held a similar position with A. Anthony. The following two years- he was connected with Nya Verl- dcn, a paper owned by Andrew Chaiser. In 1875 he received a po- sition as bookkeeper with F. A. Anderson & Co., and A. Armour & Co., remaining with the firm till 406 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS 1877, when he secured the position which he still holds with the Blotn- gren Bros. & Co. At the incorpo- ration of the firm in 1890 he was elected secretary and treasurer. Mr. Soderberg, who is independ- ent in politics and religion, is a JOHN SODERBERG. member of the Royal Arcanum and Odd Fellows. In February, 1880, he was married to Miss Beda Mari- ana Akergren from Kopparberg, Sweden. They have no children. GOTTFRED NELSON, pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church of Chicago, was born near Knoxville, 111., July 8, 1875. His parents, Andrew Nelson and his wife, Emma Jonsdotter, moved to Kansas in 1878, where the young future minister was raised. At the age of four and a half years he lost his mother by death. After graduating from the public school, he entered Bethany College, Linds- borg, Kans., graduating from that seat of learning in May, 1898, when he received the degree of A. B. Dur- ing his school years he served as preacher in Jamestown, Falconer and Frewsburg, N. Y. He was also pastor of the First Lutheran Church of Kansas City, Mo., one year. GOTTFRED NELSON. In 1899 he took up a course of theology in the Augustana Theo- logical Seminary at Rock Island. The following year he spent at the Lutheran Seminary of Chicago, and continued for one year at Augustana Theological Seminary, graduating in 1902 with the degree of B. D. In the same year he was elected pastor of the Bethesda Lutheran Church in Chicago, and in October the following year he received a call to the Trinity Church in Lake View, Chicago. This large and important congregation has more than doubled its membership during Rev. Nelson's ministry, hav- ing in all about 1,200 members. This active and successful min- ister has been elected to several im- portant positions outside of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 407 local church. He is a director in the Board of his Alma M,ater in Rock Island ; in the Board of the Luther- an Inner Mission Society of Chi- cago, and in the Swedish Historical Society of America he holds the same position, besides being a mem- ber of the Board of Augustana Hospital in Chicago. On July 6, 1904, Rev. Nelson was united in marriage to Miss Anna Almquist of Butte, Mont., a grad- uate of Augustana College. They have three children, one daughter and two sons. ALFRED E. LINDAU, Western manager Corrugated Bar Co., was born in Hjersas, Kristi- anstad Ian, Sweden, March 15, 1874. His parents were Alexander N. Lindau and Cecilia Matson. In 1882 Mr. Lindau came to America and after obtaining his elementary education in the public schools of this country, he entered the Univer- sity of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he studied from 1896 to 1900, graduating with the degree of B. S. (M. E.). During the last two years he was assistant to Professor C. E. Greene in the department of Civil Engineering. The first year after graduation Mr. Lindau was engaged as assist- ant engineer of Michigan State Tax Commission. In 1901 he was draftsman of the C., B. & Q. Ry. Co., and in 1903 he was appointed assistant engineer of the bridge de- partment of the Rock Island Rail- way. Two years later he was en- gaged as chief engineer for the Corrugated Bar Co. with offices in St. Louis, and in 1911 he was transferred to Chicago as manager of the Western division of the Cor- rugated Bar Co. in charge of sales and engineering. During this time he has had under his direct super- vision the planning and designing of many important buildings and ALFRED E. LINDAU. structures in reinforced concrete, as well as the development of the theory and practice of concrete en- gineering, having secured patents in certain forms of floor construction, which has been used in several hun- dred buildings in the United States. Mr. Lindau is now holding this position with office address at 20 West Jackson boulevard. He is director in the American Concrete Institute and the Merrill Orchards Company. Mr. Lindau is a Republican in politics and worships in the Con- gregational church. He is a mem- ber of several professional and tech- nical societies, where he has held offices of honor and trust. As an author of miscellaneous technical papers for the American Society of 408 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Civil Engineers and for various pub- lications by the Corrugated Bar Co. he is known beyond his immediate field of labor. In 1905 Mr. Lindau was united in marriage to Miss Delia L. Brad- by, of Lebanon, 111. Two daughters have been born to them, Eleanor C. and Marjorie Jane. ADOLPH LUNDGREN, a contractor, was born April 11, 1859, in the parish of Jerbo in Dais- land, Sweden. His parents were ADOLPH LUNDGREN. Anders O. Waern and Anna Lisa Olson. He secured a position as ex- cavation master on the Dalsland Railway during its construction from 18/6 to 1878, subsequently working as assistant investigator on a proposed railroad from Wrets- torp to Askersund in 1878 and 1879. The following year he was in charge of the rebuilding of the highway and bridge over Orckils river and set out for America in the spring of 1880. The first six years in this coun- try he worked on farms, railroads, in the timber woods and as clerk in stores, thereupon starting a gro- cery firm in Lemont, 111., in part- nership with J. A. Skarin. After three years he sold out his interest in the business and secured a posi- tion as traveling salesman, which position he held for about a year. But as construction and outdoor work always appealed to him, he decided to try his hand at contract- ing. He is now secretary of the E. P. Strandberg Co. and Ander- son & Lundgren Cut Stone Co., with offices at 5010 Wabash ave- nue, Chicago. Mr. Lundgren was married to Miss Sophia C. E. Strandberg, April 25, 1891. They have two children. CHARLES J. WILSON, professor at North Park College, Chicago, was born at New Boston, 111., December 4, 1870, where his parents were farmers. After at- tending the public school in An- dover, 111., he spent a year in the academy of Augustana College, Rock Island, and graduated in 1894 from Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kans., with the degree of A. B. During the last two years at Beth- any he was assistant instructor in English. In the summer of 1896 he studied chemistry and physics in Stetson University, De Land, Florida. In 1900-01 he pursued post-graduate studies in Chicago University, having received his Master of Arts degree at Bethany College in 1898. Mr. Wilson was appointed pro- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY fessor of Latin and Natural Sci- ences at North Park College in 1896 and has been professor of Chem- istry and Natural Sciences at the same institution since 1912. In 1911-12 he was acting president of the college and has been vice presi- dent since 1912. Professor Wilson is a member of North Park Mission Church, where CHARLES J. WILSON. he holds the office of Sunday school superintendent. He was married on June 7, 1899, to Miss Jennie C. Modine, of Chi- cago. They have two children liv- ing. FRED NORLIN, surveyor and civil engineer, was born in the parish of Vagnharad, Sodermanland, Sweden, March 4, 1865. His father was an officer of the Hussar Regiment of King Carl XV. and was for some time an in- timate friend of this democratic king from which this regiment took its name. After the family had moved to Upsala young Norlin studied from 1874 to 1880 in the college of that city, where he evinced a particular aptitude for geometry and drawing. In 1881 he came to Chicago, where he entered the employ of the Pullman Car Co. and was first placed in the wood- working machine department. By reason of his excellent draw- ings, from which fine mouldings for FRED NORLIN. the cars were made, he soon rose to foreman of this department. After five years of strenuous work in the dusty shop, he found it necessary to take a vacation and went to southern Minnesota in or- der to regain his health. At the hotel he got acquainted with the county surveyor, who happened to need an assistant and immediately offered him a position. Having worked with him for some time, Mr. Norlin returned to Chicago and entered the employ of the Greeley-Howard Co., surveyors and engineers, in 1886. During the following eight years he had an excellent opportunity of perfecting 410 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS himself in this interesting profes- sion and succeeded by hard work to climb to the top of the ladder. In 1904 he left this firm and opened an office of his own for the general practice of surveying. Since that time he has surveyed and laid out hundreds of additions to Chi- cago and has planned and laid out several towns around Chicago, as well as surveyed many railway lines in this and neighboring states. In 1915 his old employers, Gree- ley-Howard Co., made him an offer to consolidate his firm with theirs, which must be considered quite an honor, in view of the fact that this firm is the oldest and best known in the West. The consolidation took place May i, and Mr. Norlin was elected vice-president and treasurer of the Greeley-Howard- Norlin Co. Mr. Norlin is a member of the Western Society of Engineers, the Illinois Society of Engineers and Surveyors, the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago and several so- cial and fraternal organizations. In 1889 he was married to Miss Doro- thea Knost, of Westphalia, Ger- many, and is the happy father of two sons and one daughter. CONRAD EMANUEL HOFFSTEN, pastor of Salem Swedish Lutheran Church of Chicago, was born at Wilkesbarre, Pa., March 26, 1876. His parents were Aaron Hoffsten. a grocer, and his wife, Sofia, nee Nordquist. When he was two years old the parents moved to Philadel- phia, where he attended the public schools and the Central High School, from which institution he was graduated in 1894. In the fall of the same year he entered the sophomore class of Augustana Col- lege, Rock Island, where he gradu- ated in 1897 with the degree of A. B. He entered the Augustana Theological Seminary in 1898, hav- ing served for a year as assistant pastor to Dr. C. A. Evald, of the CONRAD EMANUEL HOFFSTEN. Swedish Lutheran Immanuel Church of Chicago. From the sem- inary he graduated in 1901 with the highest honors, receiving the de- gree of B. D. In Jamestown, N. Y., he was ordained the same year and assumed charge of Grace English Lutheran Church of Rock Island, where he served as pastor from 1901 to 1907. In July of the same year he accepted a call to the Harlem Lutheran Church of New York, whose pastor he was till 1909, when he was elected pastor of the Salem Swedish Lutheran Church of Chicago. Rev. Hoffsten has made himself known as an eloquent speaker in LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 411 both Swedish and English as well as an effective worker in the places he has occupied. He also holds several positions of honor and trust in his church. He is a member and secretary of the Board of Charities of the Illinois Conference of the Augustana Synod, a member and financial secretary of the Chicago Inner Mission Society, member and secretary of the Committee on In- troduction of the Swedish Lan- guage in the High Schools of Chi- cago, and president of the Augus- tana Luther League of Chicago. He has translated from the Swed- ish "Jesus sade" by Rector Harald Ortenblad, published by the Eng- berg-Holmberg Publishing Co., 1915, and Hammarsten's "Dagliga Betraktelser ofver Evangelier och Hogmessotexter," published by the same firm in 1916. On May n, 1904, Rev. Hoffsten was united in marriage to Miss Anna Fidelia Evalcl, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Carl A. Evald, of Chi- cago. They have three children. GUSTAF LORENTZ SWENSON was born January 16, 1855, in the parish of Thorsby, Bohuslan, Swe- den, where his parents, Sven and Charlotta Swenson, were farmers. He received a good education and studied for several years in the col- legiate school of Goteborg. In July, 1880, he came to Chicago, where he worked as a grocery clerk for six months. Then he secured a position as clerk with the French import- ing house of Victor D. Gowan & Co. Having remained with this firm for a period of thirteen years, he ac- cepted an offer from Harrington & Goodman, Chicago, as city sales- man, giving them twelve years of faithful service. On January i, 1906, he opened i branch office in the Republic Build- ing, Chicago, for the firm William H. Lent & Co., of New York, man- ufacturers and importers of silks and tailors' trimmings, holding the GUSTAF LORENTZ SWENSON. office as Chicago and Western manager. Mr. Swenson is a Republican and member of the English Lutheran Church. For several terms he has been secretary in the Board of Di- rectors of the Swedish Club. WILLIAM EUGENE HELANDER, attorney at law, was born in Chi- cago, January 18, 1889. The par- ents are Charles Helander, a coal dealer, and his wife, Amanda An- derson. Having completed his ele- mentary education in the Parkman Grammar School and graduated 412 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS from the Englewood High School, he entered the Northwestern Uni- versity Law School, where he grad- uated, 1911, with the degree LL. B. The same year he became asso- ciated with the law firm of Scott, Bancroft & Stephens. Mr. Helander was elected an al- ternate delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago in June, 1916. WILLIAM EUGENE HELANDER. Mr. Helander is a member of Illinois Bar Association, Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity and a mem- ber of civic and political organiza- tions. He served as Vice Justice in 1908-1910 and as Justice from 1910 to 1911 of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity. ERNY HULTGREN, music critic and writer, was born in Jonkoping, Sweden, March 16, 1868. His father was one of the leading merchants of that historic city and had made himself known as a prominent singer, whose gifts, and talents were inherited by his son. Mr. Hultgren came to America at the age of twelve, but is still able to speak the language of his fathers with perfect freedom and ease. In 1886 he found emloyment in the drug store of Sandstedt & Hess on North Clark street, later with Dr. Stringfield, now house physician at the Grand Pacific Hotel. Shortly afterward he moved to Michigan and lived for some time with a tribe of Indians thirty miles north of Menominee. In 1887 he returned to Chicago, where he held various positions un- til 1902, when opportunity was given him to follow a vocation for which he has a natural calling, that of a musical critic and writer. Since then he has been an industrious con- tributor to a large number of mu- sical publications and his articles have elicited unstinted praise by authors and the public at large, even from our versatile Theodore Roosevelt in a personal letter. The Musical Enterprise of August, 1913, gives him the credit of hav- ing fired the first gun in the nation- wide crusade against "smut songs" through a lengthy article, first pub- lished in Chicago, 1912. This ar- ticle was reprinted in the Chicago Daily Nezvs and it was principally through his persistent efforts that a law was passed a year later, for- bidding the singing of such songs in public in Chicago. He is the per- sonal representative of the eminent composer, G. Crozat Converse, for the production of his symphonies and oratories, and formerly held the position as musical editor of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 413 Martin and Jeffersonian news- papers. Another improvement in the civic life of Chicago is the law which makes it compulsory for the Chicago public schools to give in- struction in swimming, of which Mr. Hultgren, according to a letter from the Superintendent of Instruc- tion in Chicago, is the father. In a contribution to one of our great ERNY HULTGREN. dailies he pointed out how import- ant it is to the health and safety of the children that they should know how to swim ; the suggestion was followed and as a result swimming tanks have been introduced in sev- eral schools. Mr. Hultgren has re- ceived assurance from the authori- ties that his plans will be carried out in all the schools as soon as tanVs can be built. 1 hese are only a few examples of the useful reforms which this man has been instrumental in bring- ing about in a simple and unosten- tatious manner. lie has composed music to many English songs, one Swedish, "Hem- landstoner," "Flowers of Spring" waltzes, "Flowers of Sweden/' a large arrangement for the Wurlitzer Automatic Organ, on the best known Swedish melodies, etc. Since 1911 Mr. Hultgren has been a department manager of The Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. music house at 329 South Wabash ave- nue. He is a member of Music Council National Union and has held the office of speaker in that organization, and is also an Honor- ary member of The Luther Bur- bank Society of Santa Ro?a, Cal., and associate member of the Palette and Chisel Club of Chi- cago. In 1900 he was united in mar- riage to Miss Josie Westman, who was born in Chicago of Swedish parentage. ROBERT ANDERSON is a native of Gustaf Adolf parish in Yestergotland, Sweden, where he was born December 11, 1870. Having completed his elementary education in the home school, he went to Jonkoping and decided to learn the painter's trade. To Amer- ica he came in the spring of 1887 and made Chicago his future home. He found employment at his trade and had the good sense of attending the free night schools, thereby qualifying himself for larger use- fulness. After three years he started a business of his own, and in 1895 formed a partnership with E. Oster- holm with the firm name of Ander- son & Osterholm. at 1 102-4 West Fiftv-ninth street. Mr. Anderson 414 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS is the president of the firm, which has done business in Chicago for twenty-five years, lately to the ex- tent of $150,000 a year. He is also the vice president of the United State Bank of Chicago and inter- ested in various other organizations. Mr. Anderson is a Republican in politics and an active member of ROBERT ANDERSON. the Swedish Mission Church in En- glewood, where he has been a trus- tee for twenty-two years and Sun- day school superintendent for twelve years. He was married to Miss Selma A. Hultzen, December 20, 1890, a union which has been blessed with two children, Sigurd and Alice. The family resides at 439 West Sixty- first place. CARL DAVID R. NYVALL, a highly talented young musician, was born at Minneapolis, August i, 1890. His father is the well- known college president and edu- cator, David Nyvall, and his mother Lovisa Skogsbergh. In his child- hood he attended the Chicago and Minneapolis public schools, and en- tered the University of Minnesota in 1909, where he remained for one year and continued his studies an- other year in the University of Washington at Seattle. Since the family returned to Chi- cago Mr. Nyvall has built up for himself an enviable reputation as a pianist, composer and music teach- er. He made his first tour as a pianist with Mr. Gustaf Holmquist and has since then appeared in con- concerts all over the country with artists who have a national reputa- tion. As a composer of music for voice, piano and violin he has been successful to a remarkable degree, and his compositions have been sung by leading artists and organi- zations. "The Nativity," a cantata, was published by Engberg-Holm- berg Publishing Co., Chicago, 1913. "Valse Tatassit" for piano was pub- lished in 1915 by G. Schirmer of New York. The following have not yet appeared in printed form, but have already been performed by artists. For violin : "Menuett," "A Song of Autumn," "A Song of Winter," "To a Rhododendron." "A Slumber Song." For voice: "Tryst," "One April Morn," "Peace," "Light," "She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways," "Jag sokte sa lange en trost for min sjal," "An Evening Song," "Bal- ders-balet" (a musical setting to Tegner's poem). For piano: "A Song," "Carita," "An Impromptu." For chorus: "O, Sing unto the Lord" (an anthem), "Hallelujah!" (a short cantata). Mr. Nyvall is now working on a LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 415 series of Swedish songs, a new piano composition, a cantata for mixed voices with "Idylle" by Goethe as the text, and a short an- them, "He was Despised and Re- jected." Mr. Nyvall is a Republican in politics and worships in the Swed- ish Covenant Church in North CARL DAVID R. NYVALL. Park, Chicago. He was married April 20, 1914, to Miss Thelma Al- len, a lineal descendant of Ethan Allen of revolutionary fame. GIDEON SHEM OHSLUND, pastor of the Bethlehem Swedish Lutheran Church in Chicago, was born in Rockford, 111., November 15, 1872, where his father, Nils Ohslund, was acting pastor. His mother was Rebecka Ohslund, nee Bengtson. After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., he served two years as principal of public schools in the State and passed his examina- tion before the State Board, receiv- ing a life certificate as teacher in the State of Minnesota. He felt, however, a strong desire to follow in the steps of his father, and after completing the prescribed course of study in the English The- ological Seminary at Chicago and at Augustana Theological Semi- nary, Rock Island, where he re- GIDEON SHEM OHSLUND. ceived the degree B. D., he was or- dained minister in the Augustana Synod in June, 1902. His first charge was at Akron, Ohio, where in five years he procured for his congregation a beautiful new church and parsonage, valued at $27,000. Owing to the urgent call of the Mission Board of the New York Conference, he accepted the mission field in Bronx, New York City, where he organized a Swedish Lutheran church with more than two hundred members after six months of hard work. On account of sickness in the family he was compelled to return to the West two years later, accept- ing the call to the Bethlehem 416 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Church, Chicago, in 1908. Here a beautiful church has been erected, as the fruit of his energetic efforts, at a cost exceeding $50,000, on which now rests only a small in- debtedness. This is the only pure Romanesque architectured church in the Augustana Synod. The Beth- lehem congregation is the oldest in Englewood and the fourth in order among the Swedish Lutheran churches in the city. Rev. Ohslund is a director in the Swedish Historical Society of America, and a member of the Ex- ecutive Board and secretary of the Chicago Lutheran Inner Mission Society. He is a Republican in pol- itics and member of the Hamilton Club. On June 24, 1902, he was united in marriage to Miss Evelina Vic- toria Eckland, of Carlton, Minn. They have two sons and reside at 5755 Fifth avenue. ALFRED A. NORTON, attorney at law, with offices at 1601 Title and Trust Building, was born in the parish of Kil, Vermland, Sweden, September 4, 1869. In 1886 he came to America and at- tended the Central High School in Minneapolis, Minn., subsequently entered the University of Minne- sota, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1897 and with that of Bachelor of Laws tw y o years later from the department of Law of the same seat of learning. For a couple of years Mr. Norton practised law in Spokane, Wash., and in 1902 he opened an office in Chicago. He has taken an active part in the support of the Swedish Old Peo- ples' Home, being president of the association in 1908 and chairman of the Board of Directors in 1910. He served also as chairman of the committee that had charge of build- ing the magnificent new home at Evanston, and is a life member of the association formed for the maintenance of said institution. He was secretary of the Swedish Home ALFRED A. NORTON. Building Association for five years and at the last annual meeting he was elected president of the as- sociation. Mr. Norton is a member of sev- eral political and fraternal organi- zations, being a member of the Hamilton Club and the Swedish- American Republican League of Illinois, whose secretary he has been for six years. At its annual convention in Princeton March 9, 1916, Mr. Norton was again re- elected secretary. He is also a member of John Ericsson Lodge, No. 361 I. O. O. F., King Oscar Lodge No. 855 LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 417 A. F. & A. M., Oriental Consistory and Medinah Temple, and served as Grand Master of King Oscar Lodge in 1913. He is not married. ROBERT E. ACKERBERG, manager Blomgren Bros. & Co., was born February 19, 1883, in Chi- cago, where his father, Alfred Ack- erberg, was a paving contractor. ROBERT E. ACKERBERG. His mother was Helena Ackerberg, nee Josephson. Having completed his public school education in the Oak Street and Franklin schools, he found employment with Blom- gren Bros. & Co., designers, en- gravers and electrotypers, where he has advanced to the position of manager. He is a member of Lincoln Park Lodge No. 6n, A. F. & A. M., and Valkyrian Lodge of the Columbian Circle. On April 4, 1908, Mr. Ackerberg was married to Miss Betty W. Shellman and has two children. The family lives at 1632 Estes ave. GORDON BERG, attorney at law, was born in Chi- cago, Sept., u, 1888. His par- ents were Andrew William Berg, a wholesale grocer, and his wife, Maria B. Brottlund, residents of Oak Park, 111. Having completed a preparatory education in the West Division High School and Lewis Institute, he studied at the Northwestern University, Evanston and Chicago in the colleges of Liberal Arts and College of Law, graduating there- from in 1911 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws (LL. B.). Dur- ing 1910 and 1911 he took post- graduate work, at the same time was associated with ex-County Judge Rinaker and G. E. Beerley. In 1912 and 1913 he was a junior member of the law firm of Wring- er & Berg, also serving as special attorney for the village of Oak Park. Since 1913 Mr. Berg has been the senior member of the firm of Berg & Thomson which later was changed to Berg & Sei fried, with offices at 1101-02 Schiller Building, 64 West Randolph st., Chicago. During 1913 he also served as attorney for the Mexican and Panamaiau Consuls in Chi- cago. Mr. Berg is a Republican in politics, member and official of the 33rd Ward Republican Club and has held the office of committee- man. He is a member of the Cuy- ler Ave. M. E. Church of Oak Park, where he was secretary of the Men's Bible Class more than four years. Mr. Berg is further identified with the professional, civic and social organizations : Chi- 418 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS cago Bar Association, Northwestern University Alumni Association, Delta Ypsilon College Fraternity and Alumni Club of Chicago, Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity and Alumni Club, Corda Fratres, Delta Phi Chi honorary inter-fraternity ; served as Justice of Fuller Chap- ter of Phi Alpha Delta legal fra- ternity, member of Central Lodge No. 42, I. O. S., of which lodge he GORDON BERG. is vice-grand master, president of the Board of Trustees and editor of the Booster Magazine, member of King Oscar Lodge No. 855, A. F. & A. M., Golden Rod Council No. 1161 National Union, City Club and Austin Athletic Associa- tion, and member Carl von Linne 25th Anniversary Committee. In 1915 he served as president of the 1915 class of Master Masons of King Oscar Lodge. Mr. Berg's marriage on Nov. 26, 1913, to Miss Lietta E. Reed of Chicago, a former student and friend at Northwest- ern University, ended a college ro- mance of long standing. He is now practicing law at 1002, 19 S. La Salle st., and resides at 818 N. Waller ave., Austin, Chicago. JOHN E. HILLBERG was born in Malmkoping, Sweden, December 9, 1873. His father, John Hellberg, was one of the early Methodist ministers in Swe- den, having spent some time as an evangelist in England. His mother, Emma Hellberg, nee Molin, was a school teacher in Stockholm before her marriage. His early training he received in the public schools of Goteborg and Stockholm, and continued his studies for some years in Sodra Latinlaroverket in the latter city. Then he became a bookkeeper in Bolinder's Iron Works, remaining with this company over three years. At the same time he took a two years' course in the Royal Tech- nological Institute of Stockholm. Arriving in America, July 4, 1892, he went to Worcester, Mass., and entered the Swedish Theological Seminary at Evanston the follow- ing year, graduating in 1895. From 1895 to 1899 he was pas- tor of the Methodist churches in Mount Vernon and Yonkers, N. Y., from 1899 to 1902 in Bridgeport^ Conn., and in the winter of 1901-02 he made a journey lasting four months through Europe, Africa, Asia Minor and the Holy Land. On his return home he wrote a book entitled "Bilder fran Bibellander" (Pictures from Bible Lands) ,. which has appeared in three edi- tions and is now out of print. Rev. Hillberg was called to the historic Immanuel Church in Brooklyn in- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 419 1902, at that time the largest con- gregation in his denomination, where he had a successful pastoral term of four and a half years' duration. In 1906 he accepted a call to be- come instructor in the Swedish Theological Seminary at Evanston, which position he held until 1911, when he succeeded Dr. Wm. Hen- schen as editor of Sandebudet, the JOHN E. HILLBERG. official organ of Swedish Method- ism in America and the second old- est Swedish newspaper in this coun- try, being now in its fifty-fifth year. Professor Hillberg has also pub- lished two other books, entitled "Jag maste ock se Rom" (I must also see Rome) and "Nar ljuset brot fram" (When the Light broke forth), both out of print. For the last sixteen years he has been edit- ing "Vinter-Rosor," an annual lit- erary calendar. From 1898 to 1902 he published a semi-monthly paper, Ungdomsv'dnnen, for the young people of his denomination. As a public speaker and lecturer Professor Hillberg has become widely known in Chicago and throughout the United States. Dur- ing the last five years he has been on the Chicago Daily News staff of lec- turers, having filled engagements in every part of the city. He is also one of the directors and organizers of the Swedish Choral Club and a director in the Swedish M. E. Book Concern. On June 7, 1897, he was married to Miss Hannah Lundgren. They reside at 715 Monticello avenue, Evanston. GUSTAV ALBIN YOUNG- STROM, minister of the gospel, was born in the Gustaf Adolf parish, Vestergot- land, Sweden, July 8, 1884. His father was a farmer and carpenter by the name of Johan J chanson, and his mother Katarina Johanson. His elementary schooling was re- ceived in the Simonstorp public school, and he worked for a few years in a factory and on a farm. In 1902 he landed in America, mak- ing Minneapolis his first home. Here he found employment in a factory for three years, studying and doing religious work during his spare time. As he felt a strong call to the ministry he came to Chicago and entered the North Park College in 1905, where he graduated from the Theological department with the class of 1908. During his first va- cation he supplied the Mission Church in Florence and Common- wealth, Wis., and during the last two years at school he was pastor 420 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of the Swedish Immanuel Church at Elgin, 111. After graduation he was for one year a missionary in the far West, with the states of Montana and Idaho for a mission field. In 1910-11 he had charge of the Scandinavian Evangelical Church of Helena, Mont., when he received a call to the Irving Park Swedish Mission Church, Chicago, where he still is pastor. GUSTAV ALBIN YOUNGSTROM. Rev. Youngstrom was married in June, 1910, to Miss Anna Mathilda Peterson from Sveg, Harjedalen, Sweden. ARVID N. SORLIN, minister of the Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, was born near Hernosand, Sweden, March 31, 1861. His father, a pioneer Meth- odist preacher and singer, was one of the first leaders of that denomi- nation in Sweden, but moved to America in October, 1874, and died in Boston, Mass., in 1888, having served as pastor in several churches in the East and in Chicago and vicinity. Mr. Sorlin thus had opportunity to finish his public school education in New York and Chicago. After some years devoted to a business career he decided to prepare him- self for the ministry, and after com- pleting the prescribed course in the Swedish Theological Seminary at Evanston, he graduated from that institution in 1896. Prior to his entering the semi- nary Mr. Sorlin had performed pastoral work as a local preacher. He was ordained deacon in 1892 and elder in 1897 and has served the following churches : Lindsborg, Kan., 1891-93; Englewood, Chi- cago, 1893-94; Ravenswood, Chi- cago, 1894-96; Moreland, Chicago, 1896-98; Rockford, 111., 1898-99; He was afterwards appointed dis;- trict superintendent of Galesburg district with official residence in Galva, 111., where he remained six years from 1899 to 1905. His next pastorate was in the Union Avenue Church 1905-08 and Elim in Lake View, Chicago, from 1908 to 1913. After a year's service as conference evangelist, he was elected manager of the Swedish M. E. Book Con- cern. Owing to his ability and sound judgment Rev. Sorlin has held many positions of trust and honor among his brethren. In the Gen- eral Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held in Los An- geles, Cal., in May, 1904, he was the representative of the Central Swedish Conference. In 1901 he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the Swedish Theo- logical Seminary and is since 1905 LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY the secretary of that institution as well as trustee, treasurer and man- ager of the Swedish M. E. Book Concern at 351 W. Oak street, Chicago. He was married March 15, 1882, to Miss Hannah Wilhelmina Erick- son, the daughter of John W. and Maria Erickson, of Oakland, Nebr. ARVID N. SORLIN. A son, Oswald D. M., was born to Mr. and Mrs. Sorlin in 1883 and a daughter, Mrs. Margaret N. Reg- nell, in 1893. GEORGE E. Q. JOHNSON, attorney at law, was born on a farm near Harcourt, Iowa, July n, 1874. His parents, John Johnson and his wife, Mathilda Johnson, nee Lin- derholm, were among the pioneers of that prosperous Swedish settle- ment. Having received his elemen- tary training in the public school of the neighborhood, Mr. Johnson worked on the farm until he was nineteen years of age, when he en- tered the Tobin College at Fort Dodge, graduating from there in 1897. After his graduation he came to Chicago and entered the law de- partment of Lake Forest Univer- sity, graduating in 1900 with the de- gree of LL. B. He began practic- ing law in June the same year, and in February, 1905, he became a GEORGE E. Q. JOHNSON. member of the law firm of Johnson & Molthrop. In 1912 another member was added to the firm, which now is known as Smietanka, Johnson & Molthrop, with offices at 610-616 Title and Trust Build- ing, 69 W. Washington street, Chi- cago, where he has had a constant- ly growing practice. Mr. Johnson is a Republican in politics and has taken an active part in the campaigns of his party. In 1911 he was the league orator for the Swedish-American League at its convention in Bloomington, 111. He has been the vice-president of the Swedish National Association for one year and was elected presi- dent of this organization in 1907. 422 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS In 1914 he was a candidate for judge, but was defeated with the other candidates of his party, due to the strength of the Progressive party. He is a member of several fraternities, of the Hamilton Club and of the Swedish Club. Mr. Johnson was married Sep- tember 8, 1906, to Miss Elizabeth M. Swanstrom, a native of Linds- borg, Kan., and graduate of the Columbia College of Expression. Their home is at 519 E. 6oth st., Chicago. KNUT BERNHARD EK was born in the city of Malmo, Sweden, November 27, 1883, where his father was a merchant. He re- ceived his early education in the high school of his native city and subsequently continued his studies at the University of Lund, receiv- ing the degree of M. A. in 1906. In February the following year he was engaged on the editorial staff of Malm'6-Tidningen; from 1907 to 1909 he held the same posi- tion on Skanska Aftonbladet and from 1909 to 1912 he was connected with Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snall- postcn. In 1913-14 he pursued various studies at the University of Lund and emigrated to America in March, 1914. He worked in sev- eral places in Chicago and Belvi- dere, 111., until February, 1915, when he found the kind of work for which he had prepared himself ; he became a member of the edi- torial family of Svcnska Tribunen- Nyhctcr in Chicago. Mr. Ek was the secretary of the Antiquarian Society of Malmo from 1908 to 1912 and was a mem- ber of the Swedish Journalistic So- ciety 1907-14. While a student at Lund he was awarded a Royal sti- pend for scholastic merits and. was also honored with the election as a representative of Malmo "nation" KNUT BERNHARD EK. in the Supreme Council of the student body of the University of Lund. EMIL O. ENGSTROM was born in Chicago, June I, 1890. He is the son of N. J. Engstrom, a contractor, and his wife Bessie Engstrom. Having studied in the Chicago public schools, the Murray Tuley High School, the Metropoli- tan Business College and the North- western University School of Com- merce, he secured a position in 1906 as stenographer with Fritz von Frantzius & Co., the well known stock and bond firm. In 1908 he left this position to travel as salesman for another large firm, Merrill, Cox & Co. Three years LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 423 later he returned to Fritz von Frantzius & Co. and became man- ager of the firm, a situation he held until June i, 1915, when he went into the advertising and lobby dis- play business under the name of Hamburg, Engstrom & Co., with EMIL O. ENGSTROM. offices in 308 Mailers Building, Chi- cago. On December 8, 1914, he was united in marriage to Miss Harriet Hodel of Chicago. They reside at 2754 N. Troy street. A. ALFRED HOLMES, organist, pianist and teacher of music, was born in the parish of Marback, Smaland, Sweden, where his father, Carl Holm, was a car- penter. At the age of seven years he came with his parents to Chi- cago, where he was educated in the public and Swedish parochial schools. As he showed unusual talent for music in his boyhood, he received an excellent musical education from the age of twelve and for seventeen years he studied uninterruptedly under various teachers, as Alfred Alander, J. F. Ring, C. H. Wood, A. E. Fox, and Calvin B. Cady. For many years Professor Holmes has been prominently be- A. ALFRED HOLMES. fore the public as organist, choris- ter and orchestral director. From 1890 to 1892 he was teacher of music at Augustana Conservatory of Music in Rock Island, 111., and continued to give private instruc- tion in Rock Island and Moline un- til 1896, having among his pupils members of the most prominent families of those cities. For two years he was a member of the com- mittee on convocation of church musicians of the Lutheran Church. He has served as organist of the Gethsemane Swedish Lutheran Church for a period of twenty- four years, part of the time also acting as choir director. In 1905 Professor Holmes was elected or- ganist and choir director of the ] mmanuel Swedish Lutheran 424 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS church, where he also holds the office of deacon. Beside his many musical activities he has given his time to the Sunday school work in the churches where he has been a member, and in 1902 he was elected a member of the Cook County Sunday School Association May Festival Committee. Eight years ago he accepted the position as teacher of piano, organ, har- mony and composition in the Men- delssohn Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he also is orches- tra conductor. Professor Holmes is director and secretary of the American Double Lens Glass Co. and a member of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives at 5938 Dakin st., and has his studio on the eighth floor of the McClurg Building. N. HJALMAR HULTIN is a native of Onsala, Halland, Sweden, where he was born Sep- tember 4, 1869. The parents were Peter Anton Hultin, a sailor, and his wife, Anna Carolina Anderson. Having emigrated to America with his parents in 1872, he received his common school education in Chi- cago. In 1891 he worked for Gustaf Segersten in the undertaking busi- ness and entered partnership with Mr. Segersten in 1896, which po- sition he held for five years. The last fifteen years he has conducted an undertaking establishment at 3176 North Clark street. Mr. Hultin served as supervisor of Lake View for two terms, 1897-98, hav- ing been elected on the Republican ticket. He is a member of several fra- ternal organizations, was one of the directors of the Old People's Home at Evanston, 1910-11, and belongs to the Trinity Swedish Lutheran N. HJALMAR HULTIN. Church. June 28, 1899, ne was married to Miss Ella Nelson. They have no children. SIMON PETRUS ENGLUND, clergyman and editor, was born in Karlshamn, Blekinge, Sweden, Jan. 9, 1883. His father was Karl J. Englund, a clergyman in the Meth- odist Church, and his mother Julia Ramstedt. Mr. Englund received his education in the collegiate school of Karlskrona, and after his arrival in America he felt the call to enter the ministry of the church in which he was reared. Having served as pastor for some time in the con- gregation at Braddock, Pa., he came to Evanston, 111., where he com- pleted his studies in the Swedish Theological Seminary. He has also been pastor of the Swedish Meth- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 425 odist churches in St. Charles and Melrose Park, 111. At present he is associate editor of Sandebudct, the official organ of Swedish Methodism in America, SIMON PETRUS ENGLUND. and editor of the Sunday school publications of the same church. Mr. Englund is a noted speaker and often heard outside of his de- nomination. JOSEPH SANDAHL, physician and surgeon, was born February 13, 1858, in the province of Dalarna, Sweden, and is a lineal descendant from an old ministerial family in Vestergotland. His father, Mr. Lars J. Sandahl, was one of the most noted lay preachers belonging to the Evangelical Na- tional Association (Evangeliskp Fosterlandsstiftelsen), who, owing to great natural gifts, supplemented with no small degree of learning, was permitted to officiate in the Established Church of Sweden. Several of Dr. Sandahl's brothers are working under the auspices of the National Association. The subject of this sketch began his career as a business man, but finding a business man's life un- JOSEPH SANDAHL. congenial with his idealistic nature, he desired to take up the profes- sion of medicine. Thirty years ago he came to Chicago and was en- gaged in business, all the time wish- ing to realize the dreams of his youth. But it was no easy matter for a newcomer with a family to care for to obtain a medical edu- cation. His perseverance and am- bition conquered all obstacles, how- ever, and he was able to look after his business interests while he at- tended college, receiving his doc- tor's degree in 1906, on the hun- dredth anniversary of his father's birth. Dr. Sandahl has since then been engaged in his practice at 3350 Seminary ave., with steadily grow- ing number of patients seeking his aid. He has been married twice ; first 426 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS to Miss Emilia M. Dretman, who gave him one son, now a prominent business man in Canada. Thirty- one years ago he was married to Miss Maria C. Anderson, who has given him encouragement and help in his industrious career. Four children are the fruit of this union. The eldest son, Dr. Abel P. M. Sandahl, is a successful physician and surgeon ; the youngest son, Amos, is completing his high school course ; the eldest daughter, Ruth, is an accomplished singer, also studying medicine, and the young- est daughter, Esther, is preparing herself for the musical profession. ERIK GUSTAF WESTMAN, managing editor of Svenska Kuri- rcn, was born July 30, 1874, in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the son of Gustaf Th. Westman, a printer, and his wife, nee Sjogren. Mr. Westman received his elementary training in a private school and matriculated as a student, 1883, in Stockholm's Hogre Reallaroverk, where he pursued his studies until 1891, when he found employment on the Svenska Dagbladet, one of the leading dailies of the Swedish capital. Having served in various capacities on this paper, he was, at the age of twenty-three, ap- pointed accountant for the paper. The same year he was appointed editor of the official program of the Stockholm Exposition, which was published daily in the form of a newspaper. In this position he put into effect a new system of dis- tributing the newspapers during the summer months, and originated for his paper, Svenska Dagbladet, the system which afterward was adopted by the Swedish Telegraph Bureau and which still is known as the Distribution Department of that bureau. In 1899 he started an advertising paper in Stockholm, but was forced to desist from this enterprise owing to his position with the Svenska Dagbladet. This caused him con- siderable financial embarrassment ERIK GUSTAF WESTMAN. in the summer of 1900. Discour- aged on account of these difficul- ties, he decided to turn his back on the old fatherland, left Stockholm in December, 1901, and landed in New York on January 17 the fol- lowing year. In June he reached the Swedish-American headquar- ters Chicago. Through the agency of a friend, Mr. Max Hedman, who was general superintendent of the Stromberg & Carlson Telephone Company, he found em- ployment with this firm, and though it could hardly be described as congenial for a trained newspa- per man, it was a great advance- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY merit upon what he had had before. Owing to a vacancy that had oc- curred on the editorial staff of Svenska Kuriren, he became as- sistant editor of that paper in 1903, and he remained in this position until 1908, when he was elected editor of Rockford-Postcn. In the fall of 1909 he became city editor of Hemlandct, and in 1910 he ob- tained a similar position with Svenska Tribunen-Nyhctcr, where he remained for one year, until he was appointed editor of Linds- borgs-Posten, in Lindsborg, Kansas. In April, 1913, he re-entered the employ of Hemlandct as city ed- itor; was promoted to associate editor within a few months and was finally the last editor of this noted weekly until it was absorbed by Svenska Amerikanaren in Sep- tember, 1914. His present position as managing editor of Svenska Kuriren he has held since Novem- ber, 1914. January I, 1916, Mr. Westman was united in marriage to Miss Jenny H. Dahl. CHARLES T. GREEN, contractor and builder, was born at Vireda parish of Jonkopings Ian, Sweden, August 21, 1860. His par- ents were Sven Adolph Green and Ulla Charlotta Green, nee Carlson. After having completed his public school course, he attended a private school for three years and spent two more vears in school at Jon- koping. Then he decided to go to America in April 1881, selecting Chicago as his permanent home. Here he worked in several places, -and in March, 1896, he started a contracting firm with a partner un- der the name of Green & Carlson, at 133 W. Washington street, where the firm is still located. Mr. Green has been president of the Carpenter Contractors' Associa- tion of Chicago and is at present a director in the same organization. He has been a director in the Swed- ish Club for several years. He is a Republican in politics. Mr. CHARLES T. GREEN. Green is a 32nd degree Mason and an Odd Fellow. On April 26, 1902, he was united in marriage to Miss Signe Katrina Carlson, born in Motala, Sweden. Their home is at 855 Massasoit avenue, Austin. PEHR P. NEWBORG x is a dealer in real estate and insur- ance, with business office in the Chamber of Commerce. He is a native of the parish of Gunnarskog, Vermland, Sweden, where he was born May 2, 1848. He is the son of Pehr Olson, a farmer and dealer 1 Deceased July 30, 1916. 428 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in timber, and his wife, Marie Ol- son, nee Anderson. Having re- ceived a good education in the home school he worked in various places and was engaged in business for himself until he left Sweden in May, 1886, and came to America. After his arrival in this country he found employment as insurance so- licitor for different companies un- til he opened an office of his own. PEHR P. NEWBORG. Mr. Newborg is a Republican in politics and a member of the Lu- theran church. He was married in 1869 to Miss Martha Elofson, of Gunnarskog, Sweden, and has had two sons. The younger died in 1910, and the older one, Anders Newborg, is living in Sweden. CARL AXEL LINDVALL, pastor of the Zion Swedish Lu- theran Church, of Chicago, was born in Kila, Vermland, Sweden, De- cember 26, 1868. He is descended from a noted family of clergymen among whom are counted such fa- mous men as Tegner, Geijer and the present bishop of the diocese of Vesteras, Nils Lovgren. His father was a farmer, but worked occasionally as lay preacher in the neighborhood. In his younger days Rev. Lindvall attended school in Amal, and the collegiate institute of Karlstad. He soon lost his father and was then compelled to support himself. At the age of sixteen he went to Germany, but remained there only for a short time, and in 1886 he landed in this country. He found employment in the railroad shops at Grand Rapids, Mich., where he joined the Swedish Lutheran Church. In order to prepare him- self for the ministry, which was his chief ambition, he entered the Au- gustana College in 1892, but owing to financial distress, he was com- pelled to give up his studies several times and work his way either as assistant pastor or teacher in vari- ous congregations. In 1898 he was graduated with the A.B. degree from the college, and in the spring of 1902 he received his B. D. from the seminary. After ordination in Ishpeming the same year, he ac- cepted the call to the Swedish Lu- theran Church in Marshalltown, la. In the Iowa Conference he soon became a noted figure, filling several posts of honor and trust. For some years he was the secre- tary of his conference, member of the executive and mission commit- tees, and chairman of the mission district. Rev. Lindvall was pastor for some time in Bloomington, 111., when he received and accepted the call to the Swedish Lutheran Zion LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 429 Church in Chicago, in 1909. In 1903 he made an extended journey through the principal countries of Europe, visiting Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Bel- gium, Switzerland, and the Scan- dinavian countries. But Rev. Lindvall is not only known as an eloquent preacher and faithful pastor; he has also found time to cultivate his literary talent. CARL AXEL LINDVALL. Some years ago he edited the "Old Minutes of the Iowa Conference" from the beginning to the present, and in 1911 and 1912 he was as- sistant editor of "Korsbaneret," a religious calendar. He has been an industrious contributor to vari- ous papers, and edits at present a church paper, Zions Biidbiirare, devoted to the interests of his con- gregation. He is one of the co- laborers in "Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon," published by Albert Bon- nier in Stockholm, and a contribu- tor to Ungdoms-V'dnnen, Rock- Island, 111. Since his coming to Chicago he has been president and secretary of the W. Chicago District of the Illi- nois Conference of the Augustana Synod, and secretary of the Minis- terial Association of Chicago. Dur- ing the last four years he has been secretary of the executive board of the Illinois Conference, and president of the Chicago Inner Mission Society. Rev. Lindvall holds membership in the Geographical Society of America, the Society for Advance- ment of Scandinavian Study, the Swedish Historical Society of America, where he has been di- rector for two terms, and is now its president. It may also be men- tioned that he is an honorary mem- ber of Svenska Yitterhetssiillska- pet and Augustana Foreign Mis- sionary Society, both of Rock Island. SVEN SVENSSON, ladies' tailor, was born in- the parish of Visseltofta, Kristianstads Ian, Sweden, January 25, 1847. He learned the tailor's trade in Lund and in 1872 he opened a tailor shop in Hamburg, Germany. Having sold his establishment there in 1891, Mr. Svensson came to Chicago the same year and worked in 1893 for a ladies' tailor, when he started in business for him- self at Wells st. and Lincoln Park. He remained in this locality for eight years and subsequently moved down town, where he rented three rooms in the Republic Building and is still conducting one of the finest ladies' tailoring firms in Chicago. From a poor Swedish farmer boy he has worked himself up, until he 430 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS is now a prosperous business man and owner of considerable property in various states. He has just late- ly had an apartment building erect- ed at N. Clark and Byron streets at an approximate cost of $50,000. SVEN SVENSSON, Mr. Svensson is a member of sev- eral fraternal organizations and is a trustee in Bethany Evangelical Church. He was married in Ham- burg, Germany, December 31, 1888, to Miss Bertha Marie Schmalstadt. They have had five children. FREDERICK CORNELIUS DE LANG has a more romantic and fascinat- ing family history than it has been our privilege to record for a long time. It is not often we find among the immigrants from the old world to the new persons who are lineal descendants from a reigning dynasty, but Mr. De Lang can point to a real princess as his great- grandmother and his great-great- grandmother was Queen Louisa Ulrica, a sister of Friedrich II. of Prussia, who was married to King Adolph Fredrik of Sweden. Her daughter, Princess Sophia Alber- tina, and sister of Gustavus III, was the favorite child of Louisa Ulrica. She was a gentle and amia- ble daughter and loved by all who came in contact with her. Many princely suitors sought her hand, but she refused them all and said that she would rather lose her rank than marry a man she could not love. Her great sorrow was the rigid refusal of her brother to consent to her marriage to the man she loved, Peter Friedrich Ludwig, a young duke of Holstein. But in spite of her brother's opposition, she entered a morganatic alliance with him. Their child, born 1792, was christened Benedicta Udd. Just as Princess Sophia Albertina after her marriage had led a quiet, uneventful life, so Benedicta Udd had no connection whatever with the new court. She was married to Charles Gustav Engstrom of Stock- holm and had two sons and one daughter, Mrs. De Lang, the moth- er of the subject of this sketch. She left a comfortable home in Stockholm and all the luxuries the young society ladies were accus- tomed to for poverty and hard- ships in a new land. Her hand was sought by one Anton Cornelius De Lang, the son of a French army officer, who had been in Napoleon's army and finally settled in Stock- holm. Young Anton , always in search of adventure, had run away to sea and joined the U. S. navy in 1846. He served through the Mex- ican War and later crossed Pan- ama on foot together with C. M. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY Lindgren, the father of Mr. John R. Lindgren, who together with Mr. Helge A. Haugan founded the State Bank of Chicago. Finally he returned to Sweden. There he be- came acquainted with Miss Eng- strom and persuaded her to leave all the musty old world things for a new life in America. They crossed the Atlantic in a sailing ves- sel in 1852 and it took six weeks to cross the ocean in those days. At first the young couple settled in Albany, N. Y., and it was here Frederick Cornelius De Lang was born, December 6, 1854. Three years later the family moved to Chicago and for fifty-six years Mrs. De Lang lived on the corner of Oak and Sedgwick streets. During the Civil War her husband served with distinction on the side of the Union. During these days the little gentlewoman struggled hard against bitter odds in her efforts single-handed to care for her children, when everything was bought at war prices. This heroic woman died in Chicago March 27, 1914, in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Charlotte De Lang Hamilton. Young Mr. De Lang was edu- cated in the public schools of Chi- cago and Rush Medical College. He did not take up the practice of medicine, however, but entered a manufacturing firm in 1873, known as Keen & De Lang, manufactur- ing stationers, at 122 Lake street. The new firm followed the Chicago Board of Trade to their new quar- ters in the heart of the financial center in 1884. Mr. Keen died in 1901 and the name of the firm was changed to De Lang, Coles & Co . which is now conducting a commer- cial stationery business at their present retail store, Nos. 309 and 311 La Salle street. It is a model of neatness and order, a complete line of blank books and office sup- plies being carried. Their manu- facturing departments are at No. 416 South Dearborn street, con- nected by private telephones, which gives the present establishment fa- FREDERICK CORNELIUS DE LANG. cilities excelled by no other station- ery house in Chicago. Mr. De Lang has for a number of years been an active and ardent worker in the Republican party. He was elected twice, 1880 and 1882, to the Senate of the General Assembly of Illinois, where he served with credit and received the commendation of his constituents. Prominent among many things in his legislative career, he introduced and secured enactment of the State Dental Laws which resulted in the establishment of the Board of Den- tal Examiners as it is today. Sen- ator De Lang organized the new 432 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Republican Club for the Twenty- fifth Ward and was the first secre- tary, procured its charter, organ- ized and completed one of the finest political organizations in this dis- trict. In September, 1910, he was running a rather vigorous cam- paign as Republican candidate for the nomination for congressman for the tenth district, making his claim on the basis that there are too many lawyers and too few busi- ness men in Congress. Since Mr. De Lang and family moved to Glencoe, where they oc- cupy a beautiful residence, they have been members in the Union Congregational Church of that choice suburb of Chicago. Here he has held the position of trustee for eight years. He is also a mem- ber of several lodges of the Free Mason fraternity, where he is a Mason of the 32nd degree. Mr. De Lang was married in 1882 to Miss Serene Lawson, who came with her parents to Chicago at the age of one year. They have three children, Jessie, -Blanchard and Ethel. ABRAHAM LUND, general contractor, with office in 19 La Salle St., was born in the parish of Tanum, Bohuslan, Sweden, De- cember 27, 1844. His father was Gustaf Lund, a mason, and his wife, Anna Brita Anderson. Mr. Lund came to America in 1872, and in 1877 he began doing mason work as contractor in Chicago, in a small way. Since then the busi- ness has grown by degrees into one where he is doing masonry, rein- forced concrete and carpentry work, or general contracting, both in Chicago and outside of the city. At present the Abraham Lund Co., of which he is president, is engaged in erecting a new large office build- ing for the Methodist Book Con- cern, corner of Rush and Superior streets. Mr. Lund has for many years been an honored and trusted mem- ber of the Second Swedish Methocl- ABRAHAM LUND. ist Church, on May street, which has now moved to Irving Park, where he holds the office of trus- tee. He is also trustee of the Beth- any Swedish Old People's Home, in Ravenswood, Chicago. Married to Miss Mary Evanson, a native of Norway, October 4, 1873. He has six children. CARL A. ALZEN, fire protection engineer, of 160 \Yest Jackson boulevard, Chicago, was born August 7, 1853, in Stock- hold, Sweden, where he received a good education. Unlike many of LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY his compatriots, he came to Amer- ica as a first-class passenger, and holds his steamship ticket still as a souvenir. For seven years he was draftsman for the C, B. & Q. R. R. Co. In 1892 he passed civil service examination and received perma- nent appointment in the custcms branch of the U. S. Treasury De- partment, but left the government service after one year. He then CARL A. ALZEN. became inspector of steel-con- structed buildings for the Chicago Board of Underwriters, and since 1896 he has been fire protection en- gineer for the Royal Fire Insur- ance Co., Limited, of Liverpool, England, for its Western Depart- ment in Chicago, which position he still is holding. Mr. Alzen is the father of the science of fire protection engi- neering. His activities in this di- rection convinced a number of prominent men of the desirability of having especially trained men for this branch, and they succeeded in getting the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago to establish a full four-year course. Since then the Cornell University has also established a chair for the same science. Mr. Alzen is a member of the British Fire Prevention Committee of London, he is also a member of the Fire Underwriters Association of the Northwest, is a member of the National Fire Protection Asso- ciation of Boston, of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago and of the Swedish Club of Chicago. JACOB A. SUNDBERG, manufacturer, was born February 27, 1862, at Sorfors Works in the parish of Attmar, Medelpad, Swe- den. His father, Erik Sundberg, was a blacksmith at the iron works and his mother's name was Sigrid Katharina. He came to America in July, 1882, and was employed by various firms in Chicago as a blacksmith and machinist until 1888, when he started in the forging business .with J. Charbonneau un- der the name of Charbonneau & Sundberg. This partnership was dissolved in 1890. The following year he reorgan- ized the enterprise in his own name. This firm is now incorpo- rated and known as the Sundberg Company, with a factory at Kinzie and Carpenter streets. This com- pany, of which Mr. Sundberg is the president and manager, is man- ufacturing forgings in steel and iron for all kinds of machinery, and crank shafts for engines. The forged steel boilers and tank flanges were invented and designed by Mr. Sundberg over twenty years ago. 434 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS The flanges are used for boilers and tanks or general pipe work, for high and low pressure as well as marine work. Mr. Sundberg is a member and trustee of the Swedish Mission Church in Moreland and is also a member of the Apollo Council of the National Union. JACOB A. SUXDBERG. He was married May I, 1884, to Miss Anna Louisa Gustafson, a native of Vermland. They have had eight children, six of whom are now living. CHARLES GUSTAF BRUNELL was born in Eskilstuna, Sweden, March i, 1875. His father, A. G. Brunell, was an employee of the railroad through his native city. Having completed his grammar school education, Mr. Brunell left his fatherland and came to Chicago in August, 1890, and attended night schools in Englewood while he was working for a laundry com- pany in the daytime. In 1895 he bought a half interest in the laundry company and ten years later he became the sole own- er of the Elite Laundry, with office at 219 East Thirty-fifth street. He is a member of the Chicago Laun- drymen's Club and Association. A Republican in politics and member of the Bethlehem Swedish CHARLES GUSTAF BRUNELL. Lutheran Church, where he is a deacon, Mr. Brunell has taken act- ive interest in those movements which stand for a better and cleaner community. He was united in marriage Feb- ruary n, 1896, to Miss Edla Caro- lina Larson, who was born in Ju- lita, Sodermanland. They have four children, and the family re- sides at 319 Englewood avenue. OSCAR F. JOHNSON, real estate dealer, was born August 21, 1878, in the parish of Bred- sattra, Oland, Sweden, where his parents were farmers. He received his early training in the country LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 435 school near his home, and in 1896 he emigrated to America. He found employment in iron mines at Montreal, where he remained for three years. In 1900 he made a trip to Swe- den and after he returned he set- tled in Chicago. Here he took up carpenter work and soon thereafter began to contract for buildings. In this trade he has been very success- OSCAR F. JOHNSON. ful and has erected two hundred buildings, principally in Austin and Oak Park. His latest apartment building, called Park Apartments, contains thirty flats, and he is now erecting another thirty-apartment building in Austin. Mr. Johnson is in partnership with his brother, George R., in the real estate and contracting busi- ness with offices at 5958 Lake street. He is also director in the Austin National Bank, and holds membership in the societies of Free Masons and Odd Fellows. He was united in marriage to Miss Annie T. Nelson, who is also a native of Oland, May 21, 1908. They have one son, Nels Oscar Fredrick, born December 28, 1914. The family lives at 358 North Park avenue, River Forest. EDWARD VON TOLL, physician and surgeon, was born in Malmohus Ian, Sweden, May 20, 1868. His father was Oswald von Toll, a general in the Swedish Army and member of the Swedish parlia- ment. The mother's name was Ma- thilde Ouchterlony. Having com- pleted his grammar and high school courses in his native land, he began to prepare for a military career and entered a military academy. But finding that a soldier's life was not to his liking, he left his fatherland and arrived in America 1890. He took a course in the Normal School of Gymnastics in Boston, Mass. Subsequently Dr. von Toll entered the Medical Department of the University of St. Louis, Mo. Aft- erwards he studied medicine in the University of Vienna, Austria, and after his return to Chicago he did post-graduate work in the Poly- clinic Graduate School. He re- ceived his M. D. degree from St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons. After his graduation he has served as assistant physician at the Lake Geneva Sanatorium, and from 1907 to 1912 he held the same po- sition in surgery at the Chicago Polyclinic School and in the Med- ical Department of Chicago Uni- versity. At present he is medical examiner of the Order of Vikings, the Ladies of Vikings and the Vest- gota Gille. 436 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Dr. von Toll is a member of Chi- cago Medical Fraternity, Illinois State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He also holds membership in the Swe- dish Club. In 1906 Dr. von Toll was united in marriage to Miss Bertha Hagen, who was born in Germany, and one daughter has been born to them. EDWARD VON TOLL. The doctor's office is at 915 Bel- mont avenue, and the family re- sides at 534 Aldine avenue. BROR OSCAR LARSON was born March 12, 1867, in Norr- koping, Sweden. His parents were Pehr Magnus and Hedvig Char- lotta Larson. Having attended ele- mentary and technical schools in his native city, he became a bookkeep- er, first on TynnelsD, afterwards in Algo and later in Norrkoping. He arrived in New York in May, 1892, and came to Chicago the fol- lowing month. He became secre- tary to the Swedish government un- der Mr. Robert Lindblom, who was resident commissioner of the World's Columbian Exposition. Later he built the Swedish Restau- rant for Mr. Lindblom and was manager of the same until the clos- ing of the fair. The following year he started in the laundry business and has been conducting a very suc- cessful establishment since 1900 un- BROR OSCAR LARSON. der the name of the Paragon Laun- dry, Larson Threedy, proprie- tors, at 3541-43 North Ashland avenue. Mr. Larson holds membership in national, state and city organiza- tions of laundry men and is treas- urer of both the Laundrymen's As- sociation of Illinois and the Chicago Laundrymen's Club. He is a Ma- son and also a member of the Royal League, North American Union, National Union and Columbia Knights. He is treasurer and stock- holder of the North Side Cleaners and Dyers Company. Mr. Larson holds membership in Illinois Athletic Club and the Swe- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 437 dish Club. He is a lover of out-of- door sports and an enthusiastic fisherman. In 1892 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Hellquist and became a widower in 1902. He has not mar- ried since. His only daughter, Mar- garet, is married to Mr. Knute Warner. ANDREW RINGMAN was born at Bjorkvik, in the parish of Torpa, Ostergotland, Sweden, February 11, 1866, and came to the ANDREW RINGMAN. United States in the spring of 1885. He found work in Chicago with the Knickerbocker Ice Co., where he remained for a year, and the fol- lowing two and a half years he found employment in various plants in the neighborhood and on a farm in Indiana. In October, 1888, when he had been in America only a little over three years, he opened a meat market. It is remarkable that Mr. Ring- man, after only six and a half years' experience in this country, was elected town clerk in Hyde Park in April 1893, which is an evidence of the confidence and esteem in which he was held by his neigh- bors. He is at present engaged in the real estate, loan and insurance business since 1895, with offices at 9912 Ewing avenue. He has built about five hundred houses, almost a town by itself, during the thirty years he has been in America. The Kronan Building and Loan Association was organized in 1891, and Mr. Ringman was one of its chief promoters, having been its president for fifteen years and be- ing its secretary at present. This association is considered one of the safest in Chicago and it is notable that it has during the twenty-five years of its existence carried on the business in the Swedish language. Mr. Ringman was also interested in the reorganization of the Scandi- navian Mutual Aid Association into the Scandia Life Insurance Co., and has since then been one of its di- rectors and member on its various committees. Married in the year 1893 to Miss Hedvig Nelson, he has eight chil- dren living. ROBERT OLSON, president and treasurer of the Cen- tral Paving Co., is a native of Swe- den and came to America in July, 1886. Having completed his public school education in the old country, he also graduated from Smedman's Business College in Stockholm. After his arrival in America he took a course in a law school in Chicago and was connected with 438 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Svenska Amcrikanaren, one of the leading Swedish newspapers in this country, from July, 1901, to December, 1908. During the last five years of this period he held the office of secretary in the cor- poration. Since March 4, 1909, he has been director, president and treasurer of the Central Paving Co., with of- ROBERT OLSON. fices at 179 W. Washington street. This company is engaged in public improvement work and concrete construction. Mr. Olson is a member of the Swedish Club and the Illinois Ath- letic Club. He was married February 12, 1910, to Miss Elsa Morell, from Stockholm, Sweden. KLAS OLOF OLSON, engineer of construction, was born August 4, 1880, at Ludvika, Dalar- ne, Sweden, where his father, Dan- iel Olson, was a mining superin- tendent. Young Olson received his education in the collegiate school of Falun from 1887 to 1896 and graduated from the technical school of the same city in 1898. He was shortly after appointed engineer for the magnetic ore sepa- ration plant at Grangesberg and made his first start under Mr. K. G. Brunnberg, chief mining engi- neer for Grangesberg Mining Co. In 1900 he left Sweden, having completed his military service, and came to Worcester, Mass. There he found employment as steel chem- ist with the American Steel & Wire Co., but after two years at this work he decided to return to con- struction work. In order to obtain practical knowledge and study the American methods in this line, he entered the employ of the Eastern Bridge & Construction Co. in Worcester, and was after a short time spent in the shop promoted to erector in the field. He was work- ing in this capacity for two years, when he became a draftsman, spending four years in the service of the larger concerns in Worces- ter, Schenectady and Chicago. In 1908 he started with Geo. W. Jackson, Inc., Chicago, as superin- tendent of construction and later with the Western Electric Co., City Erection Co. and Victor Chem- ical Works in the same capacity. Since the beginning of 1914 he has had employment with the Grand Trunk Railway System as assistant engineer in charge of valuation of bridges and buildings on their western lines. Mr. Olson is a member of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chi- cago, being one of its directors be- tween 1912 and 1914, and of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY Order of Odd Fellows. He is a great enthusiast for Swedish gym- nastics and all kinds of outdoor sports, being the prize winner in several contests both in Sweden and America. He was one of the organizers of the Scandia Gym- nastic & Athletic Club of Chicago and served as physical director from 1905 to 10/39. KLAS OLOF OLSON. Mr. Olson was united in mar- riage, June 12, 1909, to Miss Emma Christina Norling, a native of Bjorneborg, Vermland. FRIDOLF RISBERG, professor in the Swedish Institute of Chicago Theological Seminary, was born November 4, 1848, in Ny- byn, in the parish of Nysatra, Ves- terbotten, Sweden, where his fa- ther, Jonas Risberg, was a practic- ing physician untli his death in 1886. His mother was Katarina Wilhel- mina, nee Hamren. His elemen- tary education was obtained at the elementary school and gymnasium of Umea, where he graduated in 1868. He then continued his studies at the University of Upsala until 1874, when he was graduated as a candi- date for the Sacred Ministry. In December of the same year he was ordained in the Established Church of Sweden by Archbishop Sund- berg. He served as pastor in the State Church from 1874 to 1882, first in the parish of As, Jemtland, then in Hemson (1875-1879) and Edsele (1879-1882), both in Anger- manland. The last named year he withdrew from the State Church and joined the free church move- ment, known as the Mission Cov- enant of Sweden. For the next three years Rev. Risberg served as pastor in a Free Church at Hogs jo in Angermanland. At the time of the organization of the Swedish Mission Covenant of America, the need of an insti- tute for the training of pastors and missionaries made itself felt, and as the Chicago Theological Semi- nary of the Congregational Church offered to assist the Covenant by maintaining a Swedish department, for which it might select its own teacher, Mr. Risberg was called and accepted the position as dean and professor of this department. He came over from Sweden in 1885 and assumed his new duties in the fall. For more than thirty years he has held this responsible posi- tion to the complete satisfaction of both his Swedish and American constituents. A large number of students have enjoyed the benefit of his instruction, who are now preaching the gospel in this coun- try and in foreign lands. 440 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS But Professor Risberg is not only known as an educator in his de- nomination. He has also been act- ive in pastoral and missionary work, especially during his vacation pe- riods. Various churches both in Sweden and America have had the benefit of his ministry. While pas- tor in Sweden he made missionary journeys to Finland, and since com- ing to this country he has made FRIDOLF RISBERG. two journeys for similar purpose to Canada, and traveled in America from coast to coast, visiting twenty- eight states to preach the gospel. Since 1891 he has been treasurer of the Scandinavian Alliance Mis- sion, founded by Rev. F. Franson, a society which raises about $35,000 annually for the support of mis- sionaries in foreign fields. He has also for many years been interested in Missions-Vannen, a religious weekly, published by The Mission Friends' Publishing Co., whose sec- retary Professor Risberg has been. The Congregational Home Mission- ary Society has a Swedish depart- 1 Deceased, October, 1916. ment, of which he is the superin- tendent. He is one of the trustees of the Chicago Hebrew Mission. Professor Risberg is the founder and chairman of the Bethlehem Swedish Evangelical Church, hav- ing also been its pastor and main- stay for a number of years. As a writer he has exerted a far-reaching influence, for he has been an industrious contributor to various church papers. His arti- cles are noted for clearness and a truly evangelical and irenic spirit. A devotional book, "Dagligt Man- na" (now out of print), was pub- lished in 1893 by the Mission Friends' Publishing Company, Chi- cago, of which he is the author. A collection of articles, originally written for the periodical press, was published by him in 1906 under the title "Bibelbilder." He was also associate editor of "Sionshar- pan," a voluminous hymnal, pub- lished in 1890, which is commonly used by the Mission churches throughout the country. For his many distinguished serv- ices as an educator, minister and missionary worker, the Chicago Theological Seminary conferred upon him the title of Doctor of Di- vinity, honoris causa, in 1910. ALBERT JOHN OLSON, 1 prominent in the political and busi- ness life of this state, was born June 24, 1865, in Elgin, 111., where his father, John Olson, was en- gaged in the dairy business. In 1888 he organized the A. J. Olson Milk Co., which is owned and per- sonally conducted by himself and family, with creameries at Wood- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 441 stock and Greenwood, 111. He was also director in the McHenry Coun- ty State Bank. Mr. Olson has given a great deal of time to the political life of his State and community and filled several important offices. He was State representative from Chicago in the 39th General Assembly and was reelected to the 4oth. He has been alderman in Chicago during ALBERT JOHN OLSON. two terms, being elected the first time in 1895 and the second in 1897. Since 1908 he has been a member of the Woodstock City Council for five consecutive years, elected Mayor of Woodstock in 1913 and reelected to succeed him- self in 1915. To the Senate of the General Assembly of Illinois he was elected in 1908 and reelected in 1912. He held membership in a num- ber of fraternal and civic organi- zations, as the Free Masons, Elks, Eagles, Freja Society of Elgin, the Hamilton, the Chicago Automobile and the Press Clubs of Chicago. Mr. Olson was married October 19, 1888, to Miss Jane Severson, a native of Lee County, 111. J. WARNER BECKSTROM is a lawyer with offices in the Mo- nadnock Building, room 737, Chi- cago. He received his first train- ing in the public schools and after- wards pursued his studies in Au- gustana College, Rock Island. He has also taken a course in a techno- logical school and is a graduate of Bryant & Stratton Business Col- lege, where he made himself known as an expert stenographer, before he began the study of law. He has been a railway official for a number of years, acting as secre- tary and superintendent of a rail- road in the South. During the last fifteen years he has practiced law, chiefly as a patent lawyer. It is interesting to hear Mr. Beck- strom relate incidents from his rich and varied experience in this line of work. He becomes enthusiastic when speaking of the Swedes as in- ventors, but he has found that they are lacking in business sagacity and often become victims of schemers and advertising humbugs. It is of great importance that an inventor secures the assistance of a lawyer who not only is thor- oughly familiar with the intricate points of the law but who also is honest and reliable. Mr. Beck- strom is abundantly able to fill all requirements of the most exacting critics, being a descendant on his father's side from mechanical ex- 442 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS perts and on the mother's side from noted jurists. These traits have been predominant in the family through several generations. One brother has been elected State's at- torney of Greeley and Wallace counties, Kan., in six succeeding elections. He was also for some time the only attorney in the state J. WARNER BECKSTROM. who had a right to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States. When to this native ability is added Mr. Beckstrom's practical turn of mind, his professional train- ing and experience in general, it is evident that our Swedish-American inventors can safely entrust their affairs to his care. ANDREW TOFFT, editor-in-chief of Svenska Tribu- nen-Nyhetcr, was born in the vil- lage of Bareberg, Vestergotland, Sweden, September 28, 1861. After his public school course was com- pleted he received private instruc- tion in the quiet home, and after- wards caught the "America-fever," leaving the old country in 1883 but only to stay here a year or two. His first year in America was spent in Red Wing, Minn., but in 1884 he moved to St. Paul, where he remained for several years. Then he entered the Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and graduated in 1893, as the salutatorian of his class, with the degree A. B. Dur- ing his college years he was noted as a leader of singing and con- ducted several male as well as mixed quartets. He also com- menced to write for American and Swedish- American newspapers and finally made journalism his chosen vocation by accepting a position with the Minnesota Stats Tidning in St. Paul. This paper made consid- erable progress, largely due to Mr. Tofft's energy and skill. In 1899 he left his position to accept a simi- lar one with the Svenska Folkets Tidning and commenced to study law at the State University of Min- nesota. In the summer of 1900 he was in Boston for some months, and toward the end of the year he became city editor of Svenska Trib- unen. In the editorial office of this large and influential paper Mr. Tofft has been a faithful worker for sixteen years, the last few years as editor-in-chief. Mr. Tofft is known as a conscientious and careful writer whose articles give the impression of authority, com- pleteness and reliability. Mr 1 . Tofft is a director of the Swedish Historical Society, a member of the Scandinavian Art Society of Amer- ica and of the Independent Order of Foresters. In 1902 he made a pleasant visit LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 443 to his old home in Sweden. On the way back to America his steam- er had the misfortune to collide with a deserted ship in midocean, with the result that the steamboat sprung aleak and had to land the passengers on the Azores, whence their voyage was resumed with an- other ship. ANDREW TOFFT. He was married August 8, 1911, to Miss Magdalene Olsen from Stockholm and they have two chil- dren. DAVID A. SODERQUIST, concert singer and teacher, was born at Stockholm, Sweden, May 30, 1887, where his father, Johan Soderquist, was a merchant. He received an excellent education in two well-known colleges of the Swedish capital, viz. : St. Jacob's and Hogre Reallaroverket. Com- ing from a musical family, he soon evinced rare musical talent; at the age of fourteen he was already di- recting a boys' choir, and the next year he was appointed organist in St. Jacob's College. In September, 1904, he came to this country and settled in Chicago, Gustaf Holmquist being his teach- er. It was here he became first known to music lovers in America and was received y/rth an enthu- siasm that would be flattering to DAVID A. SODERQUIST. any performer. The Chicago Mu- sical Nczvs had this to say of the young artist: "He has the com- mand over a splendid tonal quality and knows how to apply the artistic touches. He has a fine voice, a good presence and very much in- deed to recommend him in the way of intelligence and poise." Mr. Soderquist was a teacher in Chicago for some time, and for this reason we feel justified in present- ing his biography here, while we also express the hope that he soon will return to the field where he first won the hearts of his country- men in the Xew World and where he always will be sure of a heart- felt welcome. 444 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS From Chicago he moved to Du- luth, Minn., to teach and was also engaged as soloist in the Pilgrim Congregational Church of the same city. The young artist was emi- nently successful in this new field and received every assurance of the appreciation i> his public wherever he appeared. His success there as well as in other places has made it clear that Mr. Soderquist is be- coming a power to be reckoned with in the musical world. His voice has remarkable range and en- viable volume. He has a compel- ling personality, and his manner of delivering a song reaches the hearts of his hearers. The Bethany College in Lincls- borg engaged him as a music teacher and as soloist at the Messiah Festi- val of 1916. Mr. Soderquist is a member of the National Geographic Society. He was united in marriage to Miss Edythe Gould-Smith of St. Paul, April 23, 1913. KARL GUSTAF ADOLF BJURSTROM, mechanical engineer, was born April 27, 1885, in the parish of Altappen, Norrland, Sweden. His parents were Anders Gustaf Bjur- strom, a civil engineer, and his wife Johanna Adolfina, nee Bagge. He studied several years in the colle- giate school of Karlstad, and grad- uated from the Technological In- stitute of O'rebro in 1903. Imme- diately after his graduation he emi- grated to America and found em- ployment here as a locomotive draftsman with the Atchison, To- peka & Santa Fe Railroad Co. in Chicago. He held this position from February, 1904, to August, 1909. Then he secured a similar position with the Chicago & North- Western Railway Co., and was pro- moted assistant chief draftsman in November, 1912. He is a member of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago, whose treasurer he was in 1911. He has been one of its directors KARL GUSTAF ADOLF BJURSTROM. since 1915. Mr. Bjurstrom is also a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Illinois. He was united in marriage Sep- tember u, 1909, to Miss Estelle V. Hendrickson, of Chicago. CONSTANTIN EMIL RANG, artist, was born January 22, 1870, in the parish of Rumskulla, Kal- mar Ian, Sweden. His father, Lars Magnus Rang, was a manufacturer. He came to America in 1891 and attended an art school in Cleveland, Ohio. Afterwards he continued his art studies in New York and took LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY a four-year course in the Art In- stitute in Chicago, graduating in 1908. Mr. Rang has also done some post-graduate work in Germany and France. It is preeminently as a mural dec- orator and designer that this artist has made himself known in various parts of America, and there are a number of large public buildings as courthouses, public halls, CONSTANTIN EMIL RANG. churches and theaters he has made attractive and beautiful with the skillful strokes of his brush. Mr. Rang is a member of the Alumni Association of the Chicago Art Institute and an associate mem- ber of the Swedish Engineers' So- ciety. JOHN EDWARD ERICKSON, attorney-at-law, was born February 20, 18/8, in Thorold, province of Ontario, Canada, where his par- ents, John Erickson and his wife, Mathilda Christina Jonson, were fanners. In the latter part of the year 1878 the family moved to Mis- souri. In the public schools of Pu- laski county and subsequently in Richland Academy, Mo., young Erickson received his elementary training. At the age of nineteen he began teaching in the public schools of Pulaski county, Mo., and he was thus occupied until 1903. His father died in 1898, when John was twenty years of age, and JOHN EDWARD ERICKSON. it then devolved upon the young school teacher to take charge of the farm and assist the mother in raising and educating the younger children in the family, in addition to his other duties. In 1903 he came to Chicago and took up the study of law, graduating in 1906, and was admitted to the bar the following year. From 1905 to 1910 he was connected with the law firm Mather & Hutson. Then he started out for himself and has since then been engaged in the general prac- tice of law. Mr. Erickson is a Republican in politics, being also a member of 446 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois. He is a mem- ber of the Moody Church and was secretary of this well-known church for the year 1909. Married to Miss Hilda Olivia Hedreen of Chicago since March 12, 1909, he has one daughter, Eu- nice Elizabeth. SVEN A. DANIELSON was born in the city of Jonkoping, Sweden, May 17, 1878. At the age of twenty-one years he emigrated SVEX A. DANIELSON. from the old country and came to Chicago in 1899. Here he found employment as carpenter, and nine years ago he became a general builder and contractor, with office in his home at 6636 Xewgard ave- nue, in Rogers Park. On May 9, 1908, he was united in marriage to Miss Hannah S. Nicklas, born in Jonkoping, Swe- den. They have two children and are members of the Swedish Lu- theran Church. WILLIAM A. PETERSON, physician and surgeon, was bornirr Sweden February 23, 1867, where his parents, Carl and Anna Maria Pearson, were farmers. In the spring the following year the fam- ily came to America and settled first at Swede Bend, shortly after- wards locating in Lost Grove town- ship, in Webster county, Iowa. In the public school of this township Dr. Peterson received his early training until he was thirteen years of age. Then he attended Ames WILLIAM A. PETERSON. High School for one year and en- tered the Iowa State College in the spring of 1884, graduating in 1887 with the degree of B. S. For a period of five years he was princi- pal of the public schools in Stan- ton, la., and Lindsborg, Kans. Afterwards he attended the Beth- any and Augustana colleges for a short time. In 1895 and 1896 he was a stu- dent in the medical department of Iowa State University and entered LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 447 thereafter the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons of the Univer- sity of Illinois, graduating in 1896 with the degree of M. D. Since then he has been practicing in Chi- cago ; his present down town office is at 30 North La Salle street. Dr Peterson is a specialist in diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. He is medical director in the Scandia Life Insurance Co. He is a mem- ber of flie American Medical Asso- ciation, Chicago Medical Society and Cook County Ophthalmological Society. He holds membership in the following fraternal organiza- tions : I. O. O. F., I. O. G. T. and I. O. V. In the order of Odd Fel- lows he holds the office of Noble Grand and is Chief Templar in the I. O. G. T. He is also on the mem- bership roll of the Swedish Club. Dr. Peterson was united in mar- riage to Miss Anna E. Cronk June i, 1899, and is the father of one daughter and one son. JOHN E. ANDERSON, attorney-at-law, was born at Ljung, Smaland. Sweden, July 25, 1883. His parents, John A. and Fredrika Anderson, moved to Chicago in November, 1886, where John was educated first in the public schools and subsequently entered North Park College. He continued his studies in the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1909 with the degree Ph. B. Two years later he was graduated from the law school of the same university with the degree of J. D., and was ad- mitted to the bar the same year. Since then he has been engaged in the practice of law, with office in the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation building, 19 South La Salle street, Suite 1205-6. Mr. Anderson is a progressive Republican in politics and holds membership in the Swedish Mis- sion Church in Humboldt Park, where he is president of the Young People's Society and secretary of the Sunday school. He is also a. member of the Art Institute of Chi- cago and the Delta Chi law fra- ternity. JOHN E. ANDERSON. On April 15, 1914, he was mar- ried to Miss Elin Sophia Erickson of Chicago. He has his home in Western Springs, one of Chicago's beautiful suburbs. CHARLES J. STROMBERG was born in Chicago, March 26, 1882. He is the only son of the late Charles J. Stromberg, the president and founder of Strom - berg, Allen & Co., which became one of largest printing houses in Chicago. 448 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Mr. Stromberg graduated from the public schools and then entered the Lewis Institute, where he re- ceived a technical training. Sub- sequently he was engaged in his father's firm and succeeded his father in 1905 as president of the Stromberg, Allen & Co., whose of- CHARLES J. STROMBERG. fice is at 430-432 South Clark street. He is a member of the Medinah Temple of the Masonic Fraternity and holds membership in Illinois Athletic Club. ELOF KARDELL JONSON, pastor of the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran Church, Chicago, was born in the parish of Tveta, Kal- mar Ian, Sweden, June 23, 1878. At the age of twelve he came to America with his parents, who set- tled as farmers in Cedarville, Minn. Young Jonson worked on the farm until 1895, when he entered the Augustana College, Rock Island, and graduated in 1901, receiving the degree A. B. The year before, he won the first prize in the ora- torical contest of that institution. From 1902 to 1904 he took a post-graduate course in philosophy, Greek and Hebrew in the Univer- sity of Chicago and received the degree of Bachelor of Divinity ELOF KARDELL JONSON. from Augustana Theological Sem- inary in 1905, being ordained the same year. The following four and a half years Rev. Jonson served as pastor of the Zion Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rock Island. During that time a new site for the church was secured, a new beauti- ful temple was erected and the membership doubled. In 1909 he accepted a call to Immanuel Church on the north side in Chicago, where he remained six years, to Novem- ber, 1915. The debt on this church was paid and the congregation in- creased by a large number of new members. Then Rev. Jonson was honored with a call to one of the largest and most influential LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY churches, that of Ebenezer in Sum- merclale, which undoubtedly will be one of the strongest in the Synod. Here he has been working since November, 1915. Married on May 25, 1907, to Miss Elizabeth Anderson of Rock- ford, 111., he has three children, Carolyn, Marie and Walter. JOHN A. JOHNSON, pastor of the Madison Avenue Swe- dish Methodist Church, was born near Vernamo, Smaland, Sweden, JOHN A. JOHNSON. August ii, 1876. He came to America ten years later with his parents, who settled in Racine, Wis., -where his father found em- ployment as a blacksmith. When he had completed his public school course, Mr. Johnson worked for some years in grocery stores until 1901. He then decided to prepare him- self for the ministry and entered the Swedish Theological Seminary at Evanston, where he graduated after taking the complete four years course and afterwards took up post graduate work in the Garrett Bib- lical Institute, receiving his diplo- ma from that institution in 1909. He joined the Western Swedish Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church in Lincoln, Neb., in September, 1905, and has been pas- tor in several Swedish churches, as Hobart, Ind., Kansas City, Mo., Forest Glen, Austin, and Emanuel in Chicago. Three years ago he was appointed to his present charge, Madison Avenue Swedish M. E. Church. During this time he has also pursued studies in the Univer- sity of Chicago. Rev. Johnson was married June 8, 1909, to Miss Alma Schelin of Verona, Mo. They have two chil- dren, Irene and Ruby. OLOF LARSON HERMANSON is a native of Skane, Sweden, where he was born in the parish of Ska- bersjo, March 10, 1867. His father, Lars Hermanson, was a farmer. Having graduated from the public school in the old country, he worked on the old homestead till 1888, when he emigrated to America. In order to acquire the language of his adopted country he attended the evening schools in Chicago. In 1892 he started a bakery shop at North Clark street and Belmont avenue. Three years later he sold out and visited Sweden for a year. After his return to Chicago he opened a new bakery, this time at 5210 North Clark street, where he remained till October, 1914. During these years Mr. Hermanson en- joyed the distinction of being the 450 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS most patronized Swedish baker on the north side, assisted in his busi- ness by his good wife, who took care of the store. He has also been a successful investor in real estate. Mr. Hermanson votes the Repub- lican ticket, is a member of the Art Institute and the Swedish Club and holds a life membership in the Swedish Old People's Home Asso- ciation. OLOF LARSON HERMANSON. His wife is Emma Sophia Her- manson, to whom he was married in September, 1892. They have a son and a daughter. HUGO ADALVARD OLDEN- BERG has been assistant professor of kinesitherapy at Rush Medical Col- lege since 1901. He was born in Hammar, Nerike, Sweden, July 26, 1868, and is the son of Carl C. Oldenberg, a clergyman in the Es- tablished Church of Sweden, and his wife, Johanna Maria, nee Hertzman. Having pursued his early studies in the elementary schools of Hammar and Askersund, he matriculated in the Karolinska Hogre Allmanna Laroverket at Orebro, where he graduated in 1888. The following year he be- gan the study of medical gymnas- tics under Director Liedbeck, of Stockholm. During the season of 1890-91 Mr. Oldenberg was assist- ant to Director Cleve at the Medevi HUGO ADALVARD OLDENBERG. health resort. Subsequently he conducted a medical gymnastic in- stitute of his own at 6'regrund. For three years, 1890-93, he was a student at the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute of Stockholm, graduating as director of gymnas- tics. In 1893 he came to America and has since that time practiced his profession in Chicago. Mr. Oldenberg studied gyneco- logical massage under Dr. Stapfer, of Paris, France, in the summers of 1897 and 1899, and is now engaged as assistant professor in massage and medical gymnastics at Rush Medical College in Chicago. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 451 He is also the author of several pamphlets, "The Evolution in the Treatment of Trauma by Mas- sage," "Points in the Use of Mas- sage," etc., "Massage and Gymnas- tics in the Treatment of Traumatic Joint Affections," "Reduction after Trauma," "Exercises in the Treat- ment of Ptosis of the Abdominal Organs," "Some Practical Points in the Treatment of Traumatic Joint Affections by Massage," and "Mobilization." Mr. Oldenberg was married to Miss Maria Ohlson from Kris- tianstad, Sweden, June 24, 1899. He has his office at 1333 Peoples Gas Building, Chicago. EOS HEGSTROM was born January 7, 1854, in the parish of Bergsjo, Helsingland, Sweden, where his father Erik Hogstrom was a school teacher and village clerk. His mother was Sara Hogstrom, nee Hazelius. He came to America at the age of fif- teen and spent his first two years in Andover and Victoria, 111., where he attended school. In 1872 he entered the employ of the Swedish Lutheran Publica- tion Society in Chicago. The fol- lowing year, when Hemlandet was sold to the publishing firm of Enan- der & Bohman, he became their ac- countant, and remained in that ca- pacity until 1882. He then moved to Anoka, Minn., and entered the employ of O. Norell, who was en- gaged in general mercantile busi- ness, until he in 1884 returned to Chicago, where he entered the banking house of Haugan & Lind- gren, subsequently incorporated under the name State Bank of Chi- cago. This firm he gave twenty years of faithful and efficient serv- ice. In the spring of 1905, when the Union Bank of Chicago was organ- ized, Mr. Hegstrom became one of its chief promoters and was elected vice president and head of its real estate and loan department. He severed his connection with this in- EOS HEGSTROM. stitution in 1909, and immediately opened a real estate and brokerage office in the Stock Exchange Build- ing at 30 La Salle street, where he still is located. Mr. Hegstrom is not married. He is a member of the Swedish Lu- theran denomination. MATHIAS OLSON was born in Ysane parish of Ble- kinge, Sweden, March 5, 1863. His father, Ola Waldemarson, was a tailor, and when young Olson had graduated from the public schools of the native village he took up 452 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS his father's trade. He came to Chicago in March, 1891, and found employment as a tailor, later he be- came a cutter, working in that ca- pacity for eight years. In 1910 he became a member of the North American Tailoring Co., at 19 South Fifth avenue, and is vice president of the company. In the summer of 1900 he took a trip with his family to his native country. MATHIAS OLSON. Mr. Olson, who is a member of the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran Church, was married March 10, 1894, to Miss Pearl Benson, and has one son. JOHN P. FRIEDLUND, attorney-at-law, was born Septem- ber 28, 1867, in the parish of Au- gerum, Blekinge, Sweden. His father was a farmer. His early schooling consisted of an eight years' course in his neighborhood school, and at twenty years of age he came to Chicago, where he im- mediately attended the evening schools. Afterwards he began to prepare for college, being desirous of studying for some profession. He graduated from the Chicago Seminary of Sciences and in 1910 he was graduated with the degree LL. B. from the Chicago Law School. Before this time Mr. Friedlund had worked for several years in various occupations before he could see his dreams of a pro- JOHN P. FRIEDLUND. fessional career realized. For five years he was associated with the Smith & Barnes Piano Company, then he entered the restaurant business under the name Friedlund & Burklund, and subsequently dealt in real estate until 1910, after which he has devoted his time to the gen- eral practice of law, with office at 12 12 Schiller Building, Chicago, where he has a growing practice with the law firm of Marston, Fried- lund & Campbell. Mr. Friedlund holds the office of commissioner of Lincoln Park and is also auditor. He is interested in a number of professional and so- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 453 cial organizations and holds honor- ary membership in the Lincoln Park Golf Club and Lincoln Park Boat and Yacht Clubs. He also is a member of the Swedish Club. He was married October, 1897, to Miss Hannah Nelson, of Prince- ton, 111. They have one son. CARL BLOOMBERG, real estate broker, was born Sep- tember i, 1871, in Stockholm, Swe- den. His father, Carl Alfred CARL BLOOMBERG. Bloomberg, is a retired officer of the Swedish army. Mr. Bloomberg attended the public schools of his native city and afterwards grad- uated from a business college. He came to America in 1891 and soon became a contractor. From 1898 to 1901 he worked in the painting and decorating trade, and in 1902 he became a deputy in the county treasurer's office. He held this po- sition until 1907, when he opened a real estate office at 5754 Chicago avenue. He is director in Austin State Bank and director and secretary of the Upper Cicero Building & Loan Association. Mr. Bloomberg is a Republican and member of the Thirty-third Ward Republican Club. In 1912 he was nominated for the office of State legislator. In religion he is a Lutheran and member of the Swedish Lutheran Messiah Church at Austin, where he holds the office of secretary. Mr. Bloomberg is a member of several societies, as the Free Ma-- sons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, National Union, Vikings and of Austin Business Men's As- sociation. He is also an honorary member of North Austin Improve- ment Association. Married since July 2, 1899, to Miss Marie Blomberg of Dover, N. J., he has four children. The family lives at 5918 Chicago ave- nue. JOEL C. CARLSON, attorney-at-law, was born January 12, 1881, in Flen, Sodermanland, Sweden. In 1885 he came with his parents to Chicago, and graduated from Kershaw public school in June, 1896. At the age of fifteen he began to work in a retail hard- ware store, and afterwards found employment with Hibbard, Spen- cer, Bartlett & Co., where he re- mained for six years, the last two years being in charge of the buying of supplies, etc., for the house. During the last three years of his connection with this firm he took up the study of law in the Illinois College of Law, which has an evening course. From this in- 454 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS stitution he graduated with the de- gree of LL. B. In his examination he fell only one point below the first prize winner. He received as a reward a post-graduate scholar- ship, and graduated in 1907 with the degree of LL. M. He began his practice of law in 1906 in the of- JOEL C. CARLSON. fices of Hebel & Haft, noi Schiller Building, Chicago, at the same time acting as law clerk for said firm part of the time. At the age of twenty-seven he went into business for himself, and now has his office in suite 601-604 Otis Building. He taught the law of torts in evening law school for one term. Mr. Carlson is a member of the Hamilton Club, the Swedish-Amer- ican Republican League and several professional and fraternal socie- ties. He was married to Miss Josephine Olschner, of Chicago, May 22, 1908. They have two children, Josephine, born February 23, 1910, and Franklin J. C., born November n, 1913. The family resides at 6551 Normal boulevard. ANDREW NILSSON, a plumber, was born January 18, 1868, in Surteby, Vestergotland, Sweden. His parents were Andreas Nilsson and his wife, Elsa Brita Anderson. He received his public school education in the country ANDREW NILSSON. school near his home, and came to America in April, 1886, when he was eighteen years of age. In 1895 he opened a plumbing shop in partnership with his broth- er at Oak and Orleans streets, and in 1900 they moved to Belmont and Clark street, in Lake View, where they remained until 1906. That year the firm erected a building with shops at 901 Belmont avenue, but this plant was soon too small for their growing business, making it compulsory to erect a two-story building, in 1912, at 3222-24 North Halsted street, especially designed for their needs, with commodious shops and offices. The firm was a partnership concern until 1912, when it was duly incorporated. Mr. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 455 Nilsson is the president and treas- urer of the firm. He is a member of the Chicago Master Plumbers Association, the Chicago Steamfit- ters and the Building Construction Employers Association, and of the Hamilton Club. In the Bethany Swedish Meth- odist Church, to which he has be- longed for several years, he is a trustee, and he is also trustee of Texas Wesleyan College, Austin, Tex. He was married November 24, 1897, to Miss Anna Ekdahl. They have three daughters and one son. CHARLES ERIC SCHLYTERN, president of the Union Bank of Chicago, was born in Svarta, Ofver-Lulea parish, Norrbottens Ian, Sweden, January 17, 1853. He is the son of Carl Otto Schlytern, a mill owner, and his wife, Anna Sophia, nee Sjoding. From 1862 to 1871 he pursued college studies in Umea and Lulea, and in Au- gust, 1871, he came to America. The first two years he spent in Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois, work- ing as railroad laborer and farm "hand. Then he came to Chicago, where he found employment as clerk in various lines of business till 1878. After that time he was bookkeeper and credit man in the Johnson Chair Company for ten years, and from 1889 to 1900 he was cashier in the Milwaukee Ave- nue State Bank. In August, 1901, Tie opened a real estate office at 824 Milwaukee avenue, in partnership with John A. Prebis. When the Union Bank of Chicago was or- ganized in 1905 Mr. Schlytern was elected president of the bank, which under his careful leadership has made steady progress and re- ceived a well-earned patronage. Mr. Schlytern, who is a Pro- gressive in politics, was married June i, 1889, to Miss Edith Ger- trude Isbell, of Barrington, 111. CHARLES ERIC SCHLYTERN. They have one son, Allan Herbert. The family resides at 1951 Sunny- side avenue. AUGUST J. JOHNSON, general superintendent and man- ager, was born October 4, 1868, in the parish of Ny, Vermland, Sweden. His parents, Johannes and Maria Eriksson, were farmers. In his youth he received a good public school education, and at the age of twenty he emigrated to America, making Chicago his per- manent home. He is at present connected with the C. E. Peterson Co., a firm that manufactures sashes, doors and in- terior finish. He is vice-president 456 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of this company, whose factory is located at 4914 Went worth avenue, Chicago. Mr. Johnson was married Sep- tember 14, 1895, to Miss Beda Johnson, who was born in the same place in Sweden as her husband. They reside at 6135 South Green street. He is a past master of King Oscar Lodge, a thirty-second de- AUGUST J. JOHNSON. gree Mason and a Shriner. He is also a member of the Order of Odd Fellows. JOHN OLSON was born in Sunne, Vermland, Au- gust 21, 1867. His parents, Olof and Maria Erickson, were farmers. At the age of twenty he came to America, locating in Chicago, where he took a course in archi- tectural drawing in the South Divi- sion High School. From 1887 to 1897 he was employed by the Palmer-Fuller Company, the first five years as a cabinetmaker and millwright and the latter five years as foreman of the interior finish and framework department. The following three years he was em- ployed by the Carsley Manufactur- ing Company as draftsman, and from March, 1900, to December, 1901, he held the position with the True & True Company as foreman of the interior finish, stair and frame departments. JOHN OLSON. In January, 1902, he organized and became president of the Stand- ard Sash & Door Company, which office he has held ever since. In 1907 the establishment was de- stroyed by fire, but within four months it was rebuilt and reopened for business on a larger scale, and is now one of the large concerns of its kind in Chicago. Mr. Olson is director and vice-president of the Fnglewood Desk Company and di- rector of the United State Bank of Chicago and the Simplex Refrig- erating Company. Mr. Olson is a member of the Mission Church at Englewoocl. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 457 He was married April 23, 1895, to Miss Tillie Anderson, of Svan- skog, Sweden. They have four children. The family resides at 5700 South Peoria street. CHARLES E. MALMSTROM, dry goods merchant, was born in the parish of Vagnharad, of Nyko- pings Ian, Sweden, April 2, i8j2. CHARLES E. MALMSTROM. His parents, Axel Malmstrom and his wife, Christina Charlotta Lager- gren, were farmers. His public school education he received in the place where he was born, and emi- grated to America in 1887. He was employed by the dry goods firm of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., in Chi- cago for seventeen years, from 1889 to 1906, when he started a similar business for himself, on a small scale, in a rented store, which he succeeded in buying the following year. The business and stock in- creased, however, so the old store soon became too small, and a mod- ern two-story business block with flats was created, where Mr. Malm- strom is now conducting a prosper- ous dry goods business, assisted by his son, Arthur E. Malmstrom. His residence and business address is 5900-02 West Chicago avenue. He is a member of the Austin Swedish Mission Church, where he holds the office of trustee. Married in 1889 to Miss Maria Anderson of Halmstad, Sweden, the couple have two children, one son and one daughter, living. CHARLES EDWARD HALL- BERG, marine artist, was born in the city of Goteborg, Sweden, January 15, 1855. His parents were poor, and when the father died the young son had to' lend a hand in sup- porting his mother and sister. But in early years he showed unmis- takable signs of a budding artist, though it took many years before he could devote himself to the study of art. Like so many other poor boys in the old country, he became a sailor, and for ten years he served before the mast under various flags. In 1883 he came to America and sailed for seven years on the in- land seas. It is natural that he should imbibe that love for the water which in after years has found an expression in his works of art. Without teacher and in- struction he sketched and painted in his leisure hours the sea as he saw it, and has perhaps done more and better work in this line than any other person under unfavor- able circumstances. Mr. Hallberg came to Chicago 458 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in 1890 and found employment as janitor in an apartment house in La Salle avenue, using his spare moments to perfect himself in the art of interpreting the various moods of the sea. He came into public notice after he had donated a canvas to a bazaar held for the benefit of the Augustana Hospital. The picture was bought for fifteen dollars. This was a real encourage- CHARLES EDWARD HALLBERG. ment and he began to consider how he might acquire an artistic educa- tion. But he waited through the years educating his children until a well earned leisure was due him in middle life, and then he bravely stepped out of the harness to ac- complish his dreams. His canvases immediately attracted attention and received unstinted praise by the press and lovers of art. In the last fifteen years he has crossed the ocean many times, and has been devout in his observations of the ocean and of Lake Michigan. One of his greatest triumphs was to have his "Summer Day on Lake Michigan" accepted by the national art jury af the St. Louis Exposi- tion. Of the numerous Chicago artists only nineteen were there represented, and Mr. Hallberg was one of those who had the honor of seeing his canvas hung in the gen- eral art hall. He is also represented by one of his marine paintings in the Gote- borg Museum, Sweden, and has one painting in the National Mu- seum of Stockholm. The Augus- tana College in Rock Island and the Augustana Hospital in Chicago have received as a gift of the artist two of his paintings. The art critics of later date have said that each year Mr. Hallberg's interpretations are truer. It is not the painted waves, but the spirit of the ocean, the fathomless depths brewing for a storm, the calm seas reflecting the opalescent glow of tinted skies, the curling waves with pearly crests, the blue of surging waters and the misty sunsets. American art in Mr. Hallberg has gained another marine painter worthy of joining the best in her annals. Mr. Hallberg belongs to the Mes- siah Swedish Lutheran Church of Austin and holds membership in several art societies. He was married to Miss Aman- da Josephina Olson, of Goteborg, Sweden, January 31, 1885, and has three children, Ellen Hermina, born 1887; Sylvia Helena, born 1890, and Austin Benjamin, born 1892, who has inherited his father's ar- tistic genius and is a promising young artist. The family resides at 1114 North Parkside avenue, Austin, 111. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 459 RUDOLPH ENGBERG, "barytone singer, son of John J. Engberg and his wife, Mary Eng- "berg, nee Ogren, was born in Chi- cago, October 19, 1869. After sev- eral years' employment in the floral business and having found that he was in possession of an exception- ally fine voice, he began to study music. In 1899 he went to Europe, RUDOLPH ENGBERG. where he traveled extensively, and studied with some of the best mas- ters, both in Paris and London. Returning to America, he had the advantages of the best teachers in Chicago and New York. In 1904 he made another journey to Europe in order to perfect himself in his art, and returning in 1906 he made Chicago his home. Mr. Engberg is the possessor of a beautiful, well cultivated voice. He has excellent command of five languages, English, Swedish, French, Italian and German. He is a singer of distinction, whose voice is under perfect control, and his method and technical knowl- edge combine to make his singing a real pleasure. He has his office in 619 Fine Arts Building and is avail- able for recital, oratorio or concert. In January, 1899, Mr. Engberg was married to Mrs. Annie Nellis Carter. Their home is at 454 Ros- lyn place. JOHN ERNST ERICSON, city engineer of Chicago, was born in Skepptuna parish, of Stockholm's Ian, Sweden, October 21, 1858. He is the son of Anders Ericson, owner of an estate known as Lockstaholm, and his wife, Sophia, nee Lind. He attended the public schools of Sweden from 1865 to 1872 and continued his studies in the collegiate schools of Norrtelje and Upsala till 1876, when he en- tered the Royal Polytechnic Insti- tute of Stockholm, graduating as civil engineer in April, 1880. Soon after he was appointed assistant engineer of the Vasa Bridge, Stock- holm, which position he held for one year, until emigrating to Amer- ica in 1881. His first position in this country was that of resident engineer of the Toledo, Cincinnati & St. Louis railroad, and the following year he accepted a position with Hopkins & Co., of St. Louis. In 1883 he was appointed assistant on government surveys of the Illinois and Missis- sippi canal, and the following two years he was draftsman for the Chi- cago water department, which place he filled with such ability that he was appointed assistant engineer in 1885. This position he left in 1889 to become assistant chief engineer 460 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS on design of new water works for Seattle, Wash., up to 1890. From 1890 to 1897 he was assistant en- gineer of the Sanitary District and Bureau of Engineering and first assistant city engineer. Since 1897 he has held the office of city engi- neer under the civil service rules. As first assistant city engineer and as city engineer Mr. Ericson has been in charge of the design and construction of all additions to the water supply system. This system during this time has been increased from two pumping sta- tions to fifteen, with an increased capacity from 350 to 900 million gallons per twenty-four hours. The number of miles of mains have been increased from 1,400 to 2,500. As city engineer he is also in charge of all bridge construction and operation, and is called on to give expert opinion on various engi- neering subjects. A special design of bascule bridges for the city has been de- veloped under his supervision, the first one being constructed in 1901. There are now eleven of these bridges in operation and five under construction. He was chairman of the Harbor and Subway Commis- sion of Chicago from 1911 to 1913, and the Chicago Municipal Pier, recently built, was designed undei his direction. He has had exceptional oppor- tunities for experiments to deter- mine the elements of flow of water in large tunnels, and presented an exhaustive treatise on this subject to the Western Society of Engi- neers in 1911, receiving the socie- ty's medal for this paper. The foregoing is sufficient to prove that Mr. Ericson is one of the most able officials the city of Chicago ever had and that he stands in the front rank as an engineer. In all the public positions he has held he has given eminent satisfac- tion, and many of his works stand as monuments to his engineering skill. Besides, he is author of a number of treatises and reports on water JOHN ERNST ERICSON. works, paving, harbors, subways, etc., among which we may mention : "The Water Supply System of Chi- cago, its Past, Present and Fu- ture," 1905 ; "Passenger Subways, for the City of Chicago," 1909; "Investigations of Flow in Brick Built Tunnels," 1911; "Creosoted Block Pavements" (out of print), 1911; "The Water Works System of Chicago," 1913. He holds membership in a num- ber of professional and social or- ganizations, as the American So- ciety of Civil Engineers, the Amer- ican Society of Mechanical Engi- neers, the Western Society of En- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 461 gineers, the American Water Works Association, the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago, whose president he was in 1912- 14. Of Svenska Klubben he was president 1905 and 1906. He was honorary member of the Swedish Panama Exposition Commission to San Francisco and holds member- ship in several Masonic lodges. Mr. Ericson was married July 11, 1888, to Miss Inez Lydia Malm- gren of Chicago, who died in 1893. Three years later, on June 30, 1906, he was married to her sister, Esther Elizabeth Malm- gren. In the first marriage Mr. Ericson has a daughter, Mildred Inez, born May 10, 1889. She was married to Mr. Ralph Haven Quin- lan November 5, 1913. Mr. Eric- son's residence is at 848 Lakeside place. ADOLPH QUIST was born July 1 6, 1870, in the par- ish of Visnum, Vermland, Sweden, where his father, Wilhelm Qnist, was a miller. At the age of nine-- teen he came to America and lo- cated in Chicago. In 1900 he started in the stair construction business together with John Gelin under the name of J. Gelin & Co. In the spring of 1911 Mr. Gelin sold his interest to Mr. Becker and the company was reorganized un- der the name of Quist & Becker, with factory at 443 West Fifty- eighth street. The name of Quist & Becker has since then come to be synonymous with quality and reliability in the production of interior stairways. Their business has had steady and substantial growth from the outset. The firm is now ready to make a notable addition to their plant. The new addition will be equipped with the latest and most approved ma- chinery and labor saving appliances and the capacity of the plant will be practically doubled when the new section is in operation. Mr. Quist, who is a member of the Baptist Church and the Chi- ADOLPH QUIST. cago Motor Club, was married May 15, 1897, to Miss Mathilda Holm, of Dalsland, Sweden, and has one daughter, sixteen years old. CARL OSCAR CARLSON, building contractor, was born in the parish of Malilla, Smaland, Sweden, November 14, 1865. His father, Carl P. Nelson, was a fore- man, and his mother was Carolina Charlotta, nee Granath. In 1886 he arrived in Chicago and found employment as a carpenter. In 1902 he started in the contracting business and has his office and 462 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS home at 1457 Foster avenue, Sum- merdale. During his fourteen years as an independent contractor he has devoted himself chiefly to general contracting. He is a member of the Carpen- ter Contractors' Association, and has his religious home in the Eben- ezer Swedish Lutheran Church, CARL OSCAR CARLSON. where he is a trustee and chairman of the board since two years back. He was married Sept. i, 1894, to Miss Emma Landstrom, who was born in Sandbeck, Blekinge. There are six children in the family. KARL GUSTAF LINDVALL was born in Karlstad, Sweden, May 14, 1876. His parents were John Alfred Lindvall and his wife Lou- ise Lindvall, nee Gneib. Having graduated from the collegiate school of his native town, he found employment with J. L. Tiedemann in Charlottenberg, the largest to- bacco firm in Sweden. He began his career as office boy, was shifted to the various departments and re- mained with the firm for six years. as bookkeeper and corresponding- secretary. The following two years, he was shipping agent and adviser for an English company develop- ing copper mines in Vermland. When this company, owing to finan- cial difficulties, was forced to with- draw its operations in Sweden, Mr. Lindvall decided to enter the civil service and became assistant to the sheriff in Josse county, Vermland, which position he held for about one year. Hoping to find a brighter future in America, Mr. Lindvall emi- grated in 1900 and came to Chi- cago the same year. After various kinds of experience he obtained employment in 1902 in the foreign exchange department of the State Bank of Chicago. In 1903 he had charge of the routine work of the Swedish-Norwegian vice-consulate, and in 1911 he was again appointed to a similar position for the Swe- dish consulate, which he held until this office was reorganized in Jan- uary, 1914. Mr. Lindvall then re- sumed his position in the foreign exchange department. Mr. Lind- vall is an active member of the Swedish Engineers' Society, the Swedish National Association, the Swedish Club and the Order of Svithiod. For his active interest in the Olympian games in Stockholm, 1912, Mr. Lindvall was given the medal of this organization. He is very much interested in mercantile affairs and has been working for closer business relations between the United States and Sweden. He is shareholder and promoter of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 463 Sweden-America Steamship Com- pany. Mr. Lindvall has also made him- self known for his literary talents. To the paper Trasdockan, a humor- ous publication, he is a frequent contributor and at festive occasions he has proven himself to be a clever speaker. KARL GUSTAF LINDVALL. Mr. Lindvall was married to Miss Ragnhild Bjerke of Christiania, Norway, in 1909. They have one daughter, Signe Louise, born De- cember 10, 1910. The family re- side at 4720 North Sawyer avenue. THURE A. JOHANSON. The subject of this sketch was born in Kalmar, Sweden, June 26, 1869, where he received a good edu- cation in the public and collegiate schools of the city. He also took a course in manual training, and after his arrival in New York, 1887, he attended the technical de- partment of Manhattan Evening School, while working as an ap- prentice in the piano business for the Conover Piano Company. Sev- eral years were spent in the piano factories of New York, and in 1892 he came to Chicago, entering the employ of the Cable company. His thorough knowledge of the business soon brought him a respon- sible position, and when the St. Charles, factory was built he went from the Chicago plant, where he had been one of the assistant super- intendents, to take full charge there. In speaking of Mr. Johanson, the Cable Company has this to say : "Mr. Johanson's history, if writ- ten, would be the history of the mechanical growth of the Cable Company from its inception to the present great power among piano industries of the country." The fact that he has recently been elected one of the company's di- rectors is sufficient evidence that he at all times rendered faithful, in- telligent service. But Mr. Johanson has been more than a successful and capable ex- ecutive. He has proven himself a loyal citizen, never failing to iden- tify himself with every cause mak- ing for better social and civic con- ditions. He is a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church, member of the St. Charles school board, a Mason, and member of Knights of Pythias and director of St. Charles Commercial Club. He lives in St. Charles, but as superintendent of both of the Cable Company's factories he spends a great part of his time in Chicago, where he is member of the Swe- dish Club and the Swedish Engi- neers' Society. He has taken great 464 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS interest in Swedish music ever since his coming to America and has been an active member of the lead- ing Scandinavian singing societies in the East, and since 1892 is con- nected with the Swedish Glee Club of Chicago. In the last named or- ganization he holds the office of president. THURE A. JOHANSON. Mr. Johanson was married in 1891, to Miss Maria Friberg, born in Vermland, and has two children. JOHN EMANUEL SPANN, merchant tailor, was born in Ving- aker, Sodermanland, Sweden, March 26, 1869. His parents were John and Carolina Spann. The grandfather entered the Swedish army as a musician, where he re- ceived the name Spann. The moth- er is dead, but his father, a brother and a sister are still living. Educated in the public schools at Marsjo, he came to America in 1888, locating in Kansas City. In 1893 he moved to Chicago, where he engaged in the tailoring business as a member of the firm of McDon- ald & Spann. The partnership was dissolved 1905 and the name of the firm is now John E. Spann, Merchant Tailor, 104 South Michi- gan boulevard. Mr. Spann is a man of great ex- ecutive ability and fine voice, gifts JOHN EMANUEL SPANN. made ample use of by his church. He has been director of the choir in the First Swedish Baptist Church for a number of years, also director of the Symphony Choir and of the Swedish Baptist Jubilee Chorus. Besides this he has held many of- fices in the church. At present he is second vice-chairman, secretary of the Board of Trustees and of the finance committee of the Firsl Swedish Baptist Church. He is director in the Baptist Home for the Aged in Morgan Park and is secretary of the pub- lishing and literary department of the Swedish Baptist General Con- ference. Mr. Spann was married to Miss LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 465 Sigrid R. Anderson of Chicago, September 12, 1900. They have one son, John E., Jr., born 1909. A daughter, Evelyn, 12 years old, lost her life by accident, December 24, 1914. GABRIEL HJERTQUIST was born in the parish of Levede. Gotland, Sweden, June 18, 1840. At the age of six years he left the romantic island in the Baltic with his parents, who had prepared a home for the family in Ljungby, Smaland. In 1852 he came to Vexio, where he remained four years, pursuing his studies, and subsequently joined the Kronoberg regiment as a volunteer at the age of fifteen. But as he had no taste for military life he retired from the army and entered the civil serv- ice in 1857, receiving his first ap- pointment as a deputy crown bailiff in Konga county, where he re- mained till December, 1860, when he was appointed to fill the same position in Handbord's county. In 1 86 1, when he had just become of age, Mr. Hjertquist was appointed by the governor of the province to fill the office of deputy crown bailiff on his own responsibility in the northern district of Stranda county. In December, 1861, he passed his civil service examination before the provincial government in Kalmar and was appointed bailiff in the northern district of Stranda county in the beginning of 1862, which po- sition he filled until 1869, when he was transferred to the southern dis- trict of More county. This position he held till January, 1873. when he resigned and decided to go to Amer- ica, making Chicago his permanent home. He secured employment as a foreman in the composing room of Nya Vcrlden, afterwards changed to Svcnska Tribuncn, in the early part of 1874, and remained in this capacity until 1884, when he with P. A. Sundelius and N. P. Nelson GABRIEL HJERTQUIST. bought Svcnska Amerikanaren. He remained in charge of the com- position room of this paper for a period of twenty-five years, where- upon he retired from active work. During the years the two week- lies, Broder Lustig and Idnna, were being published, Mr. Hjertquist was an industrious contributor to these papers. In later years he has been engaged in literary work and written a number of short stories for Swedish-American publications. In religion Mr. Hjertquist is an Episcopalian, being a member of St. Ansgarius' Church, where he still holds the office of vestryman and secretary of the board of trus- tees. 466 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS He was married May 23, 1862, to Miss Beate Sofie Lundberg, daughter of C. J. Lundberg, owner of the Fredriksfors works in Doder- hult, Kalmar Ian. Three children of this marriage are still living, one Jean Ludvig Eugene Gabriel, and two daughters, Skuldfrid, who is a widow of Dr. John Alstrand, and Thyra, married to Mr. C. S. Peter- son, proprietor of Peterson Lino- typing Company and Regan Print- ing Company. His wife passed away after thirty years of a happy married life and is still mourned by the remaining husband. FRANK ALBERT JOHNSON, secretary of the Swedish Method- ist Aid Association, was torn in Chicago, September 4, iS/o. His parents were Reinhold Johnson, a tailor, and his wife, Christina Abra- hamson. He received his grammar school education in Chicago and at- tended afterwards the Metropolitan Business College. Mr. Johnson then for several years held respon- sible positions in the offices of the Wabash Railroad Company, Pull- man Palace Car Company and the Alston Paint Manufacturing Com- pany. For six years he was in the custom tailoring business with his father. For the last sixteen years he has been secretary of the Swedish Meth- odist Aid Association, an insur- ance society doing business exclu- sively with church people of the various denominations. He has filled this position with credit to himself and the society, which has during his leadership more than doubled its number of members. Mr. Johnson was for many years- secretary and director of the Swe- dish M. E. Book Concern, but re- signed from these positions owing to the many other duties laid upon him. He is a member of the Elim Swedish Methodist Church in which he has held many offices, as treas- urer, trustee, secretary, etc., always attending to his duties in a most creditable way. He is a member FRANK ALBERT JOHNSON. of the Swedish Historical Society of America and interested as stock- holder in the Chicago Cemetery As- sociation, owners of Oak Hill Cem- etery. In 1908 Mr. Johnson had the honor of representing the Cen- tral Swedish Conference in the General Conference of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, the only lawmaking body of that denomina- tion, which convenes every fourth year. He was married September 21, 1892, to Miss Hilda A. Johnson of Donovan, 111. Two children have been born to them, Albert R.^ twenty-two years old, who is con- nected with the Stafford Manufac- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 467 luring Company, and a daughter, Florence H. Johnson. The family resides at 1417 Olive avenue. LUTHER DAVID SWAN- STROM, lawyer, was born November 9, 1883, in Lindsborg, Kan. His par- ents were John and Christine Swanstrom. After his graduation LUTHER DAVID SWANSTROM. from the elementary school he en- tered the Bethany College of Linds- borg and was graduated from that seat of learning in 1904, receiving the degree of B. A. He then became principal of the high school in Bun- ton, Kan., during the scholastic year 1904-1905. In the fall of the last named year he came to Chi- cago and matriculated in the Law School of the University of Chicago. He graduated from this school in 1908 and received the degree of J. D. Mr. Swanstrom afterwards be- came the head of the law and credit department of McNeil & Higgins Company for four years, and in 1914 he opened an office for the practice of law at 69 West Wash- ington street, where he is still lo- cated. In 1911 he organized the Swanstrom Manufacturing Com- pany, of which he is secretary and director. He is holding the same position in the Washington Park Hospital. Mr. Swanstrom is a Republican in politics and attends the Bethle- hem Swedish Lutheran Church, where he is a member. He is also an active member of the Delta Chi Law Fraternity. ANDREW SANDEGREN, architect, was born in Halmstad, Sweden, June 25, 1867. He is the son of Johan Sandegren, a school teacher, who remained in active service until he died at the age of eighty-three, and his wife, Helena Petronella, nee Lundgren. Young Sandegren attended a high school in his native city and the Carolinian Cathedral School at Lund. In May, 1888, he came to America and worked for prominent architectural firms in Chicago, New York and Boston before starting in business in Chicago in 1902. Mr. Sandegren, who has offices at in Washington street, is one of the most noted architects of the city and has erected more than seven hundred buildings during the twenty-four years he has practiced as an architect in Chicago. He has had a large clientele in apartment house construction among the bet- ter class. The reason for his suc- cess in this line is that he endeavors to impart residential character to his buildings, combining an air of 4(is THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS refinement, dignity and good taste. Among monumental buildings he has erected may be mentioned es- pecially the Swedish Old People's Home at Evanston. Mr. Sandegren is a member of many technical societies. He was president of the Scandinavian Technical Society in 1908, is a member of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Masonic Order, Odd ANDREW SANDEGREN. Fellows and the Vikings. He is also an active member in the Illi- nois Athletic Club, the Swedish Club and the Svithiod Club. HARRY E. A. OLSON, well-known life insurance man, was born in the parish of Vingaker, Sodermanland, Sweden, August 4, 18/5. He came to America with his parents, Erik and Charlotta Ol- son, in the fall of 1880. He re- ceived his elementary education in the Parkman School in Chicago and continued for some time in a night school. At the age of thirteen he started his career as a cash boy for Mar- shall Field & Co., and in six months he was transferred to the wholesale department and was shifted around in several departments until 1893, when he was sent to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York to help install and operate an electric car- pet sewing machine, patented by the manager of the carpet depart- HARRY E. A. OLSON. ment. Six months were spent in the East on this errand, whereupon he worked as a stockboy, book- keeper, floor salesman and finally traveling salesman for the carpet department, which position he held for eleven years. He then began selling life insur- ance for Scandia Life Insurance Co. in February, 1908, and had his field in Chicago for one and a half years, managed the Rockford office of the company three and a half years, and returned to Chicago in November, 1914, where he became the head of the H. E. A. Olson & Co., agents for fire and life insur- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 469 ance, real estate and loans, with an office at 30 North La Salle street. In May, 1914, he was elected secretary of the Svea Build- ing and Loan Association. Mr. Olson is a Republican in politics and member of the Swe- dish-American Republican Club. He belongs to the Bethlehem Swed- ish Lutheran Church in Engle- wood, where he has been a trustee several years. Married February 20, 1901, to Miss Anna Olivia Nordstrom of Chicago, he is the father of three children, Mildred, Ethel and Norman. The family resides at 517 West Sixty-first street, Chicago. GUSTAVE JACOBSON, owner of Jacobson Printing Co., was born at Grangesberg, the par- ish of Granglirde, Dalarne, Sweden, October 13, 1873. His parents im- migrated to America in 1884, mak- ing their home in Chicago, where young Jacobson attended the pub- lic schools. After graduation he learned the printing trade in the office of the Engberg & Holmberg Publishing Company. Since then Mr. Jacobson has been working in several printing offices, among oth- ers those of Fosterlcpndet and Sren- ska Tribunen. In 1903 he started the Jacobson Printing Company, with office at 357 North Clark street. But ow- ing to the increase in business the office has lately been moved to larger quarters at 300 West Grand avenue, northwest corner of Frank- lin street. This firm is doing all kinds of linotyping work. Mr. Jacobson is a member of the Independent Order of Svithiod, the Independent Order of Vikings, North Star Benefit Association, Scandinavian Brotherhood, King Oscar Lodge of A. F. & A. M., Oriental Consistory, Order of the Mystic Shrine. He also holds mem- bership in the Svithiod Club, the Swedish Historical Society, and is a life member of Old People's Home Association. GUSTAVE JACOBSON. He was married June 25, 1896, to Miss Beda Dorothea Swanson, born at Maas, Dalarna. They have five children, and the family re- sides at 1470 Balmoral avenue. SAMUEL OLOF OLIN, mortgage banker, was born in Chi- cago, August 24, 1867. He is the son of Sven O. Olin, one of the oldest Swedish pioneers in Chicago, having come here as early as 1857. Mr. Olin, senior, was a tailor and for many years took an active part in public affairs among the Swedish settlers on the north side. 470 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Mr. Olin was educated in the public schools of Chicago and grad- uated from the old Franklin school in 1883. In August of the same year he entered the employ of Peterson & Bay, bankers. When this firm was incorporated in 1895 as the Western State Bank, Mr. Olin was elected assistant cashier. He held this position until Febru- ary 15, 1901, when he resigned to SAMUEL OLOF OLIN. engage in the mortgage loan busi- ness. On September 15, 1905, Mr. Charles Brattstrom became asso- ciated with him in the real estate and loan business under the name of Brattstrom & Olin. He was married to Miss May J. Irwin of Janesville, Wis., January 28, 1891. They have three chil- dren, Irene Balfour, who was born in 1892 ; Irwin Elaine, born in 1895, and Gertrude May, in 1902. The family resides at 830 Forest avenue, Evanston, and worships in St. Luke's Protestant Episcopal Church. FRANK SMEDBERG is a native of Voxtorp, Smaland, Sweden, where he was born Feb- ruary 22, 1870. He is the son of Andrew Smedberg, a mechanic, and his wife, Elizabeth Smedberg. He studied first in the public schools of Sweden and, as he came to America at the age of twelve, he finished his course in this country. FRANK SMEDBERG. When he was eighteen years of age he started in the restaurant business, opening two eating places in St. Paul, Minn. Later he came to Chicago and became the owner of the Hampden Restaurant, 12-14 State street ; Washington Restau- rant, corner of Adams street and Wabash avenue ; King's Restau- rant, 28-34 North Fifth avenue, and Stock Exchange Restaurant, La Salle and Washington streets. The two last ones are still owned by him. He is a thirty-second degree Ma- son, a member of the Order of Elks, of the Manufacturers' Asso- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 471 ciation and the Strollers Business Men's Circle. Mr. Smedberg was married to Miss Adelaide Lippert, of Cleve- land, Ohio, September 4, 1904, and has three children. The family re- sides at Riverside, 111. JOHN A. CHRISTENSON. Among the Swedish-American physicians of Chicago several have attained a high reputation for skill and learning. One of them is the subject of this biography. The many positions of honor and re- sponsibility he has held testifies to the fact. On his very first field of practice, Manistee, Mich., his abil- ity was recognized. He served two terms as City Health Commission- er, was elected president of Manis- tee County Medical Society and also vice-president of the Michigan State Medical Society. In Chicago he has served as president of the Old People's Home Association, is consulting physician at Augustana Hospital, also at College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, University of Illinois. He has served as medical examiner in several fraternal or- granizations. The following societies count him as a member: Chicago Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, National Medical Society, Illinois Medical Society, Cook County Medical Society and Scandinavian Medical Society of Chicago. He is a popular member of such orders as : Foresters, Maccabees, Svithiod, Vasa, Svithiod Singing Club, Swe- dish-American California Club, Trinity Brotherhood and others. As a Republican he belongs to the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois, Swedish-Ameri- can Central Republican Club of Cook County and the Twenty-third Ward Republican Club of Chicago. He is a member and an honored trustee of the Trinity Swedish Lutheran Church. His birthplace is the parish of Askome, province of Halland, Swe- den. Born July 6, 1872, he came JOHN A. CHRISTENSOX. with his parents, Nels Christenson and Elenore (nee Swanson), to America in 1879. His studious mind fought against many obstacles and gained him the A. B. degree at Augustana College in Rock Island in 1900. He spent the following year on post graduate work at Iowa State University. In 1905 he re- ceived his M. D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Universi- ty of Illinois, having also served as interne at Augustana Hospital. His office has been at 917 Belmont ave- nue, Chicago, since 1911, and a growing practice is the natural re- ward of his skill. 472 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS In 1905, September I4th, he married Miss Selma Rundquist of Moline, 111. One daughter has been born. The family residence is at 725 Melrose street. AKSEL DANIEL WESTER- LIND, the well-known artist, is the son of Carl Gustaf Westerlind and his wife, Anna Catarina (nee Bjor- lin). He was born in Ed par- ish, province of Dalsland, May .2, 1865. With an eye for the beauti- ful and the true, he started early in his search after the art of in- terpretation. He sought guidance at the hands of Balzer in the famous Chalmers' Institute at Goteborg. Later Professor Bernt Lindholm, at the art school of the Goteborg Mu- seum, gave him instruction, where- upon he had the privilege of re- ceiving inspiration and light from the great master, Carl Larsson, at the Valand Academy of Art in the same city. Mr. Westerlind came to America in 1887. His first six months in New- York were spent with the Julius Bean Lithographic Company. Two and a half years he remained as sketch artist with the Calvert Lith- ographic Company in Detroit, Mich. Thence he came to Chicago, where Shaber & Carqueville Litho. Com- pany secured his services during three years. Now followed ten years of traveling as a special art- ist for a large firm in Coshocton, O., his territory reaching from Omaha to Tampa. He then opened a studio of his own, in which he produced much notable work dur- ing the next seven years. At present Mr. Westerlind holds an important position with the Mey- ercord Company, Inc., a well- known Chicago firm with offices in the Chamber of Commerce. As an artist in water colors he has at- tracted much well-deserved atten- tion and praise in art circles. He is a member of the Elks. His happy married life began on Christ- AKSEL DANIEL WESTERLIND. mas eve, 1890, when Elin Wilhel- mina Nyman of Goteborg became his life partner. They have seven children and reside at 221 Locust street. OSCAR D. OLSON, attorney-at-law, was born on a farm at Cambridge, Henry county, Illinois, thirty-eight years ago. He came to Chicago in 1904 and has since that time made this city his place of abode. He grad- uated from the Cambridge High School and later from the Valpa- raiso University, and also holds the degree of LL. B. from the Chicago LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY Law School, and LL. M. from the Illinois College of Law. He has been engaged in the prac- tice of his profession of law for upwards of fifteen years. He is a member of Boulevard Lodge, No. 882, A. F. and A. M., Lafayette Chapter, No. 2, R. A. M., Cheva- lier Bayard Commandery, Oriental Consistory and Medinah Temple. OSCAR D. OLSON. He was assistant State's attorney under the administration of John J. Healy. He is married and resides with his wife and son at 7/05 Union avenue, and his offices are at 1127, 30 North La Salle street. AXEL FRITIOF JOHNSON was born in Chicago on September 8, 1876, his father being Peter Johnson, formerly foreman at Oak- woods Cemetery, and his mother Johanna Parson. In 1891 he grad- uated from grammar school and later continued his studies at Chi- cago College of Pharmacy, at the Art Institute and at Bryant & Strat- ton's Business College. He grad- uated with the degree of LL. B. from Chicago Law School in 1901 and was admitted to the bar the same year. Previous to this he held positions at Chicago World's Fair and at the following pharmacies : E. A. Curtis at Parkside and Emerson on Fifty-seventh street. Later he AXEL FRITIOF JOHNSON. served as clerk at Griswold, Palmer & Co. and in Geo. A. Scavern's real estate office. Since 1901 he has practiced law, beginning in East Chicago, Ind. His offices are now located in the Unity Building. Mr. Johnson is a well-known member of the Comus Club, where he has held many offices. He holds high positions in the Royal League Fraternal Insurance Society. Sev- eral religious organizations count him as a member: the Augustana League of Chicago and the United Young People's Societies of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Churches of the South District have been benefited by his faithful serv- 474 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ices in several offices. His church home is the Bethany Swedish Luth- eran Church, where he held a deacon's office. In politics a Re- publican, he belongs to the Seventh Ward Republican Club and is captain of the seventy-fourth pre- cinct of said ward. He married Miss Carrie Lucille Swanson of Mendota, 111., on June 25, 1914. Their home is at 7330 Blackstone avenue. EDWIN A. ISAACSON, a widely known insurance man, was born on a farm in DeKalb county, Illinois, August 13, 1877. EDWIN A. ISAACSON. His parents are John Isaacson and his wife, Emily Sophia, nee Gus- tafson. His early life was spent on his father's farm and in attend- ing public school. In December. 1901, he entered the Business and Normal College of Dixon, 111., where he graduated from the commercial department August i, 1902. Then he came to Chicago to seek em- ployment as bookkeeper and found work with the International Har- vester Company. In May, 1905, he became affiliated with the Scandia Life Insurance Company, where he has held various positions, as clerk in the home office, agent in the field, agency cashier, agency manager, and is at present engaged as assistant superintendent of agents. Mr. Isaacson is a Lutheran in faith, being connected with the St. Timothy Church, where he holds the office of trustee, and is a mem- ber of the Order of Moose and the Svithiod Club. He was married June 6, 1914, to Miss Astrid C. Peterson, of Chi- cago. They have one daughter and reside at 4640 North Central Park avenue. AXEL BERNHARD, doctor of dental surgery, is a native of the Swedish city of Norrkoping, where his father was the proprietor of a machine shop. He was born October 20, 1877, and at sixteen years of age began the study and practice of dentistry with Dr. Gus- taf Hyden of his home city. At twenty-five he came to the United States, destined for Chicago. Here he became assistant to Dr. P. Wm. Thorelius, under whom he worked for six years, meanwhile pursuing theoretical studies in the North- western University Dental School. From this institution he was gradu- ated in 1909 with the degree of D. D. S. Shortly after graduation Dr. Bernhard established his own dental office and laboratory, which at the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 475 present time is located at 5134 North Clark street. Dr. Bernhard is one of the most active promoters of the interests of the Svithiod Singing Club, a musical and social club which he has served in the capacity of director and sec- retary for many years. Other fra- ternities with which he is affiliated are: Edgewater Lodge, No. 901, Free Masons ; Independent Order AXEL BERNHARD. of Svithiod, and Independent Order of Vikings. Dr. Bernhard is married and has one son, Axel. Mrs. Bernhard, who was Miss Elida Swenson, is a native of the city of Landskrona, Sweden. AXEL BLOMFELDT was born at the city of Koping, Sweden, April 10, 1858. His fa- ther, P. E. Blomfeldt, married to Fredrika Bernwall, was a farm- owner. Through private tutors and public schools he received his early training, whereupon he en- tered the Koping Mechanical Works in his home city. In 1877 we find him at Ljusne Mechanical Works and in 1881 he came over to this country. Chicago now became his home city and he spent several years here following his trade. When in 1896 the Blomfeldt & Rapp Company was organized he became its secre- tary and treasurer. This manufac- AXEL BLOMFELDT. turing concern specialized in the making of tools and dies and spe- cial machinery. He now holds the same office of trust and responsi- bility with the Northwestern Car Seal Company, 108-128 North Jef- ferson street, which was organized in 1907 for the sole purpose of manufacturing seals and sealing devices. Mr. Blomfeldt married Emely Samuelson of Stockholm Septem- ber 22, 1895. They have one son, and their residence is at 6523 Greenview avenue. He is a Re- publican in politics. In the Swedish Engineers' So- 476 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ciety of Chicago he holds member- ship, also in the King Oscar Lodge, No. 855, of A. F. & A. M. As a member of Independent Order of Svithiod he has been elected to the various elective offices of said or- der. He is also a well-known mem- ber of the Svithiod Singing Club. was born April 19, 1864, in Elm- boda parish, Kronoberg Lan, Swe- den, whence he came to Chicago in EDWIN RYLANDER. 1891. Being a cabinet maker by trade, he began to specialize in stair work, and is now the proprietor of the Ravenswood Stair Shop, located at 4912-14 North Clark street. Mr. Rylander joined the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran Church in 1896, and has been a member of the church council from that time on. In 1888 he was joined in wed- lock with Maria C. Peterson, of Fridlifstad parish, Blekinge. They have one son and an adopted daughter. G. BERNHARD ANDERSON. Brief in words but full of value is this biography of one of the best known Swedish-Americans in Chi- cago. Mr. Anderson was born in Sweden in 1867 and came with his parents to Chicago in 1868. Here he attended the public schools and in 1888 he finished his course at Augustana College in Rock Island. He taught school in Salt Lake City, Utah, during two years, whereupon he entered Harvard University. G. BERNHARD ANDERSON. At this venerable seat of learning he received his A. B. degree in 1891 and his A. M. degree in 1892. The following year we find him at Upsala University in Sweden, studying Scandinavian languages and literature. He married in 1893 and became a widower in 1912. The beginning of his most suc- cessful law practice dates back to 1896. He was appointed Swedish vice consul for the Chicago district in June, 1914. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 477 CARL JOHNSON, cement contractor, was born Jan- uary 26, 1870, in the parish of Aryd, Blekinge, Sweden. His fa- ther, John Nelson, was a stone cut- ter. After graduation from the public school, Mr. Johnson became a sailor and made frequent trips between Sweden and Denmark. In 1889 he sailed in an English ship in the Arctic ocean as far as Arch- angel, Russia, where he for weeks had the pleasure of seeing the mid- CARL JOHNSON. night sun, an experience never to be forgotten. He came to Chicago in June, 1895, and found employment the same year with Marshall Field & Co. as an oiler. In May, 1897, he became night engineer, and in 1902 he secured a position as -foreman in* Ed Swanson's cement firm. He held this position until April 28, 1908, when he started for himself as cement contractor, with office at his home, 5648 Augusta street. Mr. Johnson was married Octo- ber 6, 1896, to Miss Marie Nelson, from Blekinge, Sweden. They have three children, two sons and a daughter. EDWARD J. LINDSTEN. The mentioning of this name re- minds every Swedish Chicagoan of one of the leading clothing firms in the city, the Lindsten Clothing Com- pany, at 321 1-15 North Clark street. Mr. Lindsten, who is the vice-presi- dent of the firm, has been its crea- EDWARD J. LINDSTEN. tive and guiding genius. He was born in Chicago May 15, 1873, his parents being Frank J. and Sarah M. Lindsten. He received his edu- cation in grammar schools and at Central Indiana Normal College. From 1889 until 1910 he engaged in the manufacturing of clothing and began meanwhile, during 1905, a retail business at Belmont and Racine avenues. The business kept on outgrowing its quarters and was removed to 3232-36 North Clark street in 1906, and thence to 478 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS its present spacious location. This last move in 1911 was accompanied by the opening of a successful branch at 3944-48 Lincoln avenue. Mr. Lindsten's business sagacity has been recognized in many ways. He is a director of the Lake View State Bank. He is a Mason and a member of the Royal Arcanum, Knights of Pythias and Independ- ent Order of Svithiod. A Repub- lican in politics and a Lutheran in faith. In 1896, September 16, he mar- ried Miss Clara E. Anderson of Chicago. One daughter has blessed this union. Their residence is at 5227 Kenmore avenue. AXEL AUGUST AKERS, the chief mechanical designer and engineer in the Bureau of Engi- neering in Chicago, is, compara- tively speaking, a young man. Skill and character elevated him to his present position through a series of rapidly advancing steps. He began his career in Chicago in 1897 as draftsman with Eraser & Chalmers engineering works, where he advanced to designer in 1899. In 1901 he became assistant superintendent at Allis & Chalmers Company, and from 1902 to 1905 he served as designer for the same firm at its pumping machinery plant in Milwaukee. From this position the company elevated him to chief checker and designer for its depart- ment of pumping and hydraulic en- gines. And in this capacity he served with great success until 1910. He was then called to a similar position at the Platt Iron Works in Dayton, Ohio, from which place he entered into his present of- fice of responsibility. Mr. Akers' birthplace is Malmo, Sweden, where he was born Octo- ber 20, 1877, his parents being Aaron Theodore Akerblad, painter by trade, and Emma Wallengren. He came with his parents to Amer- ica in 1881 and received his early education in the public schools of Chicago. By thorough private AXEL AUGUST AKERS. studies he prepared further for his life work. He married Thyra Esther Fors- lund of Chicago on September 14, 1901. One child has been born. Their home is at 7357 Vernon ave^ nue. They are adherents of the Presbyterian faith. Mr. Akers is an active and popular member of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago, -of which society he was treasurer during 1915. He is also a member of the following organi- zations : D. C. Cregier, No. 64, A. F. & A. M. ; Washington Chapter, No. 43, R. A. M., and Chicago Commandery, No. 19, K. T. M. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 479 EDWARD BENSON, architect, was born March 25, 1859, in the parish of Kallerstad, Jon- kopings Ian, Sweden. His parents, Bengt and Christina Nelson, were farmers. Having completed the grammar school course in his na- tive state in 1873, he became a stu- dent in the Technical School of Stockholm between 1879 an d 1881. EDWARD BENSON. The two following years he spent in an architectural institute in Stockholm and thereupon took a course in a business college, 1883- 84. During these years he sup- ported himself with manual labor, beginning as a carpenter's appren- tice in 1874. In the summer time he was engaged with outdoor work on buildings and in the winter he worked as a cabinetmaker. After the completion of his courses of study he found employ- ment as a draftsman, and between 1884 and 1888 he was placed in charge of the construction of five and six-story apartment buildings, as well as various school buildings in the capital of Sweden. The last mentioned year he came to the United States and went di- rectly to Chicago. Here he found work as carpenter and later on as bricklayer. After two or three years of practical work he had the occasion to draw his first plans for a Chicago building on the south side. Since then he has had de- cided success as an architect and has been the designer of nearly two thousand buildings, including apart- ments, hospitals, churches, factories and office buildings, etc. This phe- nomenal success is due to his supe- rior methods, his personal supervi- sion of every enterprise and his integrity. An unusual distinction was con- ferred upon him when some years ago he was elected president of the American Institute of Archi- tects, an honor highly esteemed by members of the profession. His business office is at 118 North La Salle street. Mr. Benson, who is a member of the Lake View Mission Church, was married in 1885 to Miss Ida Louisa Flodin of Jonkoping and has four children. GUSTAF LINDELL. In the parish of Sunne, Verm- land, Mr. Lindell was born May 9,. 1864. His parents were Lars Lar- son, a farm owner, and Maria Ol- son. The lad received the best training that this historic section could offer and finally graduated with honor in 1879 from Sunne High School, the school founded by the famous historian, Anders 480 THE SWEDISH iiLEMENT IN ILLINOIS Fryxell. A few years on his father's farm, and young Lindell went to Stockholm, where he learned the carpenter's trade. Two years later, in 1887, he emi- grated to America and proceeded at once to Chicago, where he soon mastered the language and his trade and became an independent con- tractor. His record as a builder is a testimony to his skill and judg- ment. GUSTAF LINDELL. Among structures erected by him we note the following: the Gymnasium in Morgan Park for Chicago University, the Saddle & Cycle Club House in Edgewater, the Exmoor Golf Club House in Highland Park, the Alexandra Ho- tel in Chicago, the Manz Engraving Company's large plant on Irving Park Boulevard, the Nebo Swedish Lutheran Church at Fifty-eighth avenue and Dakin street, the Con- gregational church in Winnetka. 111. The Carpenters and Contractors Association in Chicago has hon- ored him with the office of treas- urer. He holds membership in the following lodges and societies : King Oscar Lodge, No. 855; Cor- inthian Chapter, No. 69 ; St. Ber- nard Commandery, No. 35, K. T. ; Medinah Temple ; A. A. O. ; M. S. ; also in the Swedish Club and Svithiod Singing Club. The Iduna Society had in him an efficient sec- retary. Mr. Lindell is a Republi- can and holds membership in the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois. His church preference is Lutheran. He married Miss Emma Maria Olson of Sunne parish in 1897. They have one daughter and live at 1325 Granville avenue. Mr. Lin- dell's office is at 105 North Clark street. FRANK EVERETT ANDER- SON, the president and secretary of Frank E. Anderson & Co., Inc., stands in the front rank of Chica- go's merchant tailors. At the early age of seventeen he began his ca- reer as a manufacturing tailor. A year later, in 1891, he took the posi- tion of trimmer and assistant cut- ter for the Le Grand Tailoring Company. At the age of twenty- one he entered the field of merchant tailoring and his progress and achievements along this line have found a worthy monument in the large establishment at State and Monroe street, in the North American Building. Mr. Anderson's ability has been recognized in many ways ; he is at present secretary of the Chicago Society of Merchant Tailors. He LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 481 is a Mason and a popular member of the Westmoreland Golf Club. His church preference is Lutheran. Mr. Anderson was born in the parish of Karl Gustaf, province of Vestergotland, December 18, 1873, and arrived in America 1882. Bern- hard Anderson, piano maker by trade, is his father, Inga Anderson his mother. He attended schools in the new as well as in the old coun- try. Miss Freda Kabateck became FRANK EVERETT ANDERSON. his wife September 29, 1894. They have one son and reside at 1447 Birchwood avenue, Rogers Park. JOHN A. SWANSON. In this sketch we meet a gentle- man, well known in legal, political and social circles of Chicago. He has practiced law in this city of his birth during twenty-one years, and he has ably represented the city in the State Legislature at Springfield during several years. As State rep- resentative he served 1910-1912 and in November, 1914, he began a four-year term as State senator from the thirteenth district. He is naturally a leading member of the Republican club in his own ward, the Seventh. Hon. Mr. Swanson was born April 14, 1874, his parents being John Swanson, engaged in the tailor business, and Anna G. Anderson. He received his education in the public schools and at Northwestern University (Chicago College of Law JOHN A. SWANSON. Branch), where he received his de- gree in 1895. He was admitted to the bar and began his practice in April, 1895. His office is at 127 North Dearborn street. He married Miss Cecile A. Lea- son of Oshkosh, Wis., June 17, 1896. Two children have been born to them. The family residence is at 6842 Harper avenue. Besides many other duties and positions he serves as secretary to Moores and Dunford and is presi- dent of the Parkside Improvement Association. In 1913 he was elected Chancellor Commander of Knights 482 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of Pythias, Harmony Lodge no. He is a Mason of rank and a mem- ber of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He also holds mem- bership in the Lawyers' Association of Illinois and in the Illinois State Bar Association. OSCAR BURKLUND. This is a familiar name among builders and contractors in Chicago. Mr. Burklund, whose office is at OSCAR BURKLUND. 217 Chamber of Commerce Build- ing, began early in 1905 his suc- cessful enterprise as a general con- tractor, Austin being his first field of operation. He was born on March 16, 1872, in the home of Inspector Jons Jon- son and his wife Johanna (nee Nils- son), in Asarum parish, province of Blekinge, Sweden. He arrived in America 1890. His early train- ing he received in the parish school. With Miss Emma Caroline Wal- quist, born in Vestergotland, he en- tered married life January 19, 1901. Their home is at 929 North Menard . avenue, Austin, and they have four children. Mr. Burklund's religious prefer- ence is Lutheran, his political affil- iation is Republican, being a mem- ber of Austin Republican Club. He is also a well-known member of the Builders' and Traders' Exchange and the Contractors' Association of Chicago. He stands among the highest in the Masonic order, is a Shriner and member of the Knights of Pythias. As a thorough sports- man he belongs to the Chicago Mo- tor Club, and the Swedish Club counts him as an honored member. CHARLES G. PETTERSON, the business manager of the Mis- sion Friends' Publishing Company at 361 West Oak street, Chicago, was born in the parish of Marback, Smaland, August 8, 1851. His par- ents were Peter Gustafson, a farm- er, and Johanna Johanson. In the parish school his intellectual train- ing was begun. He emigrated to America in 1870. After spending a year as a blacksmith he became a tailor, working at that trade for nine years. Then he entered upon what may be justly considered his lifework as manager of the church paper, Missions-Vannen, which ca- ters to a large constituency and exerts a strong influence. His denomination, the Mission Covenant, has recognized his in- tegrity and his strength and hon- ored him with many positions of trust, and he is at present director and treasurer of the following cor- porations : Swedish Covenant Hos- pital and Home of Mercy ; Swedish LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 483 Mission Friends' Aid Association ; Swedish Mission Covenant Pension and Aid Association ; Illinois Mis- sion Society ; Mission Church Ben- efit Society. He is a stockholder of the publishing house which he serves as manager. His church home is the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Mission Church in Lake View, where he holds the offices of trustee and treasurer. In politics Mr. Petterson is a progressive Re- publican. CHARLES G. PETTERSON. Miss Josephina Johanson, born in Brestad parish, Smaland, became his wife May 24, 1878. They have three children and reside at 3825 Wilton avenue, Chicago. CARL MARTIN TURNQUIST is a product and representative of that which is best in Swedish- American Chicago. His parents were the well-known druggist, Axel Turnquist, and his wife, Hannah (nee Erickson). He was born in Chicago August 20, 1876. He com- pleted his course in the public schools and finished his high school studies at Armour Institute. His diploma as a pharmacist was granted him by Northwestern Uni- versity in 1896, and in 1897 he be- came Pharmaceutical Chemist. At his father's death in 1897 he took charge of the pharmacy and continued his father's business for ten years. He was secretary and treasurer for C. F. Blanke Tea Co., 1907-1909, and served as chemist CARL MARTIN TURNQUIST. and superintendent of Blanke-Baer Chemical Company of St. Louis during 1909-1911. He then formed his own company, the Downey- Turnquist Company, manufactur- ing chemists, of which concern he is secretary and treasurer. This most successful enterprise is located at 537-539 North Dearborn street. Mr. Turnquist is a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Pharmaceutical Asso- ciation. He is also a member of the Sons of Veterans and of Lake- side Lodge, 739, A. F. & A. M. 484 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS He is a Republican in politics. His church, .the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran, has honored him with the position of financial secretary. He also is the president of the Alumni Association of Northwestern Uni- versity School of Pharmacy, a po- sition of honor. Miss Ada O. Hawkinson of Chi- cago became his wife September 12, 1900. Their residence is at 4023 North Springfield avenue. They have two sons. BENGT J. REGNELL. Among apartment builders in Chicago the Swedish-Americans oc- cupy the front rank. Few firms, if any, are better known than the B. J. Regnell Company. Its found- er and president, the subject of this article, was born in the parish of Reng, Malmohus Ian, on April 7, 1858. J. Nelson and Kama Mar- tensson were his parents. His edu- cational start was given him in the parish school and the trade of a cabinetmaker he learned in the city of Malmo. On May i, 1880, he arrived in America and took up his trade in Chicago. Since 1884 he has been numbered among its contractors, and in 1908 he incorporated, to- gether with two sons, the B. J. Reg- nell Co., with offices at 19 South La Salle street. Twice he has entered matrimony. His first wife, Maria Johnson, died in 1893, after nearly twelve years of married life, during which five sons were born. Her birthplace was Malmo. To Carrie Johnson, born in Va parish, Kristianstads Ian, he was married on April 7. 1900. In this union two children, a daughter and a son, have been born. Their home is at 1720 Chase avenue. Mr. Regnell is a Republican. He is a member of the Elim Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, where he has held many positions of im- portance, such as steward, Sunday school superintendent, etc. At present he serves as a trustee. The BENGT J. REGNELL. same office he holds also in the Bethany Home and in the Swedish Theological Seminary in Evanston, 111. He is a man of sterling quali- ties, benevolent mind and executive ability. WILLIAM R. ANDERSON is a member of the well-known law firm, Anderson, Anderson & An- derson, in Chicago. Associated with his brother, G. Bernhard Anderson, he laid the foundations for this suc- cessful firm from 1899 until 1905. At that time the youngest brother, George F. Anderson, also entered LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 485 the partnership. Mr. William R. Anderson has specialized on real estate law and probate court work and is now considered an authority on such legal matters. The office of the firm is at 69 West Washing- ton street, Room 509. Mr. Anderson was born in Chi- cago, November i, 1874, his par- ents being Svante and Johanna Maria Anderson. He completed WILLIAM R. ANDERSON. the courses in public school and South Division High School and received his degree of LL. B. in 1899 at Lake Forest University. He is a popular member of the Swedish Club. His bachelor apart- ment is at 6736 Cornell avenue. WALTER CARL FOSTER. The senior partner of the well- known tailor firm. Foster & Od- ward, is a man of influence among merchant tailors in Chicago. Dur- ing six years he held the position of president in the Chicago Custom Cutters Club and holds the same office in the Republic Merchant Tailors Club. His skill and execu- tive ability has thus been worthily recognized. Born in Chicago on October 5, 1867, and educated in its public schools and Metropolitan College- he early affiliated himself with the business life of this great city. At thirteen years he began his career as a tailor and became in WALTER CARL FOSTER. time head cutter at the prominent early establishment Edward Ely Company. In 1890 he accepted the position of designer and chief cut- ter for Hardy Bros. This firm he later bought out, taking as partner Mr. P. S. Odward. The establish- ment is exceedingly well located in spacious quarters on the seventh floor in the Republic Building, cor- ner State and Adams streets. Mr. Foster is an active and hon- ored member of Bethany Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church, where he is a steward and superintendent of the adult department in the Sun- day school. He is a Mason of very THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS high rank and an honorary member of Milwaukee Cutters Club. His parents were: Gustaf Fos- ter, a cabinetmaker, native of Swe- den, and Augusta Foster. In his marriage to Miss Augusta Marie Peterson of Goteborg, November 6, 1894, four children have been born. Mr. and Mrs. Foster's residence is at 4885 North Hermitage avenue. CARL AUGUST OSTLING is the name of one of the best known physicians and surgeons in the growing suburb of Austin. Doctor CARL AUGUST OSTLING. Ostling began his practice here in 1905, his office being at 5848 West Chicago avenue, and he has attained a well-deserved reputation as a man of ability and honor. His birthplace is the parish of Grangarde, province of Dalarne, Sweden, where he was born Janu- ary 13, 1868, his parents being Carl Krick Johnson, farmer, and Chris- tine Elisabeth Anderson. Arriving in America in 1889, he began at once to build upon that founda- tion of early training which was laid in his boyhood. He spent three years at a Chicago seminary ; one year at Carleton College, in North- field, Minn. ; three years at Iowa College, in Grinnell, la. ; three years at Iowa . State University, Iowa City ; two and a half years at the University of Chicago and Rush Medical College. Here he received his M. D. degree in 1904. He served during the summer of 1904 as assistant to the chief phy- sician in the House of Correction in Chicago. During the three fol- lowing years he was the assistant to Professor Belfield at his own alma mater, Rush Medical College. He is a member of Chicago Medi- cal Association and is the medical examiner of the Scandinavian Brotherhood of American Macca- bees, where he holds membership. He votes the Republican ticket. His church home is the Swedish Mission Church in Austin. Miss Minnie Peterson, of Pierce City, Mo., became his bride August 15, 1906. They have one child. THEODORE O. DELANG. As a merchant tailor of the high- est order Mr. Delang has given added honor to the Swedish-Ameri- cans of Chicago and to his trade. His present enterprise, Delang & Co., Inc., of which he is the presi- dent, is located in the McCormick Building, Suite 301, and dates back lo 1905. His business energy has also sought other fields. Down in Culbertson county, Texas, a large and progressive land company, known as the Crown Ranch, Inc., LIFE SKETCHES OF A1EN OF TODAY 487 counts him as its chief and presi- dent. Mr. Delang was born October 25, 1867, in Tygelsjo parish, Skane, where he also received his earlier education in the public school. His parents were Ola Jonson, tailor by trade, and Anna Pearson. In Sep- tember, 1889, he arrived in Amer- ica. He has three children born to him by his wife, Sigrid E. (nee THEODORE O. DELANG. Peterson), of Jamestown, N. Y. Their marriage took place in Sep- tember, 1910. At 1258 Early ave- nue they have their residence. Mr. Delang is a member of Illi- nois Athletic Club and North Shore Congregational Church. AXEL NELSON was born in the town of Monsteras May 10, 1871. His parents were Otto Anderson, a man of the sea, and Hedda Gustava Pearson. The parish school gave him his start in life, and at the age of fourteen the Viking spirit came over him, and he also went to sea. Seven years he spent on the briny deep. While in Chile, where he took sick, a turn to higher things was given his life. He returned later to Sweden and emigrated to America in 1892. Three years later we find him as proprietor of a growing shoe busi- ness in the district of Moreland. Erom there he moved to Maywood, where fourteen years of successful AXEL NELSON. business followed. In 1910 Mr. Nelson, in partnership with Mr. Hallgren, started another shoe store at 5848 West Chicago avenue, where he also erected an apartment building and has his residence. He has been the sole proprietor of this progressive concern since 1915. Mr. Nelson is a Republican. He is a well-known member of the Swedish Methodist Church in Aus- tin, where he holds the offices of trustee, local preacher and president of the Epworth League. April 12, 1896, he married Miss Amelia Lof- quist of Monsteras. They have two children. 488 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS JOHN L. ALSTRIN. Among the earlier Swedish set- tlers in Chicago we find the subject of this sketch. He arrived in 1873, entered at once into his trade- and became before long one of the best known Swedish decorators and painters in the city. His well es- tablished business dates back to 1880. The firm is now John L. Al- strin & Son, with store and office JOHN L. ALSTRIN. at 5957 West Chicago avenue, where he also has his residence. At Goteborg, in the home of Otto Fredric Alstrin, a mill owner, and his wife, Anna Marie (nee Larson), John L. Alstrin was born February 8, 1851. In the schools of that city and its Institute of Technology he received his education. In 1878 he married Carolina Amanda Mathison, born in Norway, and in this union five children were born. Mr. Alstrin is now a widower. He usually votes the Republican ticket. He is a man of large in- terests and perfect integrity. His church, the Swedish Methodist Episcopal, has often honored him. He has been a delegate to the Gen- eral Conference. He is director and vice-president of the Swedish M. E. Book Concern. He is di- rector and treasurer of the Swedish Methodist Aid Association, and trustee and treasurer of the Swe- dish Theological Seminary in Ev- anston, 111. Mr. Alstrin is also chairman of the trustee board in the Second Swedish M. E. Church. OTTO HOGFELDT is one of the leading men in the Swedish Mission Covenant of America. His position as editor of Missions-Vannen gives him a com- manding influence within his de- ilomination, an influence that he has used as a man of character and abil- ity. He was born in Hogelund, Tisselskog parish, in the province of Dalsland, Sweden, August 10, 86i, his parents being Gustaf Hogfeldt, farmer, and Maria Bryn- gelson. In public schools and pri- vate tuition in the home village he received his early training. His passion for reading was very pro- nounced. Converted during his confirmation, he became a Sunday school teacher at sixteen. About that time the first product of his pen was published in a free church paper. His desire to continue his studies met little sym- pathy at home and at the age of twenty he departed for America. In Ishpeming, Mich., his first home, he 'spent a year as a miner in order to secure funds. Subsequently he entered the Ansgarius College in LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 489 Knoxville, 111., where he prepared for the ministry, to which he felt called. As pastor he has successfully served the following congregations within his denomination : Iron Mountain, Mich., 1884-89 ; Evans- ton, 111., 1890-93 ; Cuyler, Chicago, in 1896 and in 1907; North Park, Chicago, 1912-1915. In May, 1889, the Mission Friends' Publishing Company of- OTTO HOGFELDT. fered him his present position, which he accepted and has held ever since. He is also a director and president of said publishing house, with office at 361 West Oak street, Chicago. His literary prod- ucts include the following books : "Till Rom och Faderneslandet" and "Minnen och Toner." "Hemat," a yearly calendar, has been edited by him since 1892. Mr. Hogfeldt is a Republican of the progressive type. He was a director of North Park College during ten years, but resigned in 1915. His wife, Augusta Lindberg, was born in Edsvalla parish, Vermland. They were married in 1886, reside at 3248 Foster avenue, and have eight children. ALBERT SWANSON. This name has been connected with Chicago's dry goods business during many years. Mr. Swanson received his initiation as a clerk at the leading house of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., in 1892, and his serv- ices there continued until 1901. That year he opened his own busi- ness and remained proprietor of the same until 1913. He has tem- porarily retired from business and is at present devoting time and en- ergy to charitable work. He is chairman of the board of directors of the Swedish Societies' Old Peo- ples' Home Association and as such he represents the financial interests of this most worthy institution. Mr. Swanson was born in the parish of Bjerlof, province of Skane, August 31, 1870. His father, Sven Nilsson, was a car- penter. His mother's name was Karolina Persson. The parish school gave him his taste for knowledge. Arriving in America in 1888, he continued his studies in spare hours at the grammar school of Nicollet County, Minnesota, and in the evening schools of Chicago. Mr. Swanson holds membership in the following organizations : So- ciety Nordstjarnan, Mimer Lodge No. 4 of I. O. S., Svithiod Singing Club, Swedish Republican Club of Cook County, and a number of others. As chairman in Nord- stjarnan he has served faithfully ten years and as secretary one year. 490 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Mimer Lodge elected him treasurer four years and now he is the pre- siding officer. He has been a tire- less worker in many charitable and social undertakings among his coun- trymen. He is a member of the Saron Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has been a trustee four years. Caroline Nelson, born in the parish of Forslof, became his wife ALBERT SWANSON. in 1905. They have two children. The family residence is at 3825 Herndon street. CHARLES J. FORSBERG. Many Swedish-Americans have in the course of time attained posi- tions of honor and trust in the city government. Among these the name of the city collector naturally stands forth prominently. Mr. Forsberg reached this high position through a series of civic offices, in which his ability and strength were thoroughly tested. He began his official service as bailiff in the office of the Sheriff of Cook County. Later he became deputy sheriff, whereupon he served as chief bailiff during a year and a half. He was elected a member of the City Coun- cil in 1907 and held this office dur- ing five years, serving as chairman of the committee on water supply two years and as chairman of the committee on schools the succeed- ing two years. In April, 1915, he CHARLES J. FORSBERG. was appointed to his present po- sition as city collector. Mr. Forsberg was born in Norr- koping. Sweden, September 2, 1862. His parents were William Forsberg and Marie Skold. The schools in his home city gave him his start and he continued his studies in the evening schools of Chicago. He came to America in 1880 and followed the painter's trade a number of years. Later he engaged in the retail dry goods business, continuing until he en- tered the municipal service. He married Miss Sigrid Stalberg, of Kristianstad, June 9, 1900. They LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 491 have six children and reside at 4856 West Huron street. Mr. Forsberg is a Mason and an Odd Fellow, also member of Royal League. As a Republican he holds membership in the Wm. Hale Thompson Re- publican Club. He is a member of the Lutheran Church. ABEL BURMAN was born July 8, 1873, at Glafva parish, Vermland, Sweden, his par- ents being Gustaf Burman, a farm ABEL BURMAN. owner, and his wife Marianna. In the parish school and the technolog- ical school at Karlstad he received his early training. Later he mas- tered cabinet and piano making. As a piano maker he was connected with Bergquist & Nelson in Stock- holm and Aeolian Company in Ber- lin, Germany. In 1892 he came to America, where he has given his services to such houses as Weber, Schubert and Steinway & Sons in New York, also Mason & Hamlin in Boston and Conover in Chicago. He es- tablished his own business as maker and dealer in pianos in 1893, ms factory being at 5749 Chicago avenue. He has always sought knowl- edge and skill. This is proven by his diploma from the Royal Con- servatory of Music in Stockholm and by the records of evening high schools in New York, Boston and Chicago. April 30, 1905, he married Miss Ingeborg Soderberg of Muskd, Stockholm's Ian. They have five children and reside at 538 North Taylor street, Oak Park, 111. GUSTAVUS ANDERSON is one of the earlier settlers in Chi- cago. He arrived in 1868 and worked in printing and publishing houses until 1873, when he returned to New York. There he engaged in similar occupation with different firms until 1877. While in New York he studied at the Tabernacle Lay College, also at the Brooklyn Evening High School. He spent the year 1877-1878 traveling in the Scandinavian countries, and re- turned to Chicago. After two years with Rand, McNally Co., he started his own bookbindery. This suc- cessful undertaking he sold in 1883 and entered into the real estate business. He has from that day until the present transacted a great deal of business in many of the growing suburbs. He is now affiliated with Lundstrom, Tonks & Co., at 4656 Sheridan road. Mr. Anderson was born in Lang- sjogle, Bello parish, Smaland, No- vember 3, 1847. His parents were 492 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Anders and Christina Mansson, farm owners. He received his early training in the parish school and in the Manual and Technical School of Stockholm, where he went in 1859, a "d completed a full course in the art of bookbinding. He is an active Republican in politics and a member of Elim Swedish M. E. Church. His bachelor quarters are at 1629 Foster avenue. GUSTAVUS ANDERSON. Mr. Anderson was a director of the Linne Monument Association and as such performed valuable patriotic services. A. GUSTAVE ANDERSON. Business men along North Clark street in Chicago have watched with keen interest the rapid growth of the furniture house at 3172- 31/4. Since 1905 this house has borne the name that heads this sketch. The integrity and strength of the man who is the sole owner of this concern is the secret of his success. Mr. Anderson was born in Nora parish, province of Vastmanland, Sweden, March 10, 1872, and came to America in 1891. His parents were Anders Anderson and Chris- tina Aquilina Anderson. Years of private study and self-development followed his course at the parish school. In 1895 Mr. Anderson opened a restaurant and three years later he made a venture in the A. GUSTAVE ANDERSON. expressing business. Failing health forced him, however, to retire. In 1899 he accepted a position in a furniture house, where he remained until he began his present success- ful enterprise. The following societies count him as a valuable member : Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows, Vikings, Svithiod and Vasa. In politics he is an independent. His church preference is Lutheran. Of a retiring nature, he has never sought preferment or office, but many a position of trust has come to him unsolicited, and wherever he can help and serve a good cause LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 493 he is willing. He is a member of Swedish Societies' Old Peoples' Home Association. His bachelor apartments are at 3746 Clifton avenue. JOHAN BENGTSON, partner in the wholesale grocery firm, Mallott-Johanson Company, born January 15, 1861, in JOHAN BENGTSON. Hishult parish, in the province of Halland, Sweden, where his par- ents, Bengt Larson and Stina Svensdotter, were farm-owners. There he received his schooling and spent his early manhood. He reached Chicago in May, 1882, and became a carpenter. This trade he followed for fifteen years. In 1897 he began contracting. Later he and Messrs. Rylander & Swanson formed The Ravenswood Stair Shop. This enterprise con- tinued successfully during a num- ber of years in a factory located at Winnemac and East Ravenswood Park avenues. In October, 1915* the firm sold its property to Mal- lott-Johanson Company and Mr. Bengtson entered as a partner. Mr. Bengtson was married Octo- ber 24, 1885, to Miss Christine Stenmark, born in Alster parish, Vermland. Five sons and three daughters are the fruit of this union. Mr. Bengtson is a Republican and is an honored member of the Eben- ezer Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has faithfully served as a deacon during more than twenty years. His home is at 1342 YVi- nona avenue. AUGUST H. SKOGLUND. In the parish of Kumla, Nerike, Sweden, his father, Anders Gustaf Skogluncl had charge of the stone quarries. August H. Skoglund was born March 3, 1871. His mother's name was Anna Louise (nee Carls- son). His public school education finished, young Skoglund sought larger fields for his enterprising mind and came to America in 1889. After four years at his father's trade he established his own busi- ness as curb and street builder in Chicago. Until 1897 he remained sole owner of this growing concern, when he, together with Mr. Emil Carlson, opened a general business in curbing and cut stone. To his partner and his brother, Eric E. Skoglund, he sold his interest three years later. He continued to build up a large business of his own, which also embraced cement pav- ing. After some years he disposed of the cut stone department. He is now a leading contractor in his 494 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS line, with offices at 179 West Wash- ington street, and is recognized as a business man of sterling qualities and an authority in his branch. His large financial interests are ex- tended to such firms as the Uni- versal Concrete Bar Company, where he is treasurer, and the building firms of Thomas C. Nay lor and John H. Sasser. He is the honored president of the Swedish Methodist Episcopal AUGUST H. SKOGLUND. Aid Association and holds several important offices in the Bethany Swedish M. E. Church. His numer- ous charities include the Bethany Old People's Home of the Swedish M. E. Church, of which institution he is a director. He renders the Wilson Avenue Y. M. C. A. val- uable service as a member of its board of managers. The following clubs count him as a member: Hamilton Club, the Swedish Club, Chicago Rod and Gun Club, Swe- dish-American California Club. Mr. Skoglund is a Republican in politics. He united with Miss Augusta J. Anderson, of Goteborg, in a happy marriage July I, 1892. They have seven children. Their residence is at 702 Junior terrace. A. B. ANDERSON. Mr. Anderson is known to Chi- cagoans as a competent and worthy representative of the New York Life Insurance Company, with A. B. ANDERSON. which he has been affiliated during a period of more than twenty years. He was born in Skane province fifty years ago and came, with his parents, to America five years later. They settled on a farm in Minne- sota, where young Anderson also received his education in the public school at Steesville and the high school at Litchfield. Later he en- tered the Swedish Baptist Theolog- ical Seminary at Morgan Park, 111. As a pastor he served Swedish Bap- tist churches in Concordia, Kan., and Duluth, Minn. The insufficient support forced him to enter com- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 495 mercial life after five years in pas- toral labors. Mr, Anderson's father, Peter An- derson, was a farmer. He died at the age of 67. His mother (nee Nilsson) is still living in the ripe old age of 80. Her home is in Spo- kane, Wash. Mr. Anderson is married and has three children. CHARLES EDWARD CARL- SON. The position of assistant cashier in such a large institution as the State Bank of Chicago is naturally CHARLES EDWARD CARLSON. one of responsibility and honor. Mr. Carlson, born in Chicago Feb- ruary 18, 1877, began in 1896 his career as a banker in said institu- tion and in 1909 reached his pres- ent position through integrity and skill. Since 1908 he has been the capable head of the State Bank's bond department. He prepared himself for his busy life by completing the course at Au- gustana College in Rock Island, having graduated from the gram- mar and high schools of Chicago. On September 17, 1902, he married Miss Amanda O. Johnson, born in Chicago. A son has been born to them. Their home is at 5238 Wayne avenue. Mr. Carlson's par- ents are C. A. Carlson and Au- gusta Anderson. He is a member of the Messiah Evangelical Luth- eran Church. The Republican party receives his support. His strength and popu- larity as a business man is attested by the fact that he has gained ad- mission to such clubs as the Union League Club and the Hamilton Club. He is also a member of the Swedish Club and the Bankers' Club of Chicago. ALBERT O. ANDERSON. This name is familiar in Chicago financial and political circles, where its owner has become known as a student of finance, a force in busi- ness and a constructive leader in clean politics. Born in Chicago, July 3, 1873, he spent his boyhood in Sweden (1874-1892), where his search after knowledge led him to the Business Institute at Goteborg. He continued his studies in this country, entering evening schools, a 4-year Y. M. C. A. college course, and a law school. He served as clerk with W. G. Stoughton & Co. (bankers) from 1893 to 1897. The following six years he held a posi- tion with the State Bank of Chi- cago. He moved to Bottineau, North Dakota, in 1904, where he served until 1909 as assistant cash- ier of the First National Bank. 496 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS The Farmers & Merchants' Bank at Williston, N. D., offered him the cashier's position in 1909 and he filled this position until he removed to Chicago in 1911. The Williston Commercial Club elected him presi- dent for the term 1910-1911. During his stay in North Dakota he attracted very favorable atten- tion in wide financial and legisla- tive circles by his publication en- ALBERT O. ANDERSON. titled, "Should bank deposits be guaranteed?" He also contributed articles on commercial and state conditions to journals of national circulation. Chicago has known him as a successful real estate op- erator and land developer since 1912. His offices are located at in North Dearborn street. During the political campaign of 1914 Mr. Anderson was persuaded by the Progressive party to become its senatorial candidate in the 25th district. In spite of his brief resi- dence in said district he received about 5 votes. He is secretary of the Swedish American Progres- sive League of Illinois, also of the 33rd Ward Progressive Club. He is a prominent member of several local improvement clubs and finan- cial secretary of Federated Im- provement Clubs of the Northwest Park district. He is a member of the Masonic Order, the Elks, Knights of Pythias, Modern Wood- men and Yeomen. His church pref- erence is Congregational. His parents were John Ander- son, a sea captain, and Sofia Isaks- son. In 1905 he married Miss Alma Josephine Oberg of Chicago. They have two children and reside at 4545 Wrightwood avenue. CARL MAXIMUS HEDMAN. This well-known inventor and manufacturer was born in the par- ish of Neder-Kalix, province of Norbotten, Sweden, November 18, 1862. His parents were Jonas Hedman, customs officer, and Anna Brita Tornberg. Having gradu- ated from local schools, he contin- ued his preparations at the Tech- nical School of Stockholm. In that city he began his career as a con- structor of fine mechanical tools and appliances. In 1884 he moved to Copenhagen where he specialized on instruments for telegraphy and astronomy, hav- ing as his tutor the famous pro- fessor Jorgensen. The following year we find him in Chicago at Knapp's Electric Co. and at West- ern Electric Co. Later he held the position of foreman at the Ameri- can Electric Company. The well- known firm, Stromberg & Carlson Telephone Co., secured his services in 1889, where he advanced to the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 497 superintendency of the whole plant in 1902. Later we find him as the guiding genius of the Johnson & Hedman Mfg. Co. This firm specialized in dental specialties, and was very suc- cessful in every way. A large den- tal supply house in Toledo bought this concern in 1913, and Mr. Hed- man began operations along new lines. That same year he brought CARL MAXIMUS HEDMAN. out in the market a new product of his fertile mind, "the F. & E. Check- writer." In order to handle the growing world market for this now famous check-protector a company was formed, known as the Hed- man Manufacturing Company, of which Mr. Hedman is president, and his son, H. R. Hedman, a grad- uate of the University of Illinois, is secretary. This rapidly growing plant is located at 227 West Erie street in Chicago. Mr. Hedman has not allowed his many and pressing duties to rob him of life's pleasures and ideal pursuits. His friends are many and devoted, they admire him as a comrade and a singer and a lover of art. He holds membership in the Swedish Club and Royal Ar- canum and is a well-known Mason in Golden Rule Lodge 726. His religious affiliation is Lutheran. He married Miss Ragnhild Maria Forsmark of Stockholm, June 12, 1886. Their comfortable residence is at 1330 Winnemac avenue. A son and a daughter have been born in this happy union. EMIL ERNEST TORELL. From the manse we have re- ceived more men of mark than is usually admitted. Doctor Torell began life in the rectory at Oak- land, Neb., August 25, 1882. His father was the Rev. John Torell, a well-known clergyman in the Swe- dish Lutheran Church, and his mother was Anna Hakanson. Young Torell entered the Luther Academy at Wahoo, Neb., in 1895 ; he continued his studies at Augus- tana College from 1899 until 1903, when he received his degree of A. B. On entering Northwestern Uni- versity Medical School in 1903, he was awarded a scholarship and was granted his M. D. at said school in 1907. During the two years fol- lowing he served as an interne at Augustana Hospital in Chicago. He then located at Escanaba, Mich., where he remained three years as chief surgeon at the Cot- tage Hospital. During the same period he was also surgeon for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company. In the year of 1911 he returned to Chicago, where he be- 498 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS gan a general practice, his office being at 5205 North Clark street. In addition to this he serves as at- tending surgeon at Lake View Hos- pital. He is a member of the follow- ing associations : Illinois Medical, American Medical and Chicago Medical Society. He is a member of the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran Church and supports the Repub- lican party. EMIL ERNEST TORELL. Dr. Torell married Miss Alice Lindberg, of Paxton, 111., June 10, 1908. To them a daughter has been born. Their residence is at 1480 Farragut avenue. CHARLES H. BOMAN, since 1902 the trusted secretary and treasurer of the well-known Scandia Life Insurance Company, was born at Hogsby parish, prov- ince of Smaland, June 9, 1848, and arrived in America 1869. His par- ents, Carl Magnus and Carolina Boman, were farm owners. In grammar school and collegiate school he received his early train- ing. His first year or two in Amer- ica were spent in Galesburg, 111. In 1871 he removed to Moline and en- gaged in the hardware and crockery business from 1873 to 1893. Dur- ing the same period he also served a term as tax collector. The Board of Education, to which he was elected in 1891, chose him as its secretary in 1893, which office he CHARLES H. BOMAN. ably filled until 1902, when he en- tered into his present position. As director as well as secretary and treasurer, he has proven a most valuable asset to the largest Swed- ish-American insurance company in America. In 1877, on May 10, he married Miss Margaret Cervin, born in Kristianstad and adopted daughter of the late Dr. A. R. Cervin of Rock Island. Six children were born to them. The family resi- dence is at 5220 Kenmore avenue, Chicago. Mr. Boman is a Republican. He LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY is a member of the English Lu- theran Messiah Church, where he has been an honored trustee since 1904. ROBERT EMANUEL LANDON. In the city of Norrkoping, on August 27, 1874, a son was born to Charles Magnus Landon and his wife, Caroline Edgar. They gave him the name of Robert Emanuel ROBERT EMANUEL LANDON. and offered him the education that the schools of that city supplied. In 1887, the family having emi- grated, we meet the youth in the Chicago schools, and later we find him studying at the Sheldon School of Salesmanship, where he grad- uated in 1905. He chose tailoring as his trade and advanced rapidly on account of his ability and business sagacity. In the course of time he affiliated himself with Delany Company, Inc., the prominent firm of merchant tailors, and holds now the position of secretary and treasurer in that establishment, located in the Mc- Cormick building. Mr. Landon is a Republican and is an honored member of the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran Church, where he holds the office of trus- tee. He married Miss Frieda E. Ol- son, of Hunnsberga parish, Skane, on June 4, 1902. They reside at 4122 North Keystone avenue and have four children. OTTO LEONARD HOFFSTROM. Electrical engineering has proved an attraction to many a young Swedish mind. Its fascinations ap- pealed early to young Hoffstrom. While in Goteborg, 1896, he en- tered this profession and has fol- lowed it ever since with increased interest and success. It was at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Goteborg he received his first training and start. From this ex- cellent institution he went to Gote- borg Machine Co., then to Boye & Thoresen's Electrical Co., after which he became partner in A. F. Meyer & Co. This partnership lasted 2. l / 2 years. At the conclu- sion of this period Mr. H. left Goteborg and became a supervisor for electrical work for Berg & Co. in Malmo. Two and a half years later he turned toward America, in the spring of 1902. As assistant fore- man he served the Westinghouse concern in Pittsburgh. In 1906 he reached Chicago and held a posi- tion in the laboratories of the Com- monwealth Edison Co. Later he became assistant superintendent at 500 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Belden Mfg. Co., where he re- mained during six years. He is now the successful proprie- tor of Otto Hoffstrom's Electric Shop at 5139 North Clark street, Chicago. Mr. Hoffstrom was born in Tanum, province of Bohuslan, Sweden, September 22, 1879. His OTTO LEONARD HOFFSTROM. father, Ernst F. Hoffstrom, was an attorney at law and was married to Carolina Johannesson. Miss Hil- dtir E. Scott of Goteborg became his wife in the year of 1901. Three daughters were born in this wed- lock. CARL ERIK ERIKSON began his career as a manufacturer in New York City in 1880. Sur- gical instruments had during the previous five years been his spe- cialty and this became his first line as a manufacturer. In 1881 he established a machine shop in Chi- cago, and this enterprise, known as Nelson & Erikson, continued until 1890. During the following three years he served as superintendent of Gardner Sewing Machine Company at Aurora, 111. In that city he re- mained until 1910 and became one of the two leading minds in organ- izing the Aurora Automatic Ma- chinery Company, which concern has become famous for its Thor CARL ERIK ERIKSON. motorcycles and pneumatic tools. In 1893 to 1907 he was secretary and treasurer of this rapidly grow- ing enterprise. During the three years that followed he held the same offices with Aurora Illuminat- ing and Mantle Company. A sim- ilar position was then offered him by Fitzsimons Steel & Iron Co. in Chicago, where he served from 1910 until 1913. He has been sec- retary and treasurer of the Flex- ible Shoe Mfg. Co., 219-233 West Huron street, since 1912. Mr. Erikson was born in Stock- holm, April 19, 1854; his parents were Erik Erikson and Catharina Larsson. Having finished his school studies he chose the trade of a LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 501 blacksmith and machinist. In 1872 he arrived in America and spent eight years in Chicago, three as constructor of safes and vaults, five as a maker of surgical instruments. Mr. Erikson is a Republican in politics and his church preference is Lutheran. He is a member of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago and of the Swedish Club. He has been a singer of note and is at present member of the Swed- ish Glee Club. His wife is Josephine L. Rosen- quist of Chicago. They were mar- ried in 1886 and have a son and a daughter. The family residence is at 710 Buckingham place. CARL J. APPELL is a son of historic Galva, 111., where he was born November n, 1873, his parents being Charles Lawrence Appell and Johanna So- phia Anderson. His studious mind sought early the wells of wisdom. .He received his A. B. and B. S. at Augustana College in 1894. He continued his post-graduate work at the University of Chicago, car- rying a full course, including sev- eral languages, until 1900. Mean- while he also pursued his studies at Chicago Law School, Kent Col- lege of Law and Chicago College of Law, and received the LL. B. degree in 1900. That year he began his practice at the bar in Peoria, 111. Three years later we find him in Chicago, where his legal practice has been constantly growing. His office is located in the New York Life Bldg., 39 South La Salle street. For several years has he been a member of the Illinois National Guard. He holds membership in Illinois State Bar Association, in Chicago Bar Association, in Amer- ican Academy of Political and So- cial Science, and is also a member of Chicago Art Institute. He is a Republican in politics. Since 1905 he has been an honored deacon of CARL J. APPELL. the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church. He was married to Miss Mary E. Powell of Peoria, March 4, 1915. VICTOR NORDEEN, the prominent tailor and clothing merchant, was born at the village of Smedjebacken, province of Da- larne, Sweden, December 19, 1872, and came to America in 1882. His parents were Per Ludvig Nor- deen and Sophia Ersson. Mr. Nordeen's career as a mer- chant forms an interesting part of the commercial history of Chicago. His name is a synonym of "ster- ling," which thousands of his cus- 502 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS tomers gladly avow. His retail departments are located at 27 East Monroe street and 4732 and 4734 Lincoln avenue. As a Republican Mr. Nordeen is a member of the Twenty-fifth Ward. He belongs to Royal Arcanum, Royal League and Columbian Knights. Of the Illi- nois Athletic Club he is a well- known member. His church con- nection is with the Lutherans. VICTOR NORDEEN. Miss Cora Alta Nutt, of Fair- mont, Martin County, Minnesota, became his wife June 16, 1896. Their residence is at 5506 Glen- wood avenue. PETER O. FOGELBERG was born in the parish of Loushult, province of Skane, Sweden, July 3, 1859, where his father, Olof John- son, was a carpenter. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a brass moulder and finisher and was engaged in this trade for twelve years. In June, 1887, he emigrated to America and made Chicago his permanent home. For three years he was employed by the Amos Pat- tern and Model Works, and in 1901 he and Wm. Boettcher organized the firm P. Fogelberg & Co. This firm was dissolved March i, 1915, and reorganized under the name of P. Fogelberg & Sons, whose works are located at 126 South Clinton street, making metal patterns and models. PETER O. FOGELBERG. Mr. Fogelberg paid a visit to Sweden about ten years ago when he especially studied the industrial conditions of the old fatherland. He is a Republican in politics, a Lutheran in religion and member of the Knights of Maccabees, the Vikings and of Svithiod. In the last named society he has been vice- president one year and president one. Married to Miss Hanna Folin from Virestad, Smaland, in March, 1882, he has had three sons and three daughters, one of the daugh- ters being dead. The family resides at 3641 North Richmond street. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 503 OLOF H. AHLGREN. 1 The genial and hospitable man- ager and proprietor of the largest and best Swedish hotel in Chicago, Hotel Stockholm, was born in Mellby parish, province of Skane, January 31, 1851. His parents were Olof P. Ahlgren, schoolmaster and farm owner, and Bengta Ahlgren. Having absorbed all the learning OLOF PI. AHLGREN. his home parish could offer, young Ahlgren started out in search of larger fields and reached America in 1871. Here he devoted several years to the packing industry and became later a successful merchant in tea and groceries. At the end of ten years he disposed of his busi- ness and took up the manysided calling of a hotelkeeper. He has given twenty-nine years to this work and has been the owner of Hotel Stockholm, at 465 West Chi- cago avenue, since 1891. Miss Hilda M. Bond, of Stock- holm, became his bride December 29, 1885. Mr. Ahlgren votes the 1 Died 1917. Republican ticket and is a member of the Swedish-American Repub- lican Club. He is a lover of music and holds membership in the Swedish Glee Club. The Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church is his church home. JOHN E. ERICSSON, a member of the well-known firm of contractors and builders, Lan- quist & Illsley Company, with head- quarters at 1 100 North Clark street, is a native of Sweden, having been born at Torp, near Moheda, Sma- land, May 23, 1868. He came with his parents, Carl and Martha (Nil- son) Ericsson, to this country in 1884, when a new home was estab- lished in Martin county, Minnesota. Here the father was a farmer the rest of his life, and died in 1903. The mother died in 1907. Mr. Ericsson attended public school in Sweden and also was a student at the Jacob College, Stock- holm. He was sixteen years of age when he landed in this country. Here he served an apprenticeship to the trade of brick mason. At nineteen he was made a foreman and a few years later, in 1890, was advanced to the position of super- intendent, a position he filled twelve years. In 1902 he formed a part- nership with his brother Henry, un- der the name of Henry & John Ericsson, general contractors, with headquarters in Chicago. This busi- ness association lasted four years ; then it was dissolved, and the sub- ject of our sketch became a partner of the firm of Lanquist & Illsley Company. In 1895, Mr. Ericsson married 504 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Miss Celia Peterson, daughter of Swan Peterson, a dry goods mer- chant of Chicago, and they are the parents of three children: Earl, born in 1896 (died in 1913), Lillian, in 1899, Vivian, in 1900. Mrs. Ericsson was born and educated in Chicago. Mr. Ericsson has been honored by his countrymen with several of- JOHN E. ERICSSON. fices. He is president of the Swed- ish Societies' Old People's Home Association ; president of the Svith- iod Singing Club ; honorary member of the Swedish National Associa- tion ; honorary member and hon- orary chairman of the United Swedish Singers of Chicago ; honor- ary member of the Swedish Glee Club ; member of the Independent Order of Svithiod ; member of the Swedish Engineers' Society, of the Hamilton Club and the Chicago Mo- tor Club. Fraternally Mr. Ericsson is iden- tified with the A. F. & A. M. ; Consistory No. 32, and the Mystic Shrine ; the Royal Arcanum, in which he has passed all the chairs ; the North Star, and the Swedish Club of Chicago. Both he and his wife belong to the Swedish Luth- eran Church, Mrs. Ericsson being active in church work and rilling the office of treasurer of the Im- manuel Woman's Home Associa- tion. Mrs. Ericsson is chairman of the Woman's Life Member-- ship Club of the Old People's Home Association. The family residence is at 4530 Beacon street. JOHN A. S. LANDIN, pastor of the Tabor Swedish Luth- eran Church, is a native of Vestra Eneby parish, Ostergotland. Swe- den, where he was born Tune 9, J .^*\ J 1885. At the age of four, with his parents, Anders and Albertina Christina Samuelson, he went to America and settled in Nebraska. . The father, who was a carpenter, died when young Landin was only ten years of age. Since his four- teenth year he had to support him- self while he attended school in Fillmore and Clay counties in Ne- braska, working about the village doing chores and helping farmers and carpenters when school was not in session. He was thrown entirely upon his own resources but was willing to work hard and sacrifice in order to secure an education. In 1903 he graduated from the Shickley High School and studied for two years in Luther College, Wahoo. In 1908 he received the A. B. degree from the Augustana College and graduated from the Au- gustana Theological Seminary in 1912 when the degree of Bachelor LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY of Divinity was conferred upon him. During his years in college the Rev. Mr. Landin taught school in the vacation periods and was assist- ant pastor in several charges, as Zion Church in Chicago, Swedesburg and Packwood in Iowa, Escanaba, Stonington, Bark River and Metro- politan in Michigan, the English JOHN A. S. LANDIN. Mission at Montpelier, Iowa, Mar- shalltown, Iowa, and Ebenezer, Chi- cago. To his present field, the Ta- bor church in Chicago, he was called in 1912. The Rev. Mr. Landin has also served as secretary and vice-presi- dent of the Southern Chicago Dis- trict of the Illinois Conference and was elected secretary of the Swed- ish Lutheran Pastors' Association of Chicago in 1915. He is a mem- ber of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the Chicago Inner Mission Society. He was united in marriage to Miss Alveda C. Johnson on August 20. 1914. CARL L. ELOFSON is a native of Chicago, where he was born December 23, 1893. His parents were Carl Elofson (de- ceased) and Emma Nero Elofson. His preparation for life he received in the public schools and a business college. Although a young man he has already attained positions of CARL L. ELOFSON. trust with the International Harves- ter Co. in its sales department. A lover of music, he has devoted a great deal of his time and strength to the furtherance of said art. His untiring and efficient efforts in be- half of the newly organized Swed- ish Choral Club of Chicago, of which he is the secretary and man- ager, have earned him a prominent place in the musical world. This club has just finished its first season and has already attained a high standard of true artistic, as well as financial success. Mr. Elofson is a member of the Swedish Mission Church and re- sides at 4950 N. Winchester avenue. 506 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS CARL R. CHINDBLOM, attorney at law, was born in Chi- cago, December 21, 1870. His par- ents came from Ostergotland, Swe- den. After attending the public schools, he was enrolled at Augus- tana College, Rock Island, 111., where he graduated in the spring of 1890. After devoting several years to teaching, he took up the profes- CARL R. CHINDBLOM. sional study of law and graduated from Kent College of Law in Chi- cago in the spring of 1898. Soon thereafter he was admitted to the bar, and has since practiced his pro- fession in Chicago. He has held several public posi- tions, such as attorney for the Illi- nois State Board of Health in 1906, member of the Board of County Commissioners of Cook county from 1907 to 1910, and County At- torney of Cook county in 1913 and 1914. He has also been special counsel for Cook county in im- portant litigation. He is at present a member of the law firm of Brecher & Chindblom, with offices in the Title and Trust Building. Mr. Chindblom has bee,n a fre- quent speaker in political campaigns and at other public gatherings and has devoted much attention to civic conditions and affairs. He is a member of several lawyers' associa- tions and of various clubs and fra- ternal societies and belongs to the Lutheran Church. His family con- sists of wife and two children. Mrs. Chindblom is widely known as an accomplished pianist. EDWIN STOCKTON RAMBO It is with peculiar interest we present this biography. As a direct descendant of the earliest Swedish settlers on the Delaware, Mr. Rambo occupies a unique position among. Swedish-Americans of Illinois. Ac- cording to the annals of "New Swe- den," the Rambo family was vigor- ous and successful. The succeeding ten generations have retained and developed that physical and moral strength which characterized the founders. The subject of this sketch was born February 9, 1878, in River- side, Fairfield county, Connecticut ; his father was Samuel Stockton Rambo, and his mother Sarah Eliza- beth Bostwick. In the public schools and high school of Stam- ford, Conn., he received his edu- cation. He served as a member of the National Guard of Connecticut during three years and re-enlisted during two years as a veteran. Dur- ing the Spanish-American war he held the offices of Post Commissary Sergeant and Quarter-Master Ser- geant. Lie mustered out of the Vol- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 507 unteer Army with an honorable dis- charge at Savannah, Ga., March 20, 1899. The following year Mr. Rambo moved to Chicago, where he became Claim and Traffic Expert for the Alton railroad. Since a few months ago he holds a responsible position with the firm M. Piowaty & Sons, commission merchants, at 19 East South Water street. EDWIN STOCKTON RAMBO. Mr. Rambo holds membership in St. George's Episcopal Church, and supports the Republican party. In 1903, the 2d day of June, he mar- ried Miss Selina Lyle Murray. They have three children and reside at 7647 Maryland avenue. ANTON JULIUS CARLSON, professor of Physiology in the Uni- versity of Chicago, was born in Svarteborg parish of the province of Bohuslan, Sweden, January 29, 1875. In 1891 he came to America with his parents and having com- pleted his preliminary education he entered the Augustana College in Rock Island, where he graduated in 1898. The following year he had the degree of Master of Arts con- ferred upon him by the same insti- tution, and became a Doctor of Philosophy at Stanford University in 1902. The following three years he spent at the Marine Laboratories in Monterey, San Diego and Wood's Hall. Dr. Carlson has had a rapid and remarkable career as an educator and scientist. From 1900 to 1903 he was assistant professor in physi- ology at Stanford University; the following year he was research as- sistant at the Carnegie Institution of Arlington and associate in physi- ology of the University of Chicago, 1904-05. He was elected assistant professor in 1905 and associate pro- fessor in 1909, which position he held until 1915, when he became professor of physiology. Dr. Carlson is a member of several learned and professional so- cieties, as the American Physiolog- ical Society, Harvey Society, So- ciety of Experimental Biology and Medicine, The American Medical Association, The Pathological So- ciety, whose chairman he was, 1914- 1915, The Institute of Medicine, etc. He holds honorary membership in the Scandinavian Medical Society, Roentgen Ray Society and the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chi- cago. Since 1903 Dr. Carlson has pub- lished more than fifty Researches in American and European journals of science, principally on the func- tions of the Heart, the Lymph, Im- munity, Hunger, Nerve Conduction. The University of Chicago Press 508 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS published his monograph on The Control of Hunger in Health and Disease, 1916, a work which at- tracted world-wide attention both from the medical profession as well as the laity. Mr. Cattell in his "American Men of Science" ranks Dr. Carlson as one of the first thou- sand men of science in America. ANTON JULIUS CARLSON. He was united in marriage to Miss Esther N. Sjogren of Stanton, Iowa, in 1905, a union which has been blessed with three children. BERT L. KORLING In the home of bank cashier Fridolf Lnndberg and his wife, Signe (nee Korling), in the city of Oskarshamn, Sweden, Mr. Bert L. Korling was born January 31, 1895. He received the best education his home town could offer and gradu- ated from the Collegiate School of Oskarshamn in 1910. The follow- ing year he spent as a special stu- dent in Mathematics and Latin at Halmstad. He came to America in 1911. As a draftsman he served the Dahl- strom Metallic Door Co. in James- town, N. Y. Later he became ship- ping clerk for Siegel, Cooper & Co. in Chicago and in time took a simi- lar position with Becker, Ryan & Co. As bookkeeper he entered the main office of the Postal Telegraph BERT L. KORLING. Co. in Chicago and advanced to the position of assistant chief book keeper at the Stock ^ards branch of said concern. Since May, 1914, he has been a bookkeeper at the State Bank of Chicago, the largest Swedish- Amer- ican bank in America. He is still pursuing his studies, taking Spanish at Englewood High School and English at the American Institute of Banking. He holds membership in Verdandi Lodge of Ind. Order of Svithiod and in La Sociedad Hispano-Americano. His religious affiliations are with the Swedish Lutheran Church. His bachelor home is at 5837 Fifth avenue. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 509 SILAS PETER MELANDER is doubtless the oldest and best known Swedish photographer in Chicago. Born in Jonkoping, 1851, he arrived in America 1852 in com- pany with his parents, John Melan- der, hardware merchant, and Chris- tina Munson. Having completed his public school course he contin- ued his studies at the Quackenbosh SILAS PETER MELANDER. Private College. When sixteen years old he began his lifeworkand in 1869 we find him in his own studio. The great fire of 1871 spared him nothing. But the daunt- less youth opened a new studio, this time at North Clark street and Indiana street (now Grand avenue) . He erected in 1880 his own spa- cious studio at 67 West Ohio street, where his business is still located. A visit to his art gallery, which is crowded with the faces of hun- dreds of well-known Swedish- Americans, is an interesting expe- rience indeed. Mr. Melander married in i8qo. His bride being Miss Harriett M. Beninghoff of Chicago. Three chil- dren were born. The family resi- dence is at 3813 Keystone avenue. He is a member of the English Evangelical Lutheran Church and is also a member of the First Swe- dish Lodge of Odd Fellows. FRANK G. GUSTAFSON This extensively known Swedish- American contractor and builder is a native of Vestergotland, Swe- den, where he was born in the vil- lage of Ohm in Skofde parish, No- vember 8, 1863. His father was Gustaf Anderson, farmer by occu- pation, and his mother's name was Charlotta Larsson. Mr. Gustafson spent his early years on the farm, attending the local public school at intervals. At the age of seventeen years he went to Stockholm and commenced work at the mason's trade. In order to learn the theo- retical side of mason construction and general architecture, he for a time attended the building trades department of the Technical School of Stockholm. He continued there, working as a mason until July, 1886, when he emigrated to America. Like so many other emigrated Swedes, Mr. Gustafson went di- rect to Chicago, where he found no difficulty in obtaining employ- ment at his trade. As soon as he had the language sufficiently at his command, he attended an evening technical school for the purpose of further improving his theoretical knowledge of building construction. After a few years of experience he became a contractor and builder. As such he has erected a number of 510 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the most modern structures in the city, aiding materially in the up- building of residential Chicago. Of late years Mr. Gustafson has spe- cialized in apartment buildings. Mr. Gustafson is gifted with a tenor voice which in the upper reg- ister is unusually sweet, clear and powerful. This has made him a much sought for member of male choruses in Stockholm and in Chi- FRAXK G. GUSTAFSON. cago. For a long period he has been an active member of the Swed- ish Glee Club, and has acted as di- rector and vice-president of the club. In 1897 and again in 1910 he took part in the concert tour to Sweden, made by the American Union of Swedish Singers. Successful as he has been as a builder and much sought for and honored as a singer, Mr. Gustafson, however, can truthfully be said to have missed his real calling in life, which is that of a sculptor. He had almost attained his two-score-and- ten when his inborn talents as an artist suddenly manifested them- selves in a number of sculptural works, executed without any guid- ance of teachers whatsoever. In spite of his years, Mr. Gustafson three years ago sought admission in the sculptural class of the Art In- stitute of Chicago, and in this short space of time he has made a most remarkable and enviable success. Among his works of art during these three years the following may be mentioned: Busts of Prof. Gus- taf Holmquist, Mr. Rudolph Eng- berg and Mme. Marie Sidenius- Zendt ; the figures "La Paloma," "Indolence," "Excelsior," "Resting Athlete," and "At the Seashore," and the composition "Mother and Child." For his beautiful figure "Excelsior," Mr. Gustafson at the Fourth Exhibition of Swedish- American Artists at the Swedish Club of Chicago, 1915, was awarded the first prize. Mr. Gustafson holds member- ships in the Illinois Athletic Club, the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago and the Swedish Club of Chicago. In the last mentioned club he has served as a director for a number of years. He is also a member of the Alumni Association of the Art Institute of Chicago and of the Western Sculptors' Associa- tion. In politics he is a Republican. December 5, 1893, Mr. Gustafson married Miss Marie Svenson of Gcteborg. They reside at 4805 Grand boulevard. VICTOR TESSING, the senior partner of the well-known contracting and building firm of Tessing & Peterson, was born in Slaka parish, province of Ostergot- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 511 land, Sweden, September 15, 1864. From the parish school he entered a private school and a year later he matriculated in the building trade department of the Technical School in Stockholm, where he spent three years. He came to America and Chicago in 1890. In the upbuilding of this cosmopolitan city, largely a work of the Swedes, he has had his hon- VICTOR TESSING. orable share, and has secured for himself a reputation as a man of integrity and a contractor of ability. His office is at 411-419 Plymouth court. He married Miss Hattie May Kallbom, September 15, 1894. Four sons were born ; two are now living. The family resides at 3724 Maple Square avenue. Mr. Tessing is a prominent mem- ber of the Swedish Baptist Church of Edgewater, in which he holds the responsible position of treas- urer. During a number of years he served as trustee in the same con- gregation. He is also a member of the Arpi Male Chorus. LARS OSCAR NELSON, carpenter and builder, came from Sunne parish, Vermland, Sweden, where he was born Aug. i, 1884. His parents were Nils Larsson, a farmer in that community, and his wife, Kristina Nilsson, nee Larsson. After having attended the public school, Mr. Nelson took a course in the Sunne High School, founded LARS OSCAR NELSON. by the well-known Swedish his- torian, Anders Fryxell, whereupon, at the age of nineteen, he emigrated to America, arriving in this country April 23, 1903, Chicago being his point of destination. Mr. Nelson for several years worked in the building trade in the employ of others. In May, 1912, he established himself as a building contractor and from the very start met with success. He is one of the most energetic of the younger set of Swedish-American contractors of this city. His home and office are at 5017 North Robey street. Mr. Nelson is a member of King Oscar 512 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Lodge, No. 855, A. F. & A. M., and of Svithiod Singing Club. On May 18, 1908, Mr. Nelson married Miss Hilda C. Nelson from Rafsnas, Fredsberg, Vestergotland, and this union has been blessed with one child. GEORGE F. ANDERSON is the junior member of the well- known law firm of Anderson, An- derson & Anderson, who for over GEORGE F. ANDERSON. twenty years have had their offices at room 509, 69 West Washington street, Chicago. He was born in Chicago on June 9, 1882, and after graduating from high school and college entered the Northwestern University Law School, receiving his degree in 1906, being admitted to the bar the same year. He has been engaged in the active practice of law since that time. He spent one year in obtaining practical experience as a lawyer, and then became associated with his brothers, G. Bernhard Ander- son and William R. Anderson, and soon his name was added to the firm, making the firm name An- derson, Anderson & Anderson. In 1911 he was appointed pro- fessor in the Chicago Law School and is now a member of the faculty of that school. He has always taken part in Swedish activities, and is a mem- ber of the King Oscar Lodge, Vikings, Svithiod, Vasa and numer- ous civic and political organizations. For the past year he has been treasurer for the Swedish Club. OSCAR C. PETERSON, attorney at law, was born in the parish of Misterhult, Smaland, Sweden, December 15, 1857. At the age of eleven he came to Amer- ica with his parents, who settled in the state of Iowa, where Mr. Peterson completed his public school education and subsequently graduated from high school. There- after he went to the State College at Ames, Iowa, where he was a stu- dent continuously for six years. In 1882 he was graduated and received the degree of B. S. Then he took a post-graduate course, specializing in political science and sociology, and received the degree of Master of Philosophy in 1883. After that he studied law at Drake University in Des Moines and had the degree of Bachelor of Law conferred upon him in 1884. He opened a law office in Des Moines and practiced his profession there until 1895, when he moved to Chicago, where he has practiced law ever since. Mr. Peterson has always been an LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 513 industrious student, a lover of sociological, psychological and kin- dred subjects. As a thinker he has followed unconventional lines with- out being a radical. In years past he has been engaged extensively as a political orator, filling numer- ous engagements in the campaigns of the Republican party under the auspices of the national and state committees. In politics he has al- ways been an independent Repub- lican. Beside his activities as a OSCAR C. PETERSON. lawyer and political speaker, Mr. Peterson has also devoted a small portion of his time to lecturing. For years he has been before the pub- lic as a citizen whose opinions have been esteemed and whose services on the platform have been eagerly sought. As a speaker he is noted for logical reasoning, forcible ex- pression and apt illustrations. Always working for others he has never sought an office for himself. In religion as well as in other branches of thought he has been an independent thinker on constructive lines. The temperance cause has had in Mr. Peterson a valiant cham- pion who has spent much time in lecturing on the subject of temper- ance. In his early days in Chicago he was president of the Swedish National Association for a period of four years. Mr. Peterson was married to Miss Mina L. Peterson of Rock- ford, 111., and has two children. GUSTAF HOLMQUIST, the foremost Swedish singer in the United States, was born in the city of Nora, Vestmanland, Sweden, February 14, 1872, and was reared there until thirteen years of age, when the family emigrated to Min- neapolis, Minn. The same year, 1885, the young man joined a mixed choir as alto singer, but his musical training did not begin until he reached the age of twenty-one. Then he became a pupil of A. W. Porter of Minneapolis, continuing under his instruction for four years, or until 1897, when Mr. Holmquist interrupted his studies for a year by going to Alaska as the superintendent of a gang of road builders. Returning in 1898, he re- sumed his musical studies, and two years later came to Chicago. Here he placed himself under the direc- tion of W. N. Burritt and W. L. Hubbard, who have taken pride in the training and further develop- ment of Mr. Holmquist's voice. Gustaf Holmquist within the last few years has made for himself an enviable place among the ablest bassos of the United States. Pos- sessing a voice of exceptionally rich, sympathetic quality, of great 514 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS power and of wide range, he is pe- culiarly fitted for every kind of pub- lic concert work, from oratorio and festival performance to song re- citals and private musicales. He is warmly received wherever he ap- pears, and the musical critics have nothing but praise for his rendi- tions. Mr. Holmquist has sung with some of the leading orchestras of GUSTAF HOLMQUIST this country, as, for instance, the symphony orchestras of New York, Chicago and Minneapolis, and re- peatedly with renowned oratorio societies such as, the Apollo Club of Chicago, six times ; the Evanston Musical Club, five times ; the Phil- harmonic Club of Minneapolis, seven times ; the Handel Oratorio Society at Augustana College, Rock Island, 111., eight times ; the Handel Oratorio Society, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kans., three times ; Lie- dercranz, St. Louis, four times ; Musikverein, Milwaukee, two times, and A Capella Chorus, Milwaukee, two times. Twice Mr. Holmquist has been engaged as soloist for the singing festivals of the American Union of Swedish Singers, namely, at James- town, N. Y., in 1901, and at Chi- cago in 1905. He was soloist at the festivals of the eastern division of the above organization at Boston in 1903, Providence in 1907, and Phil- adelphia in 1912 ; at the western di- vision of Swedish Singers, San Francisco, in 1915. With the Norwegian Singers' Union of America Mr. Holmquist has appeared at Sioux Falls, S. D., in 1902 ; La Crosse, Wis., in 1906 : Fargo, N. D., in 1908; Fergus Falls, Minn., in 1909 ; Fargo, N. D., in 1912; Everett, Wash., in 1912. In 1910 Mr. Holmquist went to Sweden as soloist for the Elite Chorus of American Union of Swedish Singers, which gave thirty concerts in various cities. The fol- lowing year he toured Sweden the second time, giving joint recitals with Paul Hultman in thirty-two different places. The musical critics of Stockholm praised his "beautiful and powerful voice which he used in a very artistic manner," and the audiences received him with thun- derous applause. During this absence from Amer- ica, he studied one year in Paris under the great Jean de Rezske and his star pupil Oscar Seagle, and spent one summer in England in further study with Mr. Seagle. Mr. Holmquist has for a number of years been engaged as a soloist in some of the largest churches in Chicago and vicinity. For nine years he sang in the Plymouth Church and later in the Presby- terian Church in Oak Park. At LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 515 present he is soloist in the First Congregational Church at Evans- ton and also of the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, which-. has its serv- ices in Orchestra Hall. He has been eminently success- ful as a teacher of singing and several of his pupils are now hold- ing responsible positions as singers and teachers in several colleges. He is the originator of the newly or- ganized Swedish Choral Club of Chicago, an organization which al- ready bids fair to become one of the leading singing societies of this western metropolis. JOHN HEMWALL, automobile dealer, was born in Trusserod, Maglehem, Skane, Swe- den, December 27, 1873. His par- JOHN HEMWALL. ents, Hans and Johanna Hemwall, were farmers. At the age of twenty he emigrated to America. In his younger days he studied architec- ture and intended to enter the build- ing business, but changed his plans and took up manufacturing. He operated an extensive bicycle fac- tory for eight years and in 1901 en- tered the automobile business. He is at present president and treasurer of the John Hemwall Automobile Company, with offices and sales- rooms at 4549 West Washington boulevard, one of the largest con- cerns of its kind in Chicago. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Elks and the Vikings, and has taken an active interest in several city organizations, as the Swedish Club, Active Club, Chicago 'Motor Club, Speedway Park Asso- ciation and holds a life membership in the Old People's Home Associ- ation. Mr. Hemwall was united in mar- riage March 13, 1897, to Miss Ebba Lawson, who is a native of Norr- koping, Sweden, and has one son. MARTIN MAURD, general western agent Swedish- American Line, was born in Orebro, Sweden, February 26, 1863. His father, Math. Theodore Mard, was a director in the Park Association and proprietor of Mard's Badinratt- ning in Orebro. Young Maurd received his early training in preparatory schools and in the college of his native city. He came to America in March, 1879, and was employed as a clerk in O. A. Sjostrom's Steamship Agency in 1882-83. Between 1884 and 1894 he was clerk and chief clerk in the American Emigrant Co. of New York and special agent of the Amer- ican Express Co., 1895. From 1896 to 1899 he was cashier and manager of the Checque Bank > 516 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS New York branch, and special agent of American Express Co. in 1900. From 1901 to 1903 he was traveling passenger agent for the White Star Line, Chicago, and transferred to a similar position with the International Mercantile Marine Co. in 1904. He remained with this company until 1915, when he was appointed general western agent of the Swedish- American MARTIN MAURD. Line with offices at 183 North Dear- born street, Chicago. Mr. Maurd is a Republican in politics, a member of the Order of Elks and of the Swedish Club. NELS A. NELSON, one of the best known and most suc- cessful Swedish-American business men in the country, was born in Hvalinge, Halland, Sweden, Janu- ary 15, 1860, his father being Borje Nilsson, a farmer of the good old Swedish type. At the age of twen- ty-one, Mr. Nelson emigrated to the United States, living at first in Batavia, 111., where he learned the machinist's trade, and attended night schools for two semesters. He soon found, however, that his in- clinations for the commercial life were still stronger, and therefore he entered the Metropolitan Business College in Chicago, where he spent fifteen months preparing for his new vocation. In the fall of 1886 he obtained a position with a large Board of Trade firm, where he con- tinued for about ten years, most of the time having charge of the grain receiving department. In 1893 the Svea Building and Loan Association was organized and Mr. Nelson was elected president, and in 1896 sec- retary of the association. Resign- ing his position with the Board of Trade firm in order to devote his whole time to the building associa- tion, he soon made Svea one of the most solid institutions of its kind in Chicago. In this capacity he served until the close of 1912, when, on account of other still more exact- ing duties, he resigned his position as secretary. Mr. Nelson was virtually the or- ganizer of the Chicago Cemetery Association, which was founded in 1903 and which owns the Oak Hill Cemetery, on the South Side. In this association Mr. Nelson served as secretary from the year of its organization and up to January I, 1913. Its splendid financial condi- tion, as well as its advanced posi- tion among Swedish-American busi- ness organizations in Chicago, is in a large measure due to Mr. Nelson's ability and untiring efforts. The most important business organization, however, with which Mr. Nelson is connected is the Scan- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 517 dia Life Insurance Company, with headquarters in Chicago. This company, now one of the largest and financially strongest Swedish business institutions in the United States, was organized in April, 1905, chiefly upon the initiative of Mr. Nelson, who was then elected its president, and who still holds that position. The company now has 18,000 policy-holders, with an NELS A. NELSON. insurance in force of $26,000,000. The assets of the company amount to $2,000,000 and the surplus to $500,000. While thoroughly Americanized, Mr. Nelson takes pride in his origin and retains a warm love for the mother country. He is ever ready to further the interests of his fel- low countrymen, in business, in politics and in church affairs. There is hardly any national or cultural movement launched among his countrymen in America which has not had his moral and financial sup- port. He is deeply interested in the success of the Augustana College in Rock Island and is now serving his second term on its Board of Direc- tors. When special efforts were made, some years ago, to introduce the Swedish language in the high schools of Chicago, he was a mem- ber of the committee which had this matter in hand and was the leading spirit in the effort to have Swedish taught in the high school of Engle- wood, where two of his own sons attended the newly organized classes. Mr. 'Nelson is a life member of the Art Institute, a member of the Hamilton Club and the Swedish! Club. He is an active member of the Bethlehem Swedish Lutheran Church in Englewood, where he holds the office of deacon and is' a teacher of a Bible class. For his various services the King of Swe- den made him a Knight of the Or- der of Vasa. On April 30, 1895, he was united in marriage to Miss Adelia H. M. Olson, a daughter of one of the earlier Swedish pioneers in Chi- cago. This union has been blessed with three sons, Byron, Norman and Stanley. AXEL CHYTRAUS, born September 15, 1859, is a native of Sweden and has lived in Chi- cago since 1869. He studied law in the law office of Howe & Russell, in Chicago, and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Illi- nois in September, 1881. A year thereafter he went into the law of- fice of Francis Lackner, as clerk, and in 1885 entered into partner- ship with Mr. Lackner 's brother-in- law, George F. Blanke, under the 518 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS firm name of Blanke & Chytraus. In 1893 Charles S. Deneen, subse- quently Governor Deneen, became a member of the firm, and the firm name became Blanke, Chytraus & Deneen. Mr. Blanke was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, and the firm was continued as Chytraus & De- neen, until 1898, when Mr. Chytraus was elected judge of the Superior AXEL CHYTRAUS. Court of Cook County, Illinois. During his continuance in office of two terms of six years each, he served upon the common law side and the chancery side of the court, and, for a short period, ex officio, in the Criminal Court of Cook County. About the middle of his second term he was elected by the Supreme Court of Illinois as judge of the Appellate Court of the First Dis- trict of Illinois, and served as a member of that court until, in the Democratic landslide of 1910, he was defeated for re-election. After his election in 1898 as one of the judges of Cook County he was twice a candidate for re-election. He is now senior member of the law firm of Chytraus. Healy & Frost, in Chicago. ALEX. J. JOHNSON, editor and publisher of the Svenska Kuriren, was born 1850 in Stock- holm, Sweden, where he received a school and college education, and studied for a couple of years at the ALEX. J. JOHNSON. University of Upsala. Spent the years 1871 to 1876 in France and visited parts of Asia and Africa as agent for a business firm of Mar- seilles, France. Grain merchant in Oscarshamn, Sweden, 1877 to 1882. Came to America the latter year and has been living in Chicago for the balance of his life. Married in 1880 to Marie Antoinette Solberg and has three children. In 1888 Mr. Johnson bought the Srenska Kuriren, which paper he has been editing ever since. He has been much interested in politics as a Republican, but has never held office. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 519 NELS A. JOHNSON, one of the best known Swedish- American life insurance men in Chi- cago, was born March 14, 1873, in the parish of Mjelby, Sweden. At the age of fourteen he came to America and studied for two semes- ters in the Diversey Boulevard School. His first employment in America was in Kirk's soap factory, NELS A. JOHNSON. where he remained for six months ; afterwards he secured employment with a stairbuilding company, but could not follow this trade very long because of a serious illness. The following six years he worked in a butter factory and thereupon he spent fourteen long years in the dress goods department of Marshall Field & Co. Seeing no future in this line of work, he became a salesman for the Scandia Life Insurance Company, where he has met with great suc- cess. He is also connected with the Home and German Fire Insurance companies. In politics Mr. Johnson is a Re- publican and has for eighteen years been a member of the Independent Order of Vikings. He was married to Miss Anna Benson in 1897. She died after eight years. In May, 1907, Mr. Johnson married his second wife, Miss Olga Anderson from Mor- lunda, Sweden. In the first mar- riage he has one child and two in the second. The family lives at 5011 North Hermitage avenue. MARIE SIDENIUS ZENDT is a well-known and highly appreci- ated singer. She was born at Vis- landa, Smaland, Sweden, where her father, D. G. Sidenius, was inspec- tor of a large saw-mill by the inland lake Bolmen, with headquarters at the railroad junction Vislanda. Her father was born in Denmark, where his five sisters are still living. Her mother was Betty Pauline, nee Ib- sen. The Sidenius family, who originally came from Jemtland, Sweden, were always great lovers of music and possessed of musical qualities in a marked degree. On her mother's side she descends from the noble family of Count Wedel of Denmark, and also from that side of the house she inherits her mu- sical gifts. Mrs. Zendt is a worthy descendant from these families and has for years shown her ability as a lyric soprano singer of exceptional power. At the age of three she came with her parents to the United States, settling in Elgin, 111., where she grew up, and at the age of sixteen was a member of the Universalist Church quartette. After her mar- 520 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS riage to Mr. George H. Zendt she came to Chicago. Here she has. under the able tutorship of such masters as A. Garrett, Karleton Hackett and Herbert Witherspoon, gradually risen to the prominence in the musical world she enjoys to- day. With ambitious and stren- uous work, coupled with a most pleasing personality and rare in- telligence, she undoubtedly will soon MARIE SIDENIUS ZENDT. rank among the foremost singers of our time. Since her coming to Chicago in 1905 she has been engaged as a singer in the First Congregational Church for four years and in the First Church in Oak Park one year. At present she is singing in Ken- wood Evangelical Church, and is also a member of the faculty of the American Conservatory. As a soloist Mrs. Zendt has appeared with the Chicago Apollo Club, the Mendelssohn Club and with the Swedish Choral Club, in fact she has been singing with the leading choral clubs all over the West. ERIC GUSTAF L. OLSON was born in the city of Visby, Got- land, Sweden, January 22, 1877. In 1881 he arrived in America with his parents and received his ele- mentary training in the public schools of this country. After hav- ing been cash, errand and office boy at various places he was apprenticed to the wood engraving trade in 1904. ERIC GUSTAF L. OLSON. When the new method of illustra- tion, namely photo-engraving, came into practice he took up this new branch of his trade and worked with The Photo Colortype Co., which changed to The American Three- Color Co. and shortly afterwards consolidated with three other firms under the name The American Colortype Co. In this concern Mr. Olson was made superintendent of engraving. He resigned from this position in 1913 and accepted a position with the American Art Works, Coshoc- ton, Ohio, as director of art and engraving. Subsequently he left LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 521 this place and became superintend- ent and treasurer of Max Lau Col- ortype Co., 1030 Fullerton avenue, Chicago, which position he is now holding. Mr. Olson is a member of the Saron Swedish Lutheran Church, trustee and superintendent of the Bible Class division and president of the Men's League. He is a Ma- son and member of Chicago Auto- mobile Club. Mr. Olson was mar- ried June i, 1899, ^0 Miss Clara Elfrida Olson, born in Malmo, Swe- den. The family has three children. B. LUNDBERG, one of the most widely known Swed- ish-American business men in Chi- cago, was born in the city of Kal- mar, Sweden, July 7, 1872. His father, Mr. J. F. P. Lundberg, es- tablished himself as an optician in that city as early as 1863 and is still living, as is also his mother, Sophie Lundberg, nee Wahlstrom. Having attended five classes of the collegiate school of his native city, Mr. Lnndberg at the age of sixteen set out to make his own way in the world. Coming to this coun- try July 27, 1888, he went to Spring Garden, Minn., where he had a taste of American farm life for about four months. On December 9th of the same year he entered the employ of A. E. Johnson & Co. in their steamship ticket and land of- fice in St. Paul, Minn. By his energy and ability he soon attracted the attention of his superiors, and his promotion was rapid. For a while he was employed in the office of the same company at Spokane, Wash., but after a short time he was recalled to St. Paul to take charge of the ticket department there. In 1904 he came to Chicago, and having held positions with the White Star Line and the Dominion Line became the Chicago manager for A. Mortensen & Co., general agents for the Scandinavian - American Line. When in 1905 A. E. Johnson & Co. became the successors to this B. LUNDBERG. firm, Mr. Lundberg was recognized as an invaluable man to the office and was retained as manager. On June 27, 1914, Mr. Lundberg was made partner of the last mentioned firm. When in February, 1916, Mr. A. E. Johnson, on account of age and failing health, retired from business, this partnership was dis- solved, but Mr. Lundberg contin- ued the steamship ticket business on his own account as an independ- ent agent. June i, 1916, Mr. Lund- berg in addition to this business opened, under the firm name of B. Lundberg & Co., in 176 North Dear- born street a high grade stationery 522 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS store, stocked with all the different articles one usually finds in this line of business. Mr. Lundberg holds membership in the Illinois Athletic Club and in the Swedish Club. In politics he is a Republican. April i, 1894, Mr. Lundberg was married to Anna Sophia Levin, a daughter of Mr. John Levin, a well- known Swedish-American old set- tler of St. Paul and Chicago. This union has been blessed with two sons and one daughter. The sons are both students at Augustana Col- lege in Rock Island. AXEL KARLSTEEN, a contractor of note, achieved suc- cess in his chosen profession while yet in Sweden. One of the best AXEL KARLSTEEN. the monuments to his skill on other side is doubtless the com- plete reconstruction of "Fersenska Terrassen," opposite the Royal Pal- ace in Stockholm. Mr. Karlsteen in partnership with his two brothers had entire charge of said construc- tion during 1881 to 1883. In this country, to which he came in 1887, he engaged in con- tracting on a large scale, embracing building operations of various kinds. He began Ins present busi- ness in Chicago during 1889. He was born January 19, 1858, in the city of Sala, Sweden, where his father, Karl Knut Karlsteen, was a lawyer. From public school he en- tered the collegiate school and con- tinued at the Technical School of Stockholm. In the International Correspondence School at Scran- ton, Pa., he later pursued his studies. Miss Hulda Augusta Rydberg, of Stockholm, became his wife in 1889. Five children have been born ; three are living. Mr. Karl- steen's residence and office are at 3019 Edgewood avenue. OTTO GUSTAF RYDEN, attorney-at-law, was born Septem- ber .6, 1874, at Ryssby, Smaland, Sweden, where he attended public schools, and came to Seneca, 111., in 1889. At the age of sixteen he de- cided to learn a trade and became an apprentice with a mason con- tractor in Evanston, 111. After a few years he became a building superintendent, but realizing that there were better opportunities for trained men, he decided to take ad- vantage of the educational oppor- tunities offered in Evanston. He therefore entered the Evanston Township High School in 1895 and graduated four years later. Then he attended the Northwest- ern University and received the de- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 523 gree Ph. B. in 1903 and A. M. in 1905, graduating the same year from the Northwestern University Law School with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was asso- ciated with one of the oldest law firms in Chicago, Hoyne, O'Connor & Irwin, from 1905 to 1908, and has practiced law in his own name since then. His office from 1908 to 1915 was in the Hartford Building, OTTO GUSTAF RYDEN. and his present business address is 1609-11 Conway Building. He is engaged in general civil la\v prac- tice, paying special attention to chancery and corporation, commer- cial, real estate and probate prac- tice. He has done considerable trial work and has handled successfully difficult cases involving mechanical engineering and building construc- tion. While in college Mr. Ryden wrote a thesis on "Some Phases of Life Insurance," 1903, and in the law school he wrote on "Dedication of Land for Public Uses in Illinois," 1905. Later he has contributed an article on "Dedication" to the Illi- nois Law Review. In politics Mr. Ryden is a pro- gressive Republican, and has held the office of town clerk of Evanston four consecutive terms from 1900. He is a member of Hemmenway Methodist Church at Evanston, and holds membership in a large num- ber of professional, political and so- cial societies. He is a Knight Templar, a Free Mason of the 32.d degree and a Shriner. He lives at 1010 Elmwood avenue, Evanston. JOHANNES JESPERSON, the superintendent of the Chicago Inner Mission of the Swedish Luth- eran Illinois Conference, was born at Silarps Mill, parish of Dalum, in Vestergotland, Sweden, October 14, 1858, his parents being Jesper Carl- son and Lisa Samuelson. He ar- rived in America in 1873 and took up his studies at Augustana College. Graduating in 1883, he entered the Augustana Theological Seminary, from which he received his B. D. in 1885. His ordination followed and he accepted a call to the Swedish Lutheran Church in Burlington, Iowa. While there he organized "Svenska Lutherska Kyrko-Brand- stods-Bolaget," which fire insurance association has been the means of saving more than $150,000 to its policy holders. In 1889 he was elected general manager of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, succeeding the Rev. Erland Carlsson. This im- portant position he filled with honor during 14 years, serving also as treasurer for said institutions dur- ing 12 years. 524 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS In 1903 he accepted a call to the Swedish Lutheran Salem Church at Spokane, Wash. At the end of four years he was offered the position of president and treasurer of the new- ly founded Coeur d'Alene College in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. From 1907 to 1914 he remained in this office, laying strong foundations for future work and development. August i, 1914, he entered upon his JOHANNES JESPERSON. present difficult and important work. His denomination has thus en- trusted in his hands many a difficult and great task, and he has always measured up to the confidence and trust shown him. As a member of the Board of Directors for Augus- tana College he served eight years, six of these as secretary. He held the same office at Coeur d'Alene College during seven years, and for some time served as member of the Mission Board of the Columbia Conference of the Augustana Synod. Miss Mathilda Sofia Anderson, of Burlington, born at Skolfvened, Ostergotland, became his bride May 15, 1888. June 11, 1915, she departed this life. There is one adopted son in the family. The Rev. Jesperson lives at 2908 Shakespeare avenue. His office is at 127 North Dearborn street. AXEL MELLANDER, professor of theology at North Park College, in Chicago, was born in Bronnestad, Skane, Sweden, March 26, 1860. One year after his birth his parents moved to Sosdala, in Mellby parish. At the age of ten he had to leave home and earn his own living. He was converted at the age of fifteen and was then enabled to continue his studies until he secured a position as a primary teacher. In 1876 he. entered the Teachers' Seminary in Lund, where he remained until 1878 to prepare himself for a career as a public school teacher. The following year he studied with private tutors, and in 1879 he emigrated to America. The first year in the New World was spent in the Ansgarius College in Knoxville, 111., where Prof. J. G. Princell was president, and in the fall of 1884 he was ordained to the ministry by the Evangelical Luth- eran Ansgarius Synod. Rev. Mellander has been sta- tioned as minister in the following Mission churches : In Lowell, Mass., 1881; in Boston, 1882; in Provi- dence, R. I., some months in 1883 ; in Scandia, Pa., and Frewsberg, N. Y., 1883 to August, 1884; in North Easton, Mass., from August, 1884, to June, 1886. In the summer of the same year he traveled in Nor- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 525 way, and in the fall be accepted a call as editor of Kristna Har olden in Minneapolis, which position he held until June, 1889. During that period the name of the paper was changed to Minneapolis Veckoblad; later it was changed again to Vecko- bladet. He accepted a call to the Swedish Mission Church at Iron Mountain, Mich., where he served as pastor AXEL MELLANDER. from June, 1889, to June, 1892. He was then called to become one of the teachers in the Seminary of the Swedish Mission Covenant at Min- neapolis. The call was accepted and he commenced his work there in September, 1892. This school was moved to Chicago in 1894. Prof. Mellander went with it, and has since then been one of the leading members of its faculty. He has besides held several im- portant positions in his church. From 1895 to 1904 he was a mem- ber of the Executive Board of the Mission Covenant, serving as sec- retary from 1893 to 1904. He has been the secretary of the Covenant once before, in 1885, the first year after its organization. From 1884 Prof. Mellander was associate edi- tor with Prof. Nyvall of the Mis- sionaren, the official organ of the denomination, until 1905, when the paper was discontinued. He trav- eled extensively in the Orient dur- ing 1901, visiting the Bible lands- Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor. From June, 1911, to August, 1912, he paid a visit to Sweden in order to study the school system there, and preached in many places in the central and southern provinces of his native land. The results of his Oriental jour- ney he has laid clown in a book, "Genom Bibelns lander," in 1902. Besides the above he has written several theological treatises : "Lif- vet, Doden och Evigheten," 1891 ; "Fcrsoning och Rattfarcliggor- else," 1915; "Fragan om Kristi Gudom och den Hel. Ancles Person- lighet," 1912, which is a reprint from the religious magazine Fack- lan; and several monographs, as, "Talamod," "Forhallandet mellan judarnas Sabbat och den kristna hvilodagen," "Profetskolorna i Israel," "Betankande i kongrega- tionalistfragan." He is also the author of "De Svenska Missions- vannernas Historia i Amerika," which now, unfortunately, is out of print. He was editor of the cal- endar Aurora the first five years of its existence. Prof. Mellander was married to Miss Erika Amalia Garberg, of Hudiksvall, August 22, 1884. They have had four children, three of whom died in childhood. The last, a son by the name of Enoch 526 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Theophilus, died in February, 1909. He was a student of Chicago Uni- versity. JOHN BRUNNER, a prominent Swedish-American en- gineer, was born in Varberg, Sweden. He graduated from the Institute of Technology in Stock- holm 1887, and was engaged for a year as assistant engineer at the JOHN BRUNNER. construction of the State Railways in his native land. He came to America in the spring of 1888 and secured employment as assistant engineer in the bridge department of the Boston & Maine Ry. He held this position for two years. The following five years he was chief engineer of the Mt. Vernon Bridge Co., of Mt. Vernon, Ohio; assistant chief engineer of the structural de- partment of the Carnegie Steel Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., 1896-99; city en- gineer of the same city, 1899-1902. Since then he has held various posi- tions with the Illinois Steel Co. Mr. Brunner is a member of the following societies and clubs : The American Society of Civil En- gineers, the American Society for Testing Materials, the American Railway Engineering Society, the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chi- cago, the International Society for Testing Materials, the Western So- ciety of Engineers, the Chicago En- gineers' Club, the Union League Club, the Evanston Club, etc. He is also a Free Mason and a Knight Templar. Mr. Brunner is married, since ^892, to Miss Corina Agnes Irene fylitchell, who is an American born, 6f English-Scotch descent. They live at 627 Dartmouth place. Evans- ton, 111. MARTHA SETTERGREN- HALL was born in Hjo, Sweden, Decem- ber 1 6, 1867. Her parents were W. A. Settergren, a sergeant in the Swedish army, and his wife, Char- lotta, nee Florell. She received her common school education in her na- tive town and studied for a year in a private school, conducted by Count Creutz and his daughter Ebba. After her arrival in America, 1885, she took up a business course at the Metropolitan Business Col- lege in Chicago the following year. From her first position as clerk with P. Fahrney & Sons, she was pro- moted to the private office, where she was employed until 1890, when she made an extended visit to Sweden. She was married in July, 1890, to Mr. Robert Hall, coffee and tea merchant. After two years she reentered the employ of P. Fahrney and remained with the firm for LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 527 nearly five years, when her own business interests made demands on her whole time. She is now man- ager of Hall's Catering Depot, at 5207 N. Clark street. Mrs. Hall has taken an active in- terest in various civic and edu- cational organizations such as the Woman's City Club and Edgewater Civic Club, is a director of the Parent Teacher Association in Lv- MARTHA SETTERGREN HALL man Trumbull School and member of Bonnie Home Association. In the Swedish American Woman's Club she has been the secretary from the time of its organization, seventeen years ago. JOHN S. GULLBORG, an engineer and inventor of national fame, was born at Sandhem, Ves- tergotland, Sweden, August 20. 1863. His parents were Carl Gus- taf Gullborg, a blacksmith, and Charlotta Larson. From his father's anvil, through public school and technical schools at Jonkoping, his path led naturally to the engineer's calling. The practical skill and knowledge necessary for such a call- ing he received as a machinist at the famous Vulcan Works in Tida- holm and Huskvarna in Jonkoping. In the arms factory of the last named plant he made his first in- vention, an improved method of making guns. This invention brought him recog- nition and added income, which would have increased had he con- sented to remain in' the company's service. But four years at Hus- kvarna convinced him that he must seek larger fields for development and work. On April 22. 1886, we find him a newcomer in New York. Through a friend he secured a posi- tion with the Windsor Locks Ma- chine Co., at Windsor Locks, Conn. The following fall he reached Chi- cago, where he began his career in the Gormley & Jeffery bicycle fac- tory. In 1889 he accepted a posi- tion as foreman in Excelsior Iron Works, where he remained until 1893, when he became general fore- man at the John Featherstone & Sons ice machine plant. Two years later he launched his first enter- prise, the Gullborg Bicycle Co. In 1898 he began the manufacture of telephone instruments and thus formed the nucleus of the Swedish- American Telephone Co., to which concern he sold his factory in 1902. At that time he became master me- chanic at the Stromberg-Carlson Telephone Co. As such he invented a large number of new instruments and greatly improved their method of manufacture. He also developed the Stromberg-Carlson cable and wire plant in Rochester, N. Y. 528 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS One of his most important inven- tions, the Stromberg carburetor, he developed in 1906. In the fall of that year he joined Messrs. Strom- berg, Carlson and Stiger and organ- ized the Stromberg Motor Devices Co. During six years he remained affiliated with said firm, constantly inventing and improving. His car- buretor became famous throughout the motor world. JOHN S. GULLBORG. In 1912 his creative mind turned to new fields of endeavor. He in- vented an entirely new automatic die casting machine, wherein per- fect castings that need no further machining are made under pressure in steel dies. He organized the Alemite Metals Co., which is operat- ing a constantly growing plant at Chicago avenue and Orleans street. Mr. Gullborg is president and gen- eral manager of this very successful enterprise. He has already to his credit half a hundred remarkable patents and his fertile mind con- tinues its search for new devices. In 1902 he married Miss Agda Helena Anderson, born in Asaka, Vestergotland, Sweden. They have four children, and reside at 4631 Beacon street. Mr. Gullborg holds membership in the Swedish En- gineers' Society of Chicago and in the Swedish - American Business Men's Club of the 25th Ward. C. A. ERICKSON Dr. Carl August Erickson is a Chicago boy, born February 19, 1876, in the inland metropolis, where his father, John A. Erickson, was a decorator and painter. His mother's name was Disa Kylberg. Grammar and high schools in Sa- lina, Kan., and Chicago prepared him for college. In 1895 ne received his Ph. G. from the School of Phar- macy at Northwestern University. Eight years later the same uni- versity conferred upon him the M. D. degree with "Magna cum laude." Soon thereafter he began in his home city, Chicago, a practice which in its growth and its character has been a fitting testimony to his skill and learning. While yet a student, he served during seven years as a pharmacist and half a year as resident physi- cian and surgeon at Cook County Hospital. At present he holds the following offices : Local surgeon of the Illi- nois Central. R. R. ; attending physi- cian at the Englewood Hospital ; medical examiner for Odd Fellows, Svithiod, Vasa, Viking and Inge- borg (ladies') fraternal societies. He holds membership in all but the last named, also in Modern Wood- men and in the Masonic order. The professional and learned so- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 529 cieties to which he belongs include the following: Chicago Medical, Illinois State Medical, American Medical, Alpha Omega Alpha Hon- orary Medical, Nu Sigma Mu (Zeta) Medical, Association of Surgeons of the Illinois Central R. R., Chi- cago Philatelic Society. Dr. Erickson is a Republican in politics. His religious affiliations are with the Salem Evangelical C. A. ERICKSON. Lutheran Church. His offices are located at 6300 So. Halsted street and 2458 Wentworth avenue. The residence is at 8101 So. Peoria street. Miss Edith Caroline Olson, of Chicago, became his wife, June 20, 1906. A son and a daughter have been born to them. GUSTAF ALFRED AKERLIND, mechanical engineer, was born in the parish of Gasinge, Soderman- land, Sweden, March 21, 1856. His parents were Daniel Akerlind, a master mechanic at the Government paper mill of Tumba, and his wife Maria Gustafson. Having com- pleted his elementary education, he became a machinist apprentice, afterwards machinist at the Bolin- der Works in Stockholm and steam engineer at Sodra Varfvet. In 1879 he entered the Institute of Technology, where at the end of the first term he won several prizes. Having completed a three years' course at the institute, and worked with various manufacturing firms during his vacations so as to gain practical experience, he secured a position as assistant superintendent of Graham Brothers' machine shop at Visby, Gottland, where he re- mained till 1885, when he was pro- moted to be foreman erector for the same firm at Stockholm, 1886-87. In 1887 the young engineer came to the United Stater, where he has been eminently successful in his profession. After a short stay in Nev; York he went to Philadelphia, where he obtained a position with the Ashton-Hand Machine Works, of Toughkenamon. Not long after- wards he was offered a situation as draughtsman for the Riehls Brothers' Testing Machine Works, where he continued for nine months. In 1889 he obtained the position of designer in the motive power de- partment of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, with offices in Altoona, Pa. He remained with this company till 1891, when he left for a similar position with the Erie Railroad at Susquehanna, Pa. In the fall of 1891 he made a brief visit to Sweden and returned the following spring. Then he entered the service of the Big Four Railway at Cincinnati, Ohio, until fall, when he took a 530 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS position with the Brooks Locomo- tive Works at Dunkirk, N. Y., a position he held till 1895, with the exception of a short time he spent in Sweden. Having had employment with the Erie Railway again for some time, he moved to Chicago in January, 1896, when he became mechanical engineer in the motive power de- partment of the Chicago & Rock GUSTAF ALFRED AKERLIND. Island Railway system. This posi- tion he held until 1902, when he re- ceived a more remunerative one with the National Malleable Iron Co. In 1904 the National Dump Car Co. gave him a very flattering offer, which he accepted and re- mained with them till 1911, when he took up work with the Spencer Otis (To. in 1912. During the last few years he has been employed by the Engineering Bureau of the City of Chicago as testing engineer. Mr. Akerlind has had a long and honorable career as a practical en- gineer, but he has also made him- self a name as an author of papers and pamphlets on technical subjects. He is one of the founders of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chi- cago, and for seven consecutive years served as its secretary, thus contributing in no small measure to its growth and development. He is a member also of the American So- ciety of Mechanical Engineers, Western Society of Engineers and American Society for Testing Ma- terial. Mr. Akerlmd's religious belief is Lutheran. He is not married. He resides at Bradley Hotel. ANDREW E. NORMAN Andrew E. Norman was born March 13, 1860, at Holbacken, Finnshyttan, Vermland, Sweden. His father, Jonas Norman, was a forester. Having received his early education in the public schools, he was apprenticed at the age of six- teen at the Finnshyttan Mechanical works to learn the patternmaker's trade. Mr. Norman came to America and Brooklyn in 1880 and there worked as a cabinetmaker for six months. Then he moved to Ishpeming, Mich., where he met Miss Ulrika Olson, from Dalsland, Sweden, to whom he was married June 10, 1882. He was now a fore- man in a furniture factory and re- mained in that position for three years, every year taking the first prize for sculptures at the Mar- quette County Industrial Exposi- tion. In 1887 Mr. Norman moved to Chicago, where he embarked in business for himself as architect and builder. Since 1900 he has de- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 531 voted all his time to architectural designing and superintending. For the last 10 years his office has been at 1562 Devon avenue. Mr. Norman traveled extensively in Europe one season, studying art and machinery. Mr. Norman is not only a suc- cessful architect and designer, but also an artistic and mechanical genius. His artistic soul has found ANDREW E. NORMAN. expression in the most exquisite wood carvings. One of his won- derful products represents a spider's web. The net is hair-fine and the spider with the captive fly appears as natural as if alive. For this work Mr. Norman was awarded a medal at the California Exposition. An- other of his marvelous productions was called by a newspaper one of the eight wonders of the world. This artistic work was made for ex- hibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and repre- sents Columbus landing in America. It is entirely unique in its class. Out of a solid block of boxwoo:! the artist has carved a scene showing in the foreground Columbus as he set his foot on the soil of America, and in the background a boat with his followers. Both the idea and the execution are magnificent. To give a complete description of Mr. Norman's electro-mechani- cal wonder, "The Battle of Manila," would take too much space. A more complicated master work has hardly been constructed. By pushing dif- ferent buttons cannon are fired, ships are maneuvering or set on fire and sent to the bottom. At the present time Mr. Norman has given up his sculpture work and mechanical interests and is devot- ing his time to architectural de- signing and building. Among the beautiful churches he has designed and constructed may be mentioned the Ebenezer Swedish Lutheran, the Concordia Swedish Lutheran and the Unity English Lutheran churches, all in Chicago ; the Swed- ish Lutheran church at Spokane, Wash., Salem Swedish Lutheran church at Rockford, 111., Humboldt Park Gospel Tabernacle, Chicago, the Swedish Lutheran church at Galva. 111., the Viking Temple in Chicago ; also Augr.stana Old Peo- ple's Home on Stony Island avenue in Chicago, the Lutheran Old Peo- ple's Home at Madrid, Iowa. etc. Mr. and Mrs. Norman have had thirteen children, of whom eight are still living. O. THEODORE ROBERG. physician and surgeon, was born in Chicago in 1876. His father is .Os- car B. Roberg, one of the publishers completed his elementary education, of Missions-Vannen. After having 532 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS he entered Rush Medical College and graduated in 1899. The fol- lowing four years he was assistant in chemistry at his Alma Mater, taught chemistry for one year after graduation and was appointed Fel- low in Chemistry. He then served as house physician and surgeon at the Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago, for two years, and was instructor O. THEODORE ROBERG. in surgery in Rush Medical College for several years. In 1902 Dr. Roberg was ap- pointed surgeon-in-chief to the Swedish Covenant Hospital, which position he still holds, besides hav- ing an extensive practice on the North Side. He is a member of the Chicago Pathological Society, the Chicago Medical Society, the American Medical Association, the Scandina- vian-American Medical Society of Chicago and the American Medical Society of Vienna, Austria. Dr. Roberg is married and wor- ships in the Swedish Mission Church. JOSHUA ODEN, pastor of the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran Church, was born June 19, 1880, in Muskegon, Mich., where his father, the Rev. M. P. Oden, D. D., was pastor. His mother's name is Emma Carlberg. His preparation for life and service led through high school at Aha, JOSHUA ODEN. Iowa, to Augustana College and Bethany College, where in 1902 he received the B. A. degree. He continued his studies at Beth- any Business and Normal College and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Chicago, whereupon in 1906 he entered Augustana Theo- logical Seminary, received the B. D. degree in 1908, and was ordained minister the same year. He is now pastor of the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran Church in Chicago, where his successful labors began in 1908. In 1909 he married Helga Suderberg, of Ludington, born in Smaland, Sweden. This union has been blessed with a soil. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 533 JOHN HILDING JOHNSON is a well-known contractor and builder in Chicago, where a large number of prominent structures testify to his architectural ability and fine judgment. He is a native of Sweden, born 1872 at Trojebo, Byarum, Smaland, where his par- ents were engaged in farming. The JOHN HILDING JOHNSON. grammar school was the only edu- cation offered him as a boy. At seventeen years of age he ar- rived in America. In the steel mills at Joliet, 111., he found his first em- ployment. Here he remained until 1891, when he moved to Chicago, where he followed the carpenter's trade until 1897. He was then pro- moted to the position of foreman and superintendent. Five years later, in 1902, he laid the founda- tions for his present successful en- terprise, with offices in the Chamber of Commerce Building. His opera- tions as a general contractor have gradually extended into several states. He is a married man, since 1897, and has a family of three boys and three girls. He belongs to the Ham- ilton Club, and is a member of the Art Institute. The Swedish Free Church counts him as an honored member. CARL HJALMAR LUNDQUIST was born October n, 1883, in Bofors, Karlskoga parish, Verm- land, Sweden. His parents were Karl Johan Fredrik Lundquist and Hulda Serafia Wennerblad. In 1886 he came with his parents to America, where Chicago became their home. Here he received his public school education. In 1896 his father accepted an offer to take the foreman's position at the foundry of Arboga Mechani- cal Works in Arboga, Sweden, and so the family returned to the home land. Young Lundquist completed his course at Arboga Collegiate School in 1901 and continued his studies at Orebro College, where he received the B. A. degree in 1905. Here he was editor of the college weekly, The Orion. Having spent a part of 1905 in Falun, he returned in company with his folks to America in the fall of said year. Upon his arrival in Chi- cago he became city editor of Svenska Tribunen and Fosterlandet. During the succeeding five years he held editorial positions on Svenska Tribunen-Nyheter, Chicayo-Bladet, Hemlandcl and Svenska Kuriren. For a time he was draughtsman at the National Coal Dump Car Co. In 1910 he published "Lundquists Vagvisare for Svenskarne i Chi- cago." 534 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Later he became editor of Svenska Fasten in Rockford, 111., where his endeavors to unite the Swedish people in order that a Swedish hospital might be erected were singularly successful. On his initiative the Swedish Hospital As- sociation of Rockford was organ- ized. He served as its secretary from its inception in May, 1911, until 1913. As a director he re- CARL HJALMAR LUNDQUIST. mained until 1914. when he left Rockford. The association has now $65,000 in its treasury, and is erecting a modern hospital. In 1912 Mr. Lundquist joined the editorial staff of the Rockford Morning Star, a daily paper. In 1913 he be- came assistant manager of the for- eign department of a large agricul- tural machinery concern in Rock- ford. The following year he ac- cepted the position of foreign corre- spondent for Sulzberger & Sons Co. in Chicago. His literary labors have not ceased. Lately he edited a 4OO-page volume called "Runristningar," being a history of the Independent Order of Vikings. He has written a number of short stories for the American and Swedish press. The American Embargo Conference elected him secretary in 1916. He has long been a member of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chi- cago, the Svithiod Singing Club, the Verdandi Lodge of I. O. S., Monitor Council of Royal Arcanum .and the Swedish Historical Society of America. He is president of the newly organized Swedish Gymnas- tical Society of Chicago. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Lundquist is married to Vanja Nauqler. They have one son, and reside at 1421 Summerdale avenue. CARL J. E. ANDERSON was born in Stockholm, Sweden, October 4, 1867, and received his early school training in said city and in the city of Sodertelje. Hav- ing spent a few years in business at Stockholm, he moved to Upsala, where he continued his studies and at the same time learned the trade of a cabinetmaker. Later we find him again in the city of his birth, now employed as traveling agent and erector for the then largest pipe-organ firm in the Scandinavian countries, Akerman & Lind. In this capacity he traveled widely in all the northern countries. Mr. Anderson came to. America in 1892. After a brief stay in New York he proceeded to Chicago, where he soon found opportunity to follow his chosen calling. The Piano & Organ Supply Co. he served at first. Later we find him LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 535 with the Cable Piano Co., where his ability as a business man rapidly developed and came to the notice of Mr. Conover, the well-known in- ventor and manufacturer. Encour- aged by him, Mr. Anderson began his present career as a retail dealer. The house he represented offered several valuable prizes to dealers that sold the most pianos in 1898-99. Mr. Anderson carried off the first CARL J. E. ANDERSON. prize, having sold twice as many in- struments as his closest competitor. The H. P. Nelson Piano Co. sought his services as manager of its retail department. This service ended when Mr. Anderson in the early spring of 1916 established at 218 S. Wabash avenue the Carl Anderson Piano Co. The business outgrew its quarters and was moved to the corner of State and Monroe streets, where we today find one of the largest Swedish piano stores in America. Mr. Anderson was married in 1896 to Martha Moebius, daughter of Prof. Wm. Moebius, the well- known director and musician. This happy marriage ended after six years, when Mrs. Anderson died. The subject of this sketch is a popu- lar and honored member of several clubs and societies and has a large circle of friends. GEORGE R. HILLSTROM, the well-known banker and real estate dealer, was born December 31, 1883, in Chesterton, Ind., where his father, John W. Hillstrom. the senior partner of Hillstrom & Hill- strom, and his mother, Nellie (nee Bengtson), were then residing. The public schools in Moline, 111., and Pullman, Chicago, gave him his earlier training. Later he graduated from Orr's Business College in Chicago. From 1899 until the end of 1909 he held different positions in a real estate and loan office. Then he em- barked upon the present prosperous enterprise, located at 11133 Michi- gan avenue, and of this firm he is the manager. In 1914 he enlarged his activities and organized the South End Savings & Loan Asso- ciation, conducted under state super- vision. He serves this association as director and secretary. His energies soon sought even larger fields and in 1915 he and his brother. Harry, formed the Hill- strom Auto Sales Co., of which he is the president. Mr. Hillstrom holds membership in the Cook County Real Estate Board and Chicago Board of Un- derwriters. He is the chairman of the finance committee of South End Business Men's Association. As a Republican he belongs to the Ninth 536 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Ward Republican Club and the Xinth Ward Swedish Republican Club. In 1914 his party nominated him for the office of Cook County Commissioner. The Democratic landslide prevented his election. Fraternally he has extensive con- nections. He belongs to Harmony Lodge, K. of P. ; Pullman Lodge, I. O. O. F. ; Hilding Lodge, I. O. S. ; Roseland Council, North American Union, where he is collector. Of GEORGE R. HILLSTROM. the Roseland Club he is honorary member. His religious affiliations are with the Elim Swedish Lutheran Church. To Frances Kommers Hillstrom, of Chicago, he was married January 27, 1909. They have one son, and reside at 114 West inth place. NILS M. THORSSON is a native of Skane, where he was born at Kaseberga, Valleberga parish, on April n, 1867. His father was Matts Thorsson, a dealer in lumber, grain, etc. He arrived in America and Chicago in 1879, where he continued his studies be- gun in private and public schools in Sweden. He graduated from Bryant & Stratton Business College in 1887, whereupon he became pri- vate secretary to A. Crawford, an attorney in Chicago. In 1888 he accepted the same position with Mr. J. B. Parson, vice-president and general manager of the West Chi- cago Street Railroad Co. In 1899 NILS M. THORSSON. he became the purchasing agent for the Chicago Union Traction Co., and in 1908 he accepted the same position with the Chicago Railways Co. Since February, 1914, when the consolidation of all the Chicago Street Railways went into effect, he has held the position of assistant purchasing agent with the Chicago Surface Lines. His offices are lo- cated in the Borland Building, and his residence is at 3824 Osgood street. Mr. Thorsson is a Republican in politics, holds membership in the Swedish Club and is a member LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 537 of the Swedish Lutheran Immanuel Church, which he also serves as secretary. Miss Minnie G. Olander, born in Chicago, became his bride June 27, 1894. Two daughters have been born to them. FRITZ N. ANDREN, the chief accountant in the Chicago office of the Phoenix Insurance Co., FRITZ N. ANDREN. of Hartford, Conn., was born in Sweden, June 29, 1862, and came to America in 1880. He is the son of the Rev. O. C. T. Andren, one of the five ministers of the Swedish State Church who came to Illinois in the fifties. During seven years he served as clerk with Engberg- Holmberg Publishing Co. in Chi- cago. Then he moved to James- town, N. Y., where he engaged in business. While there he served as a member of the Orphan Home Board during three years. In 1891 he returned to Chicago and entered the employ of the Phoenix Insur- ance Co., where he today holds a position of high responsibility and honor. Mr. Andren has always been a public-spirited man and taken inter- est in the welfare of the community and his countrymen. He was one of the organizers of the Swedish Home Building Association ; has been its treasurer since its incep- tion in 1896, and is one of its faith- ful directors. He is secretary of the Swedish Historical Society of America. In 1911 he was elected a member of the Board of School District No. 100, a position he still holds. The Swedish Lutheran Augus- tana Church in Berwyn, 111., has in him an active and faithful member. For many years he has served said church as deacon and Sunday-school superintendent. Miss Olga C. Wickstrom became Mrs. Andren, May 4, 1887. They reside in Berwyn, 111., and have four children Olga Amalia, Olof, Ebba and Carl. IVAR PETERSON, city editor of Svenska Tribunen- Nyheter, hails from the province of Vestergotland, Sweden, where he was born July 8, 1880, at Varola. As a boy he was studious, but poor, and the education he wanted to ac- quire was beyond his reach, yet he improved every opportunity for pri- vate study. In 1906 he emigrated to the United States. Going to Rockford, he was employed in factories there and later engaged in business for a short time. Now and then he had sent con- 538 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS tributions to various newspapers and in 1911, with such prior experi- ence as a writer, took a position with S-t'enska Fasten, published in Rock ford. He remained with that paper for three years, then trans- ferred to the Chicago weekly, Tribuncn-Nyheter, in April, 1914, IVAR PETERSON. where he holds the position of local news editor. Mr. Peterson is a member of Standard Lodge, No. 65, S. F. A., honorary member of the Nordstjar- nan Singing Club, also member of the Swedish-American Athletic Association. OLOF S. SEABORG was born August 21, 1868, in the city of Landskrona, Skane, Sweden. His parents were Sven Sjoberg and Kama Sjoberg, nee Anderson. Hav- ing finished the course in the public schools of his native city, Seaborg spent a few years at home, where- upon he emigrated to America, ar- riving in New York April 21. 1885. His point of destination w r u? Stoughton, Wis. The first font years he worked on a farm in the vicinity of that city, then he was engaged in farming for himself in the same vicinity for about five years. In the early fall of 1892 he moved to Chicago, where, in partnership with his brother, Otto L. Seaborg, he opened a laundry at 180 Cly- bourn avenue, remaining in that business for about a year, after which he returned to. Stoughton. After a year spent in travel in the West and a couple of years' renewed residence in Wisconsin, Mr. Sea- borg, on June 28, 1898, enlisted in Company B, Fourth Wisconsin In- fantry, for participation in the Spanish-American war. With his regiment he remained in training at Camp Douglas, Wis., until the fol- lowing September, when the regi- ment was ordered to Camp Shipp, Anniston, Ala. Here it remained over the winter. When the war was concluded in the spring of 1899, the regiment was sent home to Wiscon- sin without having had a chance to get over to Cuba, much less take part in the war. Mr. Seaborg in the meantime, on July n, 1898, was promoted corporal, and on Dec. I of the same year sergeant. March i, 1899, he was honorably discharged from the military service. After a few weeks spent in Stoughton, Mr. Seaborg again went to Chicago, where in March, 1900, he and his brother Otto reengaged in the laundry business, this time locating in Lake Mew. Under their skillful management the business in a few years grew to such an extent LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 539 that new and commodious quarters were necessary, and a two-story laundry building, 36x125 feet, fitted out with modern machinery and appliances, was then erected at 1114-1116 Belmont avenue. Here the Seaborg Bros, are still located, attending to an ever growing busi- OLOF S. SEAEORG. ness and employing over 50 people. At this writing a large addition to the building is contemplated. Mr. Seaborg holds memberships in Chicago Laundrymen's Club, Chicago Laundrymen's Association and Laundrymen's State Associa- tion. He is a member of Ravens- wood Lodge, No. 777, A. F. & A. M. ; Columbia Chapter, No. 202, of R. A. M. ; Three Links Lodge, No. 812, I. O. O. F., and Svithiod Lodge, No. i, I. O. S. He also is a valued member of Brage Lodge, No. 2, I. O. V., of which lodge he was chief 1913-14. Of the executive committee of the Grand Lodge of I. O. V. he was a member in 1914. Mr. Seaborg further is life member of Swedish Old People's Home As- sociation, and member of Orpheus Singing Club and the Skane Guild. Of the last mentioned organization he is treasurer. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Seaborg on September 7, 1901, was married to Miss Rika Person, from Ekeby, Skane. They have a son and a daughter, and re- side at 1703 Carmen avenue. OTTO L. SEABORG, a younger brother of Olof S. Sea- borg, and in partnership with him in the laundry business, was born in the city of Landskrona, Swedc'n, April 23, 1871. He attended the public schools of that city, and at the age of sixteen emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York April 28, 1887. On May 4 of the same year he joined his brother at Stoughton, Wis., where he worked on a farm for two years. In 1890 he went to Chicago, where he apprenticed him- self to a carpenter. In that trade he remained for a year, whereupon he returned to Stoughton, where he joined his brother in his farming en- terprise. He went with him to Chi- cago and here they jointly opened a laundry in 1892. This partnership, however, was dissolved the follow- ing year, when Otto L. Seaborg re- turned to Stoughton to engage in the laundry business for himself. The laundry in Stoughton Mr. Seaborg operated till 1899, when he made a trip to Sweden, returning in 1900. The brothers then for the second time as partners established a laundry in Chicago, where they have remained ever since, building up a business that bears ample testi- 540 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS mony to their enterprising spirit and great executive ability. Mr. Seaborg is a member of the Laundrymen's Association of America, Chicago Laundrymen's Club, Chicago Laundrymen's Asso- ciation and Laundrymen's State As- sociation. In addition he is presi- dent of the North Side Laundry- men's Association and a member of the Board of Directors of Belmont OTTO L. SEABORG. Avenue Merchants' Club, affiliated with Lake View Business Men's Association, in which Mr. Seaborg has been president for one year and secretary and treasurer for several years. He also holds membership in King Oscar Lodge, No. 855, A. F. & A. M. ; Columbia Chapter, No. 202, of R. A. M. ; Three Links Lodge, No. 812, I. O. O. F., where he is Past Noble Grand ; Drake Lodge, No. 3, I. O. V.; Verdandi Lodge, No. 3, I. O. S. ; the Swedish Club, Orpheus Singing Club and the Skane Guild. In the last mentioned organization Mr. Seaborg has served as president for several years. He is a Republican in poli- tics. On March 21, 1903, Mr. Seaborg was married to Miss Alice Johnson, born in the parish of Kagerod, Skane. They have one son. The family residence is at 3024 N. Racine avenue. EDWARD C. WESTMAN, one of the most successful engravers and electrotypers in Chicago, was born in Princeton, 111., October n, 1861. His father, John A. West- man, a native of Borstig, Vester- gotland, Sweden, arrived in America as early as 1852 and settled in Princeton the same year. W r hen the Civil War broke out he enlisted in the 93d Illinois Infantry, in which he served for three years and a half, in the meantime being pro- moted from private to color- sergeant. Mr. Edward C. Westman was a mere youth when he came to Chi- cago to make his own way in the world. As soon as he had attained his majority he established himself in business, a furniture store on Chicago avenue being his first ven- ture. About the same time he be- came active in Republican city, county and state politics, and from the very start he showed himself to be an organizer of no small ability. As president of the Swedish-Ameri- can Republican Central Club of Cook County, Mr. Westman was in- strumental in organizing Repub- lican clubs in all the wards and the small towns where no such clubs existed ; in the short time of five years he brought about the nat- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 541 uralization of no less than 12,000 Swedes in Cook county. A recog- nition of his untiring efforts in be- half of the Republican party came in the form of an appointment, dur- ing Mayor Geo. B. Swift's adminis- tration, as gas inspector of Chicago. Mr. Westman's genius for organ- izing became still more evident in 1893, when, aided by Will S. Hus- sander and Charles H. Hoglund, he EDWARD C. WESTMAN. formed the Swedish-American Re- publican League of Illinois, a fed- eration of all the Swedish-American Republican clubs in the various counties of the state. It was Mr. Westman who fathered the resolu- tion that the annual meetings of this organization always should be held on March 9, the anniversary of the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac at Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862. The example thus set by the Swedish-Americans of Illinois in first forming a state-wide Swedish Republican organization ; secondly, having this organization annually celebrate the anniversary of one of the most important events in the Civil War, if not in the entire history of the nation, has after- wards been followed by our coun- trymen in Iowa, Nebraska, Minne- sota and Connecticut, where similar Swedish Republican organizations have sprung into existence in the last fifteen years. During the first two years of the league Mr. West- man served as its president, and afterwards for many years he con- tinued to be its guiding spirit. The keystone in the arch of Mr. Westman's political work, however, was the great celebration in Chicago March 9, 1912, of the fiftieth anni- versary of the battle at Hampton Roads. At this memorable celebra- tion the Swedish-American Repub- lican League of Illinois had Presi- dent William H. Taft of the United States as its guest of honor, and re- ceived a congratulatory letter from King Gustaf V. of Sweden. It was Mr. Westman who took the initia- tive also for this celebration, and with usual energy and will-power he saw it through. At the conclu- sion of the festivities Mr. Westman received from the members of the league a highly valuable token of their appreciation in the shape of an artistically designed loving cup. Mr. Westman was chairman of a committee of ten which, on March 23 of the same year, presented to the National Museum of Washing- ton, D. C., a portrait of John Erics- son, painted by Arvid Nyholm, and a canvas representing the battle be- tween the Monitor and the Merri- mac, the work of Henry Reuter- dahl. Mr. W'estman for a number of years has been the president and 542 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS sole owner of Blomgren Bros. & Co., an engraving and electrotyping firm of forty-one years' standing, which by his skillful and energetic management has attained a position in the front rank of similar firms in Chicago. He is also interested in other business enterprises. The honored subject of this sketch holds membership in many other organizations and clubs, such as the Hamilton Club, the Birch- wood Country Club, Chicago Ad- vertisers' Association, King Oscar Lodge, No. 855, A. F. & A. M., etc. On February 28, 1885, Mr. West- man was married to Miss Elizabeth H. Linnarson, daughter of one of the early Swedish settlers of Chi- cago. This union has been blessed with two (laughters. The family resides at 1547 Chase avenue, Rogers Park. CART, ROBERT HYITFELDT is a native of Goteborg, Sweden, where he was born, October 5, 1873. His parents were Robert Leopold and Hannah Elizabeth Hvitfeldt. In the city of Karlshamn lie received his education, graduating from the collegiate school in 1888. That same year he arrived in America and Chicago. He immediately began learning the engraver's art at the well-known firm of J. Manz & Co. Three years later we find him in the establishment of G. H. Bene- dict & Co., where he became fore- man of the wood engraving depart- ment. In 1906 Mr. Hvitfeldt embarked upon a business of his own, and be- came the proprietor of Calumet En- graving Co., located at 508 South Dearborn street, doing a successful general engraving business. Mr. Hvitfeldt is an associate member of the Swedish Engineers' Society, of Chicago ; he also holds membership in the Swedish Club, in Edgewater Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and in Monitor Council of Royal Arcanum. Bessie Henrietta R y s t r a n d, widow of the late Chas. J. Rystrand, born in Christiania, became his wife, CARL ROBERT HVITFELDT. January 12, 1910. A son and a daughter have been born in this wedlock. The family residence is at 1329 Carmen avenue. MARTIN ANDERSON. Born on the estate of Bokenas, near Uddevalla, March n, 1862, Mr. Anderson arrived in Chicago in iSSi. In the parish school he had received his earlier training. The trade of his father, Anders Persson, he followed also in this city and worked as a carpenter at the Northwestern Railwav Com- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 543 party's work during two years. After a few years with the con- tracting firm of Charles Bollington, he laid the foundation for his own enterprise. Since 1887 this busi- ness has enlarged and Austin, his home suburb, knows Mr. Anderson as a reliable and successful con- tractor. He took unto himself a wife, Miss Emma Anderson, of Verm- skog, Vermland, on June 12, 1886. MARTIN ANDERSON. One daughter has been born. Mr. Anderson's residence and office is at 1000 Massasoit avenue, Austin. EDWIN A. OLSON, vice-president and counsel of Scandia Life Insurance Co., is a name widely and well known in business, professional, political and social circles. This prominent law- yer began his practice in Chicago in 1892, when he was admitted to the bar after thorough preparation. Born in Cambridge, 111., February 16, 1868. he received his early train- ing in the grammar and high schools of his home city, whereupon he continued his studies in Elliot's College in Burlington, Iowa. His parents were Charles Olson, a farmer, and Christine Hanson. Through his energy, integrity and legal acumen he has built a large practice and acquired a prominent place at the Chicago bar. He is a recognized leader in political life ; was secretary for four EDWIN A. OLSON. years and president one year of the Swedish - American Republican League of Illinois. He holds the office of vice-president and counsel for the Scandia Life Insurance Co. Mr. Olson's religious affiliations are with the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a member of the Hamilton Club, is an Odd Fellow, belongs to the Oriental Consistory and Medinah Temple, is a 32d de- gree Mason and Past Master of King Oscar Lodge. In 1897 he married Miss Mae Fitzgerald. Three sons have been born to them. The family residence 544 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS is at 3030 Sheridan Road. Mr. Olson's offices are at 30 North La Salle street. CARL G. SWANSON, the well-known proprietor . of the Chrystal Laundry at 1446 No. Clark street, was born in Olmestad parish, province of Smaland, Sweden, April 15, 1868, and came to Amer- CARL G. SWANSON. ica in 1888. His parents were Sven and Hedvig Svensson. His earliest training he received in the parish schools. Two years after his arrival in America he engaged in the laundry business, in which he has since be- come an authority and expert. Mr. Swanson has been active in laundry organization work for over twenty years. He has served as director, secretary, treasurer and president in the Chicago Laundrymen's Club, was first vice president of the Laun- drymen's National Association of America in 1910; has been a mem- ber of the executive committee of the Chicago Laundrymen's associa- tion for six years, and was presi- dent of that organization 1915-1916. He is a member of Illinois Laun- drymen's Association and was chairman of the legislative com- mittee of that organization in 1913- 1914. He is also a director of the Laundry Owners' Mutual Insur- ance Co. Mr. Swanson has been a member of the Swedish Club since 1897 an ^ has served three times as a member of the Board of Directors in said club. In the Independent Order of Foresters he also holds membership. He is a member of the Cook County Central Republican Club and of the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois. Of the Trinity English Lutheran Church Mr. Swanson is an active and honored member. Since 1902 he has been a member of the coun- cil of that church, and was treasurer of the congregation from 1906 to 1912. At present he is treasurer of the fund that is being raised for building a new church ; also chair- man of the congregation's finance committee. Mr. Swanson was married June 30, 1899, to Miss Hulda Casperson, born in Yllestad parish, Vestergot- land. One daughter has been born to them. The family residence is at 911 Buena avenue. FREDERICK LINDQUIST. In 1880 Mr. Lindquist came to Chicago from Sweden, where he had gained reputation as an archi- tect and engineer. From the office of the Hargo Iron Works in the home land he stepped into the of- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 545 fice of Architect H. Copeland, in Chicago. After some time he es- tablished an office of his own. His services as an architect and engi- neer are sought by many. He was born September 20, 1858, in Stockholm, where he re- ceived his education and then con- tinued his studies at home and in office. In 1885 Mr. Lindquist was married to Miss Emily M. Ander- FREDERICK LINDQUIST. son of Odeshog, Ostergotland. They have three sons and three daughters. Mr. Lindquist is a member of the Illinois Society of Architects, Cook County Real Estate Board, the Swedish Club and of several Ma- sonic fraternities. SWAN P. NORMAN was born in Kristianstad, Sweden, 1860, and came to America and Chi- cago in 1880. Being a man of en- terprise and natural gifts, he soon established himself as a contractor and builder. During a period of fifteen years his business was con- stantly growing. His ability com- manded attention and the local gov- ernment sought his services. He became expert appraiser for Cook County Board of Assessors, which position he has acceptably filled dur- ing i /^ years. At this writing he has been placed on the Republican ballot as a candidate for the Cook County Board of Assessors. SWAN P. NORMAN. His executive ability has been sought by many organizations and enterprises. During a succession of years Mr. Norman has been presi- dent of the 1 2th Ward Republican Club He holds the same office in the Swedish Old People's Home As- sociation. The Society North Star, of which he has been a member dur- ing 20 years, has had in him a faith- ful treasurer during a decade. The following organizations are proud to call him a member: Swedish-American Republican Cen- tral Club, Wm. B. Warren Lodge, A. F. & A. M., Oriental Consistory, S. P. R. S., Medinah Temple, A. A. 54G THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS O. N. M. S., Svithiod Lodge, I. O S., Reaper Council, National Union, Lawndale Good Fellowship Club, Svithiod Singing Club, the Swedish Club, Hamilton Club of Chicago and others. Mr. Norman lives at 2109 S. Clifton Park avenue. OLOF OLSSON, physician and surgeon, was born in Yiken, Harlosa parish, province of Skane, Sweden, June 7, 1866, and OLOF OLSSOX. there he received his earlier train- ing. His parents were Olof Anders- son and Anna Persson. In the year of 1887 he came to America, where he later continued his studies, enter- ing Augustana College in 1893 and receiving at the same college his B. A. degree in 1900. One year of the seven he spent in replenishing an empty treasury. At the University of Illinois he studied medicine and surgery from 1901 until 1905, when he received his doctor's diploma and began prac- ticing in Chicago. His office has ever since been at moo Michigan avenue, where people of all nation- alities in growing numbers avail themselves of his skill and knowl- edge. Dr. Olsson is a Republican and a member of the Republican Club of Roseland. He is also an honored member of the North Star, Svithiod and the Fidelity Registry Co. The two first named he serves as a medi- cal examiner. His religious affilia- tions are with the Elim Swedish Lutheran Church of Pullman. In 1914 he married Anna Larson, born at Hellefors, Vermland. One child has been born to them. The family residence is at 11106 Indiana avenue. CHARLES A. STRANDEL, the well-known architect, was born in the parish of Olme, Vermland, Sweden, December 30, 1866. His parents were Anders and Louise Anderson. His father is still living. Having finished his public school education, he attended the School of Technology in Karlsbad, and in 1887 he emigrated to America. For about a year lie resided in Grand Rapids, Mich., and from there he came to Chicago. He took up architecture as a profession and had several years' experience with prominent architects. He is him- self one of the noted architects of Chicago and has had an office of his own since 1893, at present in 5 North La Salle street. He makes a specialty of high grade apartment buildings and has several of the best equipped apartments in Chicago to his credit. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 547 He is a member of the Svithiod Lodge No. i, I. O. S., King Oscar Lodge No. 855, A. F. & A. M., and of Svithiod Singing Club of Chi- cago, whose clubhouse is one of the many examples of Mr. Standel's skill as an architect. He is also an active and well-known member of the Illinois Society of Architects. CHARLES A. STRANDEL. Married since July 6, 1907, to Miss Anna Gronbeck of Stockholm, Sweden, he has one daughter who was born in 1909. MATTHIAS WAHLSTROM, the well-known superintendent of Augustana Hospital in Chicago, was born at Sandback, Gammalstorp parish, in the province of Rlekinge, Sweden, November 28, 1851. His parents, Olof Trulson Wahlstrom (a carpenter and farmer), and his wife, Anna, came to America in 1854. They located first in Chi- cago and shortly afterwards for brief periods in Carpenterville, Geneva, Montgomery and Aurora, 111. In 1861 they settled in West Union, Carver county, Minn. Here at St. Ansgar's Academy he laid the foundation for his well- proportioned intellectual structure. Having spent two years at this acad- emy, he entered Augustana College, than at Paxton, 111., in 1871. Six years later at Rock Island, to which place the college had removed, he received the A. B. degree. His was the first class to graduate from said college. The year 1874-75 he spent as a teacher in St. Ansgar's Acad- emy. For two years he studied at Augustana Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1879. As a student he preached and taught parochial school in Lindsborg, Kan., in the summer of 1878. His Alma Mater conferred upon him the A. M. degree in 1886 and the Ph. D. degree in 1894. Ordained to the Lutheran min- istry in 1879 in Chicago, he went out as a missionary to the Comanche Indians in Indian Territory, taking with him his young bride. Miss Selma Christina Ekstrcm. of Linds- borg, Kan., to whom he was mar- ried July 6, 1879. As a mission- ary he traveled extensively in the rather wild and unknown South- western states and became well ac- quainted with several of the Indian tribes and their chiefs. Part of this time he worked as a home mission- ary in Denver. Typhoid fever overtook him in 1880 while he attended the synodical meeting at Des Moines, la. After his recovery he accepted a call to become professor of Swedish at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn. The following year he became president of said institu- THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS tion, which position he held until 1904. The twenty-three years he gave to this task were record-mak- ing years for this school, which under his able leadership developed into a full-grown college with five departments and 300 to 400 students. During the last year of these twenty-three he also served as pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church at St. Peter. MATTHIAS WAHLSTROM. In July, 1904, Dr. Wahlstrom was called to his present duties as super- intendent of Augustana Hospital. Here his executive ability, his kind heart and Christian spirit have en- hanced the reputation of this Swed- ish-American charitable institution. Many honors have been conferred upon him. In 1901 King Oscar II. created him a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star. Dr. Wahlstrom is a life member of the American Bible Society. He also holds membership in the fol- lowing associations : National Geo- graphical Society, Society for Pro- motion of Broader Education and Swedish Historical Society. He is now serving as deacon in the Trin- ity Swedish Lutheran Church. Po- litically he is a Republican. His marriage has been blessed with seven children ; two of these have passed beyond the shadows. Mrs. Wahlstrom, his faithful com- panion, hails from Lindesberg, province of Vestmanland. The family resides at 2216 Cleveland avenue. LOUIS M. NELSON, one of the most progressive and successful of the numerous Swedish builders of Chicago, was born at Spelnas, Sunne parish, Vermland, Sweden, February 17, 1867. His pajents were farmers. Having finished the course in the public schools of his native parish, he studied at the Sunne High School, established by the eminent Swedish historian, Anders Fryxell, where- upon in 1882 he set out for the New World, Chicago being his point of destination. Shortly after his arrival in this city Mr. Nelson became a carpen- ter's apprentice, and after having learned the trade was made a fore- man. In the early nineties, when still a young man of only twenty- three, Mr. Nelson established him- self as a contractor and builder. At that time and for a number of years S. E. Gross was one of the most active real estate dealers in Chicago, laying out one subdivision after another in various parts of the city. The majority of houses in those subdivisions were built by Mi. Nelson. About ten years ago Mr. Nelson LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 549 took in as his partner Mr. F. C. Lewin, establishing the building firm of Nelson & Lewin, which has been eminently successful in its ex- tensive operations. Private houses to the number of several hundred, scores of apartment buildings and hotels testify to the enterprising spirit of this well-known firm, whose quarters are to be found on the iQth floor of the Conway Build- LOUIS M. NELSON. ing. In later years Mr. Nelson has established a second building firm, Nelson & Lundquist, which is doing a large business independently of the first mentioned. Mr. Nelson is a public-spirited man whose services and support are sought for by many Swedish-Ameri- can institutions. He is a life mem- ber of the Swedish Old People's Home Association and holds mem- bership in the Swedish Historical Society of America. In the Irving Park Swedish Lutheran Church he is a member of the Board of Trus- tees and their treasurer. The Gen- eral Council of the Lutheran Church of America at its last meet- ing elected him one of its trustees. On June 25, 1890, Mr. Nelson was married to Miss Hanna L. Olson, daughter of Mr. John Olson, one of the earlier Swedish settlers in this city. Mrs. Nelson, who has studied at Bethany College in Linds- borg, Kan., is prominent in Luth- eran church and Sunday school work. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have one daughter and one son. Their resi- dence is at 4048 N. Harding avenue. FRITZ SCHOULTZ, proprietor of the largest house in Chicago for the manufacture of theatrical costumes, was born of Swedish-German parentage in Copenhagen, December 2, 1856. Having had his schooling in Stock- holm, where he was raised, Mr. Schoultz at the age of twenty ar- rived in the United States. At first he worked at the typographer's trade in various Swedish printing offices in this country, including those of Engberg-Holmberg Pub- lishing Co. in Chicago, Skandia in Moline. 111., and Si'cnska Harolden, published in Salina, Kan., about 1880. Later for a number of years he was traveling agent for Swedish newspapers, such as Folkets Rost, of Omaha, Neb., and Svenska Trib- unen and Srcnska Amcrikanaren,oi Chicago. After marriage he engaged in the business of costumer, his wife being the proprietress of a small shop, furnishing amateur stage and mas- querade costumes. By combined effort Mr. and Mrs. Schoultz rapid- ly increased the business, which is 550 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS now one of the leading establish- ments of its kind, capable of fur- nishing the costumes for the most elaborate productions put on the stage. Mr. and Mrs. Schoultz both had training for the stage. Mrs. Schoultz, whose maiden name was Emelia Veth, was born in Mil- waukee of German parents. She was for several years a member of the German Stock Company of FRITZ SCHOULTZ. actors in Chicago. Mr. Schoultz while living in Stockholm obtained dramatic training under Anders Selinder, the well-known ballet master and theatrical manager. Two daughters, Emma and Isa- bella, were born to Mr. and Mrs. Schoultz. Mr. and Mrs. Schoultz live at 540 Oakdale avenue. They are the possessors of large and valuable art and book collections. Mr. Schoultz is a member of the Germania Club, the Royal Arcanum, the Svithiod Singing Club and the Swedish Club. He has been a mem- ber of the Board of Directors of the last mentioned organization for sev- eral terms and has always shown the greatest interest in the welfare of the club. Mr. Schoultz also holds member- ship in the Swedish Historical So- ciety of America and has served on its Board of Directors since 1913. AXEL E. THOMPSON, one of the foremost Swedish- American life insurance men in Illinois, was born March 22, 1875. in Chicago. After gaining his early education in the city public schools he attended the Metropolitan Busi- ness College. At the age of four- teen he entered the employ of the Xew York Life Insurance Co. as office boy. By persistent attention to his duties he gained promotion from time to time. Having been cashier of the branch office in St. Louis for a short time, he returned to Chicago as general agent of the company, with offices in suite 304-322 Stock Exchange Building. In a contest covering a period of a year, in which 500 men participated, Mr. Thompson won the presidency of the New' York- Life Chicago Hundred Thousand Dollar Club, which is the largest organization of its kind in the life insurance business. A few years later Mr. Thompson severed his connection with the New York Life and entered the service of the Scandia Life Insur- ance Co. as superintendent of agents. This position he left after a couple of years to establish a gen- eral insurance agency, with head- quarters in Insurance Exchange > LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 551 J 75 W. Jackson boulevard. As an independent insurance man Mr. Thompson has been equally as suc- cessful as when in the employ of others, and there have been years when he has written life insurance to the extent of half a million dol- lars, not to mention other forms of insurance such as fire, indemnity, accident, etc. Mr. Thompson has served as sergeant-at-arms and president of AXEL E. THOMPSON. the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois, president of the Swedish-American Republican Club of the 3ist Ward and president of the Swedish-American Central Re- publican Club of Cook County. He is Past Grand of John Ericsson Lodge, No. 361, I. O. O. F., and belongs to Boulevard Lodge. No. 822. A. F. & A. M., Oriental Con- sistory (32d degree) and Medinah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., Masonic orders. Mr. Thompson was married, Feb- ruary 23, 1895, to Marie Elizabeth Godey. They have two children Myra Elizabeth, born July 12, 1899, and Douglas Eugene, born April 26, 1902, their first child having died in infancy. FRITHIOF SEABERG was born in Landskrona, Sweden, where his father, Ferdinand S jo- berg, was manager of extensive sugar factories. He came to America in 1888 and here continued his training at Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago, 111. After his graduation he took a position with Featherstone Foundry & Ma- chine Co. In 1903 his services were sought by the National Dump Car Co., where he steadily advanced from one position to another and became chief draftsman, then super- intendent of construction, later traveling inspector, and finally me- chanical and patent office expert. After nine years' service with this firm he was invited by the United States Steel Corporation to become designer in the chief engineer's office. He still holds this important position and has his offices in the Continental Bank Building in Chi- cago. As an inventor and con- structor Mr. Seaberg has made him- self widely known. His important patents on railway car construction and kindred mechanical devices number twenty- four to date. Although a very busy man, he has found time for social duties and fraternal obligations. He was one of the organizers and charter mem- bers of the Swedish Engineers' So- ciety of Chicago, was its first treas- urer and is now chairman of the house committee. He was also one of the organizers of Skanska Gillet, 552 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS as well as of the Swedish Veteran Singers. In both he serves as sec- retary. He is a charter member of the Scandinavian Technical Society, and a life member of Svithiod Sing- ing Club. He also holds membership in the following fraternal orders: King Oscar Lodge, A. F. & A. M. ; First Swedish Odd Fellow Lodge ; Moni- tor Council, Royal Arcanum ; FR1THIOF SEABERG. Svithiod Unity Lodge ; Oscar II Lodge, Order of Vasa. In politics Mr. Seaberg is an in- dependent. He married Miss Clara I'illquist, of Trelleborg, Sweden, August 20, 1904. They have two children, and reside at 5210 Glen- wood avenue. HENRY ERICSSON. This prominent Swedish-Ameri- can builder is a son of old Smaland, having been born on the Torp estate in Moheda parish of that province, August 3, 1861. His father, Carl Ericsson, was the owner of the aforementioned estate and of a blast furnace in the same locality. His mother's name was Martha Nilsson, daughter of Nils P. Nilsson, one of the leading men in Aneboda parish. Having completed the course in the local public schools, young Ericsson for a time studied for a private tutor, whereupon he was matriculated at the collegiate school of Vexio. Here he remained for three years, after which he entered the collegiate school of Nykoping, his parents having in the meantime removed to that city. At the Nykop- ing school he studied for two years. He then went to Stockholm, where he entered the Technical School, studying at that excellent institution for a number of years and learning the theoretical side of the builder's art. This art he then practiced in the same city for a number of years, at first under the leadership of C. H. Hallstrom, the foremost builder in Sweden at that time, and later in the employ of Mr. Sjoberg, a promi- nent architect, who made him fore- man. In 1 88 1 Mr. Ericsson set out for America in order to find a wider and more remunerative field for his work. He remained for a time in the city of New York, whereupon he came to Chicago. Here Mr. Ericsson in the spring of 1883 es- tablished himself as a contractor and builder. In that occupation he has remained almost continuously ever since, attaining before long an honored position in the front rank of the builders in this great city. Mr. Ericsson was the first builder in Chicago to erect a sixteen-story skyscraper, the Manhattan Build- ing. This was in 1891. About the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY same time he erected another build- ing of the same class, the Monon Building. Among other large build- ings he has erected may be men- tioned the Harvester Building, Bor- land Block, Hunter Building, Chi- cago Musical College, Liquid Car- bonic Co.'s large plant, at Kedzie avenue and 3ist street ; the two Mc- Clurg blocks, W. K. Cowan Co.'s Building, Railway Terminal ware- HENRY ERICSSON. house, Ludington Building, Chicago Cold Storage, Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s big building, and Pugh Ter- minal warehouse, the last mentioned being the largest building in the city. It is 1,500 feet long and seven stories high, and to its erection 15,000,000 bricks were required. Besides Mr. Ericsson has built not less than thirty-seven of Chicago's public school buildings, not to men- tion private buildings to the number of several hundreds. Mr. Ericsson is also an inventor. Among his inventions are a hoisting device for builders' materials, a con- crete mixer, a new method for con- structing walls of hollow brick, and a new method of building floors of reinforced concrete. Having attracted attention as one of the most skillful and prominent builders in this part of the country, Mr. Ericsson, on July 6, 1911, was appointed building commissioner of the city of Chicago by Mayor Car- ter H. Harrison. This position he held for four years, or till June, 1916, in the meantime acquiring a reputation of being one of the most efficient and conscientious building commissioners the city has ever had. In 1908 Mr. Ericsson incor- porated his business under the firm name of Henry Ericsson Co. When he was appointed building commis- sioner Mr. Ericsson put his two elder sons, Walter Henry and Clar- ence Einar Ericsson, in full charge of the firm's extensive business. Mr. Ericsson is one of the founders of the Swedish Engineers' Society of Chicago and served as its president during 1913. He is also a member of the Swedish Club and of King Oscar Lodge, No. 855, A. F. & A. M., and a number of other or- ganizations. He worships at the First Swedish M. E. Church of Chicago. On May 8, 1886, Mr. Ericsson was married to Miss Linn Maria Johnson, she also being a native of Moheda. They have three sons and four daughters. AXEL W. ANDERSON The subject of this sketch is one of Chicago's well-known and suc- cessful builders and contractors, with office at 5500 Lakewood ave- nue. Born in Svartorp parish, 554 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Smaland, Sweden. September 9, 1871, he came to America in 1890. His parents were Anders Carlson, a farmer, and Anna Christina John- son. He received his school train- ing in Sweden and entered the trade of a mason soon after his arrival in America. Three years later, in 1894, he be- gan his own contracting and build- ing business, which was enlarged in AXEL W. ANDERSON. 1897, when he formed a partnership with his brother Fred A. Anderson. Their record as builders, owners of and dealers in real estate in Chicago is a credit to Swedish enterprise and integrity. Mr. Anderson married Esther Adams, of Chicago, November 6, 1907. One daughter, Elsa, has been born to them. In religious circles Mr. Anderson is well known and honored. His membership is with the Edgewater Swedish Mission Church. During 17 years he was deacon in the Taber- nacle Church, and as president of the Young People's Society he served n years. He is at present director and treasurer of the Covenant Book Concern. MATTIS C. RANSEEN, during thirty-one consecutive years the beloved pastor of the Geth- semane Swedish Lutheran Church in Chicago, and now serving the Nebo Church, is one of the prominent Swedish divines in America. He was born April 6, 1845, a t Ljungryda, parish of Jems- hog, Blekinge, where his parents, Carl M. Ranzin and Karin Jons- dotter, were farmers. Early home training and a few weeks of public school before his confirmation course were the only preparation he received before he entered the high school at Jemshog, two and a half years after his con- firmation. He finished his two-year course, pursued private studies, taught in the parish school and then left for America in 1867. Here he spent some months as a laborer in Rockford, 111., and Centralia, Wis., whereupon he entered the Augus- tana Theological Seminary at Pax- ton, 111. In four years he finished the prescribed course. His first pastorate was Dayton, Iowa, where he stayed two years. In 1873 he went as a missionary to Keokuk, Iowa. Six months later, having or- ganized two new congregations, he accepted a call to Elgin, 111., where he remained two years. Four years of successful pastoral work fol- lowed at Ottumwa, Iowa. On Oc- tober 28, 1879, he began the most remarkable pastorate of his whole career. Rev. Ranseen's power as a pastor, preacher and leader is best LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 555 shown in that monument of his, the Gethsemane Church of Chicago. In the fall of 1910 Dr. Ranseen entered upon his present work as pastor of the Nebo Swedish Luth- eran Church of Chicago. Many and highly important are the positions of trust and responsi- bility he has held within his de- nomination. Having served as presi- dent of his mission district in Iowa, MATTIS C. RANSEEN. he became the president of the Iowa Conference. Six years (from 1885) he presided over the Illinois Con- ference, and in 1911 he was again elected to the presidency of the same conference, a position he still holds. During a decade he served as vice-president of the Augustana Synod, and became in 1899 the president of the General Council, a position he held two terms that is, four years. As a member of the Board of Directors of Augustana College he served during 16 years, and was often chosen its chairman. The Augustana Book Concern he served as a director during three years. He was one of the organizers of Augustana Hospital of Chicago in 1882 and has been on its board ever since, most of this time as president. For more than a fifth of a cen- tury he has served in the Synodical Council, and as a board member of the Chicago Seminary he served a number of years. He is now the only one living of those that organ- ized the Swedish Lutheran Minis- terial Association of Chicago. In consideration of his long and distinguished services he has re- ceived several well deserved honors. His majesty the King of Sweden in 1911 made him a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star. Bethany College and Muhlehberg College have conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. D. Miss Anna S. Anderson, of Boras, Sweden, became his wife October 3, 1872. Six boys and six girls were born to them. Of these twelve children nine are living. Dr. Ranseen's residence is at 5/58 Byron street. OSCAR EDWARD LINDGREN is the senior member of the well- known electrical supply firm, Lind- gren & Solomon, at 9 South Clin- ton street in Chicago. Born April 17, 1877, in Burlington. Iowa, where he went through grammar school and business college, he came to Chicago 1895. Three years he spent as hardware clerk and eleven years as clerk and salesman for the Metropolitan Electric Supply Company. In January, 1914, he formed the present partnership with Mr. Solomon, formerly of 556 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Henry Newgard & Co., and the en- terprise has been highly successful. On December 20, 1902, Mr. Lind- gren married Miss Ida Johnson, whose birthplace is Landskrona, Sweden. Four children spread sun- shine through their home at 1639 Farragut avenue. Mr. Lindgren's parents are: John Lindgren, car- penter by trade, and his wife, Christine. OSCAR EDWARD LINDGREN. He is a Republican in politics and a popular member of the Ma- sonic order and the Vikings. PETER PETERSON, pastor of the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church, was born in Fryksande parish, province of Vermland, Sweden, November 21, 1866. With his parents he came to America in 1869. Here he received that education and training which fitted him for his high calling. From Gustavus Adolphus College he grad- uated in 1892, and two years later he received his diploma from Au- gustana Theological Seminary, be- ing ordained minister the same year. Thereupon he went out as a mis- sionary to Ogden, Utah. His pas- torates within the Augustana Synod include the following important churches : St. John's of Essex, la., 1895-1898; First Church of Gales- burg, 111., 1898-1904; First Church, of St. Paul, Minn., 1904-1911; Mamrelund Church of Stanton, la., 1911-1916. At present he is the pastor of the historic mother church, the Immanuel, in Chicago, where his faithful and able services are bearing good fruit in spite of the far -from encouraging local condi- tions of a downtown settlement. The Rev. Peterson's strength as an organizer and leader has been recognized by his denomination in many ways. He has been, and is yet in several cases, a director of the following institutions : the Or- phans' Home in Andover, 111. ; the Orphans' Home in Stanton, Iowa (during five years its chairman) ; the Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa ; the Immanuel Dea- coness Institute in Omaha ; Angus- tana Colonization Society. As a member of the executive commit- tee he has served the following or- ganizations : Minnesota College in Minneapolis (as secretary) ; the Mission Board of Minnesota Con- ference (also as secretary) ; the Mission Board of the Iowa Con- ference, of which he also was vice- president ; the Anti-Saloon League of Minnesota, for some time vice- president. In spite of his many and varied duties as a pastor and official of his denomination, the Rev. Peterson has found time for literary work. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 557 His signature has frequently ap- peared above valuable articles in such publications as the Angusta-na Theological. Quarterly, Augusiana, Ungdomsvannen and the Jubilee publications of the Augustana Synod and of the Minnesota Conference. The Rev. Peterson was married to Miss Mathilda Johnson of Ver- million, South Dakota, October iy, 1894. One son and two daughters PETER PETERSON. have been born to them. The pas- tor's office is at 1026 Sedgwick street and the parsonage is at 1037 Rush street. OSCAR GOTTFRID LINDWALL The subject of this biography, the partner, estimator and manager of the Victor Larson Decorating Com- pany, was born in the parish of Herrestad, province of Bohuslan, Sweden, Jan. 21, 1886. His par- ents were Carl Larson, a farmer, and Josephina Peterson. He was educated at the collegiate school in Uddevalla. continued his studies in the technological institute of said city and in the business college at Goteborg. In 1903 he came to America, lo- cating first in New York and later in Jamestown, N. Y., where he re- mained three years. In 1906 he came to Chicago and later engaged in the aforesaid business, to which his sagacity and initiative have brought decided success. The office of the company is at 1136 North Clark street. Mr. Lindwall has always been keenly interested in the general wel- fare of his own countrymen. While in Jamestown he twice took a lead- ing part in arranging "The Swedes' Day" at the National Chautauqua. He was then secretary of Pacius Singing Club and president of the Young People's Federation of Good Templars. When the Swedish National As- sociation of Chicago was organized in 1913, he was one of the leaders, became its first president, and later was made secretary. The lately or- ganized Scandinavian National Re- publican Federation, a very promis- ing movement, has in him an untir- ing and able president, and the Swedish Republican Club of the Twenty-third Ward values him as its assistant secretary. Mr. Lindwall is well known in the fraternal world. He belongs to Svithiod Lodge, I. O. S. ; Brage Lodge, I. O. V. ; Chicago Lodge, Royal Order of Moose. In the first named lodge he has been honored as Vice Grand Master. A lover of music and a good singer, he has always supported the Swedish singing clubs. The Or- 558 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS pheus and Harmony clubs have found this true. The last named he has served as president, secretary and treasurer during many years. In the great federation of singers in Chicago he has faithfully served as secretary three years and librarian one year, and has always been found an executive power at the large concerts and festivals during the last five years. The Philochoros OSCAR GOTTFRID LINDWALL. and the Swedish National Dancing Club have elected him an honorary member. Miss Hanna Holm, of Malmo, became his wife on June 23, 1907. One son and one daughter have been born to them. The family re- sides at 821 Aldine avenue. C. S. PETERSON, one of the leading Swedish-Ameri- can citizens in Chicago, was born in Daglosen, province of Vermland, Sweden, August 29, 1873. Having for some time attended the Jacob Collegiate School in Stockholm, Mr. Peterson at the age of fourteen- came to Chicago, where he was first employed on the Swedish weekly newspaper Hemlandet. In 1888 he went West, stayed in Colorado for some time and then proceeded to California. Subsequently he made a trip to the Sandwich Islands, re- turning to California after two years. In 1895 Mr. Peterson came back to Chicago and in 1899 he organ- ized the Peterson Linotyping Co., thereby entering upon a business career in which he has been pre- eminently successful. Before long the Peterson Linotyping Co. had developed to such an extent that it became the largest concern of its kind in the West. This position it still retains in spite of the keen com- petition which prevails in that par- ticular field. Mr. Peterson's busi- ness activities were further ex- tended when in 1908 he acquired an interest in the old and renowned Regan Printing House, at 527-531 Plymouth place. Finally in 1915 he bought the entire Regan printing plant and the G. D. Steere bindery, together with the building in which these concerns were located, thereby becoming the sole owner of one of the largest printing and bindery es- tablishments in Chicago and em- ploying not less than 800 people. At present the third largest print- ing house west of New York, these linotyping, printing and bindery en- terprises, all located at the above address, under Mr. Peterson's ener- getic and skillful management, are growing rapidly and making neces- sary extensive additions to the equipment. He is now erecting an n-story white tile building to house LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 559 his printing plants, which is ex- pected to be the handsomest print- ers' building in America. It con- tains 180,000 square feet of floor space. Besides the linotyping and print- ing business, Mr. Peterson is finan- cially interested in other enterprises. In 1913 he bought the newspaper Hemlandet, the circulation of which he increased from 8,500 to 41,000 C. S. PETERSON. before he in the following year sold the paper to Mr. F. A. Lar- son, publisher of Svenska Ameri- kanaren, who consolidated it with the latter paper. Mr. Peterson is one of the larger stockholders in the Sweden - America Steamship Line. He is also a stockholder in the Lake and State Savings Bank and a member of its Board of Di- rectors. In the Carl Anderson Piano Co. he is treasurer. In 1913 Mr. Peterson was ap- pointed a member of the Chicago Board of Education by Mayor Car- ter H. Harrison, and in 1915 he was reappointed by Mayor William Hale Thompson. In this capacity Mr. Peterson has rendered splendid service to the city. The esteem in which he is held by his fellow board members is best shown by the fact that they elected him chair- man of one of the board's most im- portant committees, the committee on finance, which he has held for three years. As president of the Swedish Club for eight consecutive years Mr. Peterson has performed a work that reflects great honor upon the Swedish nationality not only in Chi- cago but in the United States. It was he who took the initiative for the building of the club's banquet hall and other additions to the club- house which have made it the handsomest Swedish clubhouse outside of Sweden, and a place where many notable visitors have been entertained and brilliant so- cial events have taken place. And the annual Swedish-American Art Exhibitions, the fifth of which was held in May, 1916, and which was even more successful than any of the four preceding ones, were inaugurated by Mr. Peterson. At these exhibitions Swedish-Ameri- can artists from all over the country have been represented, a number of prizes awarded and many paintings sold. Besides, there has been held at the club during Mr. Peterson's term of office a large exhibition of objects of Swedish in- dustrial arts. Mr. Peterson is one of the or- ganizers of the newly formed Swedish Choral Club of Chicago and serves as its president. He is also a member of the Chicago Art Institute, the Chicago Athletic Club. 560 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Press Club, the Germania Club, the Bankers' Club, the Arts Club, the Municipal Art League, the Norske Klub, and is an honorary member of the Swedish National Association of Chicago, and hon- orary president of the Swedish Glee Club. In the American Scandinavian Foundation, the headquarters of which is in New York, Mr. Peter- son is vice-president. The same office he holds in the Swedish Cham- ber of Commerce of the United States. In the latter organization, which has its head office in New York, he is chairman of the ad- visory committee. In 1901 Mr. Peterson was united in marriage to Miss Thyra Hjert- quist, daughter of Gabriel Hjert- quist, the veteran foreman of the typographical department of Sz'cn- ska Amerikanarcn. Mrs. Peterson is a cultured lady who shares her husband's great love of art, and their home at 757 Buena avenue is an art gallery en miniature. ERIK WINGREN, since 1880 the editor and publisher of Nya> Veckoposten, was born Dec. 17, 1843, at Mardsj6, Stugun, in province of Jemtland, Sweden, where his father, Erik Nilsson, was a farmer. His mother's name was Magdalena Mattsdotter. Having received preparatory training by private tutor he entered the collegiate school at Sundsvall. Later he entered as the first student the newly opened Bethel Theologi- cal Seminary in Stockholm, where he prepared himself for the minis- try. This step was the result of his rather remarkable conversion at the age of sixteen and his affiliation with the Baptist Church, then a despised and persecuted sect with very few but brave and faithful fol- lowers in his home province. After his graduation he became pastor of a congregation in Sunds- vall, where he also conducted a seminary for female teachers. In 1869 he took up the pastorate in ERIK WINGREN. Kristianstad, doing missionary work in the neighboring parishes. From this city he moved to a larger field at Malmo the following year. Here his missionary zeal and labor re- sulted in the organization of a grow- ing church. He remained as its pas- tor during ten years, meanwhile ex- tending his work through large parts of Skane province. In Lund and Trelleborg he organized congre- gations. Pressed by the need of co-laborers, he conducted a summer school for lay preachers and gave courses also for female teachers. His first publication appeared dur- ing his last two years there, it being LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 561 a monthly tract called Hemnrissio- naren. Called by the Second Swedish Baptist Church of Chicago, the Rev. Wingren came here in March, 1880. In spite of the many duties of this pastorate, he found time to edit the newspaper which served as the organ of the Swedish Baptist Church in America, and assist Dr. Edgren as instructor in the Theo- logical Seminary at Morgan Park. He also opened two new missions, thereby giving his growing congre- gation enlarged fields of labor. The renewed call to the First Swedish Baptist Church in Chicago he accepted in 1882, where more than two years were spent in suc- cessful work, resulting in a new daughter church and a largely in- creased mother church. In the autumn of 1884 the Rev. Wingren responded to the increased demands made upon him by the newspaper and from then devoted "his time and strength more ex- clusively to its development. Nya Veckoposten was made a weekly and continued to grow in size and circulation. In 1910 the Rev. Wingren pub- lished his work on "Kristi Tillkom- melse." Among the churches he has assisted in organizing we find the following: Englewood, South Chicago, Lake View, Ravenswood, Evanston and Edgewater. In recognition of his faithful work in the service of the Baptist denomination, the Sioux City Col- lege in the summer of 1916 be- stowed upon the Rev. Wingren the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He was married November 14, 1870, to Miss Bianca Henrietta Christina Ohman, of Vestervik, Sweden. She has been a valuable assistant in all his labors. Ten children have been born ; eight of these are living. The family resi- dence is at 6806 Ardmore avenue. The office of Nya< Veckoposten is at 1142 Wells street. CARL EDWARD HEGBERG was born in Chicago in 1871 at the home of Carl Magnus and Augusta Hegberg (nee Peterson). Having CARL EDWARD HEGBERG. finished his public school education he soon devoted himself to what has become his life work, namely, photo-engraving and colortype art. He made his start in 1885 at Blom- gren Brothers. His services were later sought by Barnes-Crosby Co., where he spent 14 years and ended his career in 1910 as superintend- ent of the production department. He is now the head of the Federal Engraving and Colortype Co., with offices and plant at 501-505 S. La Salle street. 562 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Mr. Hegberg is a Mason, a mem- ber of Blaney Blur Lodge and Lin- coln Chapter of Royal Arch Ma- sons. He is a Republican and holds Protestant convictions. Miss Hedvig Hagermann of Chi- cago became his bride in 1896. Their residence is at 1508 Juneway terrace, Rogers Park. Both are life members of the Swedish Old People's Home Association. MARTIN J. ENGBERG, member of the well-known publish- ing firm of Engberg-Holmberg Pub- MARTIX J. ENGBERG. lishing Co., was born September 4, 1872, in Chicago. His parents were Jonas and Elizabeth Engberg. He was graduated from the North Di- vision High School in 1889, and then spent a year in the Engberg- Holmberg Publishing Co.'s office. In the fall of 1890 he entered the University of Illinois, taking a scien- tific course and making a specialty of chemistry. Graduating in 1894 with the de- gree of Bachelor of Science, he was a technical chemist for several years. Since 1900 he has been identified with the Engberg-Holm- berg Publishing Co. in the capacity of treasurer. He was one of the editors of "History of the Swedes of Illinois," published by said firm in 1908, and for some years was actively identified with several Swedish musical organizations. Mr. Engberg is a member of the Swedish Historical Society of America, of which he has_ been treasurer. He also holds member- ships in the Illinois State Historical Society and the Illinois Academy of Science. On August 17, 1904, Mr. Eng- berg was united in marriage with Elizabeth Hoffsten, of Philadelphia, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Engberg are members of the Swedish Lutheran Immanuel Church. They have two sons Robert Martin, born January 17, 1906, and Paul Richard Hoff- sten, born August 20, 1908. ERIK GUSTAF HJERPE, president of the Swedish Evangel- ical Mission Covenant of America, was born in March, 1853, at Hill- ringsberg, parish of Glafva, Verm- land province, Sweden, where his father, Carl Hjerpe, was a forge- smith. His mother was Martha Lisa Hane. On the foundation of a good pub- lic school training in Sweden he built his theological education at Ansgarius College, Knoxville, 111.,, having arrived in America in 1879. After his graduation in 1881 he became pastor of the Second Lu- theran Church of Galesburg, 111.,. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 563 where he faithfully labored seven years. In 1888 he accepted a call to the Bethany Church, New Britain, Conn., and gave the said church twelve years of earnest and success- ful efforts. The Swedish Mission Church at Jamestown, N. Y., called him in 1900. He accepted and served there until May, 1906, when the Bethany Christian Church in Chicago secured him as its pastor. ERIK GUSTAF HJERPE. Here he remained tr-.itil Septem- ber, 1909, when he became secretary of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant and manager of North Park College. From this position he advanced in 1910 to his present position, the highest in his career. During his remarkable career the Rev. Hjerpe has held many posi- tions of trust and honor. Among these we notice the following : Sec- retary for several years of Illinois Mission Association, which he as- sisted in organizing; secretary of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant, five years the first term and four years the second term ; president of the Ministers' Confer- ence in New England and Eastern States during ten years; chairman of the Eastern Missionary Associa- tion several years; chairman of the Middle East Mission Association and the Middle East Ministers' Conference several years ; chairman of the Ministers' Conference of the Mission Association of Illinois sev- eral years ; chairman of Chicago Mission Ministers' Association and of North Park College Regents sev- eral years. His leadership has always been wise and firm and prophetic. He has traveled extensively, inspecting mission fields in Alaska and far off China. He is an able speaker and wields a fine pen. During six years he has edited the annual cal- endar "Aurora," and a similar product, "Anatola," he has edited for two years. He served as asso- ciate editor of the Jubilee book, "Korsets Seger," commemorating the twenty-five years of the Cove- nant's missionary labor in China. Miss Josephine Peterson. . of Galesburg, 111., became his wife October 5, 1882. Five daughters and one son have been born to them. The family resides at 3417 Foster avenue. AXEL HJALMAR SETTER- BERG, landscape architect, was born No- vember i, 1882, in Goteborg, Sweden. His father, Carl Hjalmar Setterberg, was a noted citizen in Goteborg, having represented his city in the Swedish Diet, and was for several years a member of the city council. His mother's maiden THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS name was Emma Lennberg. Young Setterberg received his education in the College of Goteborg and studied for some time in a private tech- nological school. When he had de- cided to learn the art of landscape gardening he took up a course in the horticultural school in Vilvorde, Denmark, and graduated afterwards AXEL H. SETTERBERG. from Gartner Lehranstalt Kostritz, Saxony, Germany. He came to Chicago in April, 1902, and obtained employment as foreman for a ranch of greenhouses in Oak Park, 111. In 1903 he was employed by Mr. R. W. Sears, founder of Sears-Roebuck Co., to lay out and organize his country home at Gray's Lake, an estate of about 100 acres, a work which Mr. Sears has praised as most satisfac- tory and presenting an appearance that does credit to Mr. Setterberg in every way. After finishing the landscape work on the farm he was engaged by Mr. Sears to have charge of the beautifying of all grounds around the buildings ' of this well-known firm. In 1907 he was superintendent of Cyrus Mc- Cormick's estate in Lake Forest, 111., and in 1910 he started in the busi- ness of garden making, having since then completed more than 600 gar- dens. Mr. Setterberg was united in marriage to Miss Dorothy Verran, of Chicago, March 5, 1912. C. E. CARSON, one of the leading Swedish- Ameri- cans in the building industry in Chi- cago, was born February 24, 1864, in Foglo, in the islands of Aland, which for 600 years up to 1809 be- longed to Sweden, but which in that year, together with the rest of Fin- land, were ceded to Russia. On ar- riving in this country at the age of eighteen he met with many difficul- ties, and instead of following his vocation as a sailor he went on a large farm in Iowa, where he lived for a time with Puritan Yankees. It was there he acquired his first knowledge of the English language. Later he came to Chicago, where he soon entered the building trade, and in 1885, when only twenty-one years of age, he became a building contractor. In this vocation he has been highly successful and has erected many of Chicago's promi- nent buildings. Among these may be mentioned ten public schools, three high schools, Northwestern University buildings, Chicago Busi- ness College, Breakers Building, and recently the large Second Regi- ment Armory on the West Side. Besides these large buildings hun- dreds of smaller ones of every de- scription testify to his integrity and LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 565 skill as a contractor and builder. Among buildings outside of Chi- cago erected by him is the new mag- nificent Winnebago County Court House in Rockford, 111. Mr. Carson is associated with the Building Construction Employers' Association, Masons and Builders, Carpenter Contractors' Association c. E. CARSON. and the Builders' Club. He is also a member of the Swedish Engi- neers' Society of Chicago. Many societies count Mr. Carson as an influential and honored mem- ber. He is vice-president of the Swedish Club, member of the Chi- cago Athletic Association, Evanston Gun Club, Chicago Rod and Gun Club and the Senachwine Club. He is also a yachtsman with the rank of commodore and is a member of the Pistakee Yacht Club and the Lincoln Park Yacht Club. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and is a member of the Golden Rule Lodge, Wiley M. Egan Chapter, St. Bern- ard Commandery, Oriental Con- sistory, Mystic Shrine and the King Oscar Chapter of the Eastern Star. Mr. Carson has also taken great interest in church work. In the First Swedish M. E. Church where he worships he has served as trustee and secretary. On June 24, 1891, he was married to Anna Dorothea Hallgren, from Ydre, Ostergotland, Sweden. They have two daughters, Natalia and Rosalia, and the family resides at 928 Argyle street, Chicago. JOHN KJELLANDER, since several years one of the fore- ground figures in Swedish-Ameri- can Republican politics in Chicago, was born in Kristianstad, Skane, Sweden, July 9, 1863. His early education he obtained in the public schools of that city, and after hav- ing attended the Helsingborg Col- legiate School he studied pharmacy in Stockholm for some time, until 1883, when he emigrated to the United States. Mr. Kjellander came direct to Illinois, locating at Paxton, where he was employed as clerk in a drug store for five years, or until 1888, when he came to Chicago and opened a drug store at the corner of Belmont avenue and North Clark street, passing his examination as a registered druggist in this state in 1889. This drug store he conducted until 1894, when he became drug- gist at the Cook County Infirmary at Dunning, in which capacity he re- mained for two years, or until 1896, when he drifted into politics. He now was appointed tenement house inspector in the Health Depart- ment, and having served as such for two years, he was appointed index 56G THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS clerk in the county recorder's office. This position he left to become per- sonal bailiff to Judge Axel Chytraus, holding this position for six years, whereupon he served as inheritance tax clerk in the county treasurer's office for one year, at the expiration of which he was appointed chief clerk in the registration department of the State Grain Inspectors' office. This latter position he held for eighteen months. JOHN KJELLANDER. In May, 1907, Mr. Kjellander was appointed inspector of weights and measures by Mayor Fred A. Busse, thereby entering upon a wide field of usefulness, which was still fur- ther enlarged when in the spring of 1912 he was elected alderman on the Republican ticket for the 23d Ward. To this important office he was re- elected in 1914 and again in 1916, the last time in spite of a bitter op- position from a certain faction within his own party. On March 9, 1910, the Swedish-American Re- publican League elected Mr. Kjel- lander its president for one year. In 1910, while still inspector of weights and measures, Mr. Kjellander was the Republican nominee for clerk of the Criminal Court. At the pres- ent writing, in August, 1916, he is a republican candidate for clerk of the Superior Court. Mr. Kjellander always has been a very efficient and conscientious pub- lic servant. Particularly as in- spector of weights and measures and member of the Chicago City Council he has shown himself to possess qualities far above those of the average politician and office- holder. While holding the former position he originated and promul- gated many valuable ordinances. He always took the people's cause in every battle and turned his back on the countless opportunities for self- enrichment in that fruitful office. His measures as inspector attracted nation-wide attention and were sub- jects of discussion and commenda- tion not only in newspapers and magazines, but also in a report by the federal authorities. He was without doubt the best inspector of weights and measures the city of Chicago has ever had. As a mem- ber of the City Council he has served in a most meritorious and energetic manner, winning for him- self the respect not alone of the residents of his ward, but of the entire city. The council records will show that he has always voted in the interest of all the people and proven himself an enemy of every- thing savoring of graft. In 1912 he organized the Wieland- Kjellander Ice Cream Co. at 3640- 3644 Evanston avenue, in which he was president. In the following year he formed the Hudson & Kjel- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 567 lander Storage & Express Co. at 3033 N. Clark street. His interests in these two concerns he shortly afterwards disposed of. Mr. Kjellander is a member of several orders and organizations. With his family he lives at 859 Buckingham place. PHILIP ANDREEN, pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church of Albany Park, Chicago, was born August 20, 1867, m Swe- dona, 111. His father was the late Rev. A. Andreen, one of the found- ers of the Augustana Synod. Be- ing orphaned at the age of twelve years, he was compelled to shift for himself and work hard for the suc- cess he has had in life. In 1878 he entered the Augustana College and was newspaper agent for some years to support himself while in school. He received his A. B. de- gree from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan., in 1892, when he was elected professor of the Eng- lish language and literature at Up- sala College, Kenil worth, N. J. He held this position until 1897, then took a postgraduate course at Yale for one year. He received the A. M. degree from Bethany College in 1896. After a three years' course in the Augustana Theological Seminary he was ordained in Burlington, la., 1900. The following five years he served as pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1903 he made an extended jour- ney in Europe, visiting eight differ- ent countries. From 1905 to 1914 he was pastor of the Ebenezer Swedish Luthern Church in San Francisco. For five years he was president of the California Confer- ence, during which time the orphan- age of this conference was founded. After the horrible catastrophe that visited San Francisco in 1906, Dr. Andreen rendered most effi- cient service as chairman of the Swedish Aid Committee, and it is said that it was Dr. Andreen who, with the assistance of a number of volunteers, saved the Swedish PHILIP ANDREEN. Lutheran Ebenezer Church on Do- lores street from total destruction, thereby saving the district beyond Dolores street. Dr. Andreen has for a number of years edited a church publication entitled Var Kyrka, and when the Swedish Lutheran Church at San Francisco celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary he published a beauti- ful memorial album of nearly 300 pages, containing a complete history of the church and its various or- ganizations. In 1898 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from 568 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Wittenberg College in Spring- field, Ohio, and in 1911 he was made a Knight of the Royal Order of Vasa by King Gustaf V. as a re- ward for his heroic and successful rescue work at the great fire in San Francisco and for his meritorious efforts in behalf of the Swedish na- tionality in America. After a successful ministry of ten years in San Francisco, where he had raised $18,000 for the comple- tion of the church edifice and in- creased the membership, Dr. An- dreen in 1914 accepted a call to the I m m a n u e 1 Swedish Lutheran Church at Evanston. Late in 1916 he transferred to the new field opened up in Albany Park. In June, 1895, he was married to Miss Thekla Lethin of Elgin, 111. This union has been blessed with four children, Leone, Dwight, Jarl and Margit. ALFRED EDWIN WESTMAN was born in Hammarlunda parish, near Lund, Sweden, July 20, 1855. He was educated in the common school and in the people's high school and also graduated from business college. He then entered the agricultural college of Alnarp, taking a complete three years' course, and graduated with honors in 1876. His first position was at Saby- holm, as supervisor on a large estate of 4,000 acres in the richest part of Skane. Although his position was both responsible and remunerative, Mr. Westman found it too confining for his energies and consequently gave it up to test his fortune in the United States. Comin? here in 1880, he started to work on a large stock farm at Wataga, near Gales- burg, 111. Thereafter he located in Chicago and engaged in the livery business on Chicago and Dearborn avenues. After five years he sold out and engaged in the real estate and loan business, which remains his permanent vocation. His office is located at 813-14 City Hall Square Building. He has won a ALFRED EDWIN WESTMAN. large clientele in his line, to which has been added that of insurance. Mr. Westman was united in mar- riage to Miss Kate B. Bennett in 1885. They have five children: Kate Elizabeth, who died several years ago ; Olga Josephine, Alfred Edwin, Martha Rowena and Julia Harriet, all living. With his family he resides at 1020 Foster avenue. Mr. Westman is a member of the Swedish Club and the Delavan Country Club. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 569 J. P. SEEBURG, one of the foremost piano manufac- turers in the United States, was horn in the city of Goteborg, April 20, 1871. His parents were Johan Peter Sjoberg, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer, and his wife, Hanna Sjoberg, nee Moller. Owing to the reverses in business experienced by his father in later years, young See- j. P. SEEBURG. burg could not, like his older broth- ers, attend college and university, but had to be satisfied with a pub- lic school education. At the age of fifteen Seeburg, in August, 1886, set out for the United States to make his own way in the world. His point of destination was the great inland metropolis, Chicago, where he was to make a career re- flecting honor upon himself and his nationality. His first occupation in the New World was that of sexton in the Episcopal Church of Win- netka. Here he remained for a year, at the end of which he com- menced an apprenticeship in the Smith & Barnes piano factory in Chicago. After four years' service he took a position with Bush & Gerts Piano Co., whence he was called to take charge of the manu- facturing of the Kingsbury piano in the factories of the Cable Co., which position he occupied for eight years. During this time he at leisure moments took an inter- ested part in Swedish-American faternal and theatrical affairs in Chicago. Being of an economical turn, he had accumulated a small capital, which he invested with a Mr. Kurtz in Rockford, 111., in the piano action business. His inborn love for music, however, before long brought him back to the piano business, and in 1907 he severed his connection with Mr. Kurtz and established in Chi- cago the J. P. Seeburg Piano Co. With keen foresight he specialized in building coin controlled player pianos. The wide experience he had gathered as piano maker and action maker stood him in good stead in his new enterprise, and success followed his very first ef- forts. Original in his ideas, he con- structed not only a good piano but designed a player mechanism which is as effective in bringing out the finer tonal qualities of his piano as it has proven of exceptional dura- bility. In the further development of his business Seeburg added the build- ing of orchestrions, in the designing and construction of which he again demonstrated his ability to utilize with great effect his original ideas. A large number of patents for various improvements have been granted to him, and he has found it 570 expedient to also protect his artistic case designs by patents. Always on the alert, anxious to inform himself on the progress of others, Seeburg travels periodically through Europe, and to find larger markets for his products he also visits the South American countries studying trade conditions and op- portunities. An artist by instinct and devotion, Seeburg aims pri- marily to produce instruments of real musical qualities. Liberal, broad-minded, with keen discern- ment' and business acumen, he is a very interesting personality, well read, and an ardent patron of con- certs and the opera. The annual output from his fac- tory at 419 West Erie street repre- sents a value of over a million dol- lars. During the last three years the production has doubled. His large force of workers consists mainly of Swedish- Americans. The company's magnificent headquarters and exposition rooms are located in the Republic Building, 209 South State street. Besides the company has branch offices in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco. Retaining a deep love for the country of his forefathers and tak- ing a keen interest in its material as well as its cultural development, Mr. Seeburg aided in the organiz- ing of the Sweden-America Steam- ship Line by subscribing for ioo,oco crowns of its capital stock. Being a public spirited citizen, he holds membership in a number of or- ganizations and institutions, such as the Swedish Club, the Art Insti- tute of Chicago, Illinois Athletic Club, Edgewater Golf Club, the Free Masons, Chicago Association of Commerce, Illinois Manufac- turers' Association and National Piano Manufacturers' Association. In the last mentioned organization Mr. Seeburg holds the office of sec- retary. He is one of the organizers of the Swedish Choral Club of Chicago, being chairman of its executive committee. ERIC E. SKOGLUND, cut stone contractor, was born Sept. 21, 1878, in Kumla, Nerike, Sweden. His parents were An- ERIC E. SKOGLUND. ders G. and Anna Carlson Skog- lund. Coming to the United States as a young man of nineteen, he studied draftsmanship and archi- tecture, graduating in these sub- jects, but turned eventually to his father's trade as stonecutter. He began with a modest plant at Clark and Ainslee streets some twelve years ago, and now conducts an establishment that is claimed to be the most modern of its kind in Chi- cago. A shop 200 by 80 feet is LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 571 equipped with the very latest and best machinery for stone cutting, and the annual output is approxi- mately $100,000. The business ad- . dress is 5555 North Lincoln street. Aug. 7, 1909, Mr. Skoglund was married to Miss Anna Nelson, a native of the city of Alingsas, Sweden, They are members of Bethany Methodist Episcopal Church, in which Mr. Skoglund has held the office of trustee and steward. OTHELIA MYHRMAN was born July 9, 1859, at Finspong, Sweden. She studied for the teach- ing profession under Fridtjur Berg, a prominent educator, who in the capacity of minister of ecclesiastics and education promoted the spell- ing reform of 1906. In September, 1875, she came to Chicago as a young girl of fourteen, and was em- ployed as a domestic for several years, meanwhile studying the ser- vant girl problem from the ground up and acquiring a knowledge of conditions that served her well in her subsequent connection with em- ployment agencies. Mrs. Myhrman early took an in- terest in the temperance movement and was for many years an active member of the Independent Order of Good Templars. She represented Illinois Good Templars in the Con- gress at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1881, at Zurich, Switzerland, in 1897, and at Boston in 1895. Mrs. Myhrman took an active part in the organization of the Swedish National Association of Chicago, which was formed in 1894, primarily for the purpose of procur- ing the conviction of two members of the Chicago police guilty of the murder of a Swedish- American citi- zen. The association has been main- tained in subsequent years as a char- itable organization. In the first year of its existence the Swedish National Association opened a free employment bureau with Mrs. Myhrman in charge. This office was maintained as a OTHELIA MYHRMAN. branch of the activities of the asso- ciation up to November, 1912, all this time under Mrs. Myhrman's management. During the eighteen years nearly 100,000 men and women were given employment through her agency. Mrs. Myhrman is active in chari- table endeavors and in the work for woman's advancement. She has served as president of the Swedish Woman's Club of Chicago for twenty years. Her genius for management has been frequently exemplified in her connection with the large annual Swedish midsummer and midwinter 572 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS festivals arranged by the National Association during the past twenty- two years. Mrs. Myhrman is now the pro- prietor of the Swedish National Employment Bureau, with office at 143 North Dearborn street. OLOF ALFRED TOFFTEEN, educator and author, is a native of the island of Gotland, where he was born at Hexarfve, June 26, 1863, OLOF ALFRED TOFFTEEN. the son of Johan P. Toffteen and his wife, Helen Magdalena Her- manson. His early preparation was received at the staie college of Vis- by, where he completed his course in 1885, continuing postgraduate studies at the University of Upsala. Leaving for the United States in 1888, before taking his degree, he studied theology for a short time at Augustana Theological Seminary, Rock Island, but subsequently joined the Protestant Episcopal Church. Having entered holy orders in 1893, ne served parishes in Woodhull, 111., Minneapolis- ( 1 892- 1 902 ) , and Chicago ( 1 902- 1905). His studies at the Univer- sity of Chicago earned him the de- gree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1905, and for the next five years he held the chair of Semitic lan- guages in the Western Theological Seminary, Chicago. During the absence of Dr. Harper in 1906, Dr. Toffteen conducted his classes in Assyriology at the University of Chicago. Dr. Toffteen is the author of a number of published works, chiefly on Biblical and Oriental subjects. They are: "Myths and Bible" (1900) ; "Ancient Records of Egypt," Vol. V (1906); "Ancient Chronology," Part I (1907) ; "Re- searches in Assyrian Geography" (1908); "The Historic Exodus" (1909). His first work, published in 1897, was entitled "Vara Faders Kyrka" (The Church of Our Fathers). At the Western Theological Sem- inary Dr. Toffteen organized the Oriental Society, and founded the Hibbard Egyptian Library, a col- lection made chiefly through his efforts. He is a member of the Deutsche Orient. Gesellschaft, and an honorary member of Gotlands Fornvanner, an archaeological so- ciety in his native province. He was elected president of the National Institute of Education in 1912. The Scandia Academy of Chi- cago was founded in 1913 by Dr. Toffteen, who continues as its head- master. Aug. 25, 1891, he was mar- ried to Miss Maria Nitilia Russell, of W T oodhull, 111. The family re- sides at 3358 Broadway. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY GOTTHARD ALEXIUS DAHL- BERG, attorney at law and member of the legislature, was born in the city of Hjo, Sweden, July 17, 1884, his parents being Martin T. Dahlberg and his wife, Helena Swenson Dahlberg. The father is a painting contractor and member of the firm -of Dahlberg Bros., 11317 Michigan avenue. Coming to the United .States at the age of sixteen, the GOTTHARD ALEXIUS DAHLBERG. son entered public school and after finishing his course in the Calumet high school entered Chicago Kent College of Law. The law studies completed, he was admitted to the bar in October, 1906, and immedi- ately began the general practice of law. Mr. Dahlberg's political ad- vancement has been rapid, he having been appointed assistant corpora- tion counsel and elected state rep- resentative from the Thirteenth Senatorial District on the Repub- lican ticket. Ending his first term, he received this commendation in the Assembly Bulletin: "Mr. Dahlberg made a good record.. He deserves special commendation for good committee work. Was active in behalf of election reform meas- ures." Mr. Dahlberg is a member of the following clubs and organizations : City Club of Chicago, South End Business Men's Association, West Roseland Improvement Associa- tion, Verdandi Lodge, No. 39, I. O. G. T., and other fraternal orders. Ebba Hillmark, born in Ostergct- land, Sweden, became his wife in July, 1908, and their family num- bers two children. The home ad- dress is 147 East i nth street. EMIL A. W. JOHNSON was born in Chicago Oct. 30, 1863. His father, John A. Johnson, was a veteran of Company C, 55th Illi- nois Infantry, in the Civil War. His mother's maiden name was Emma C. Carlson. As a schoolboy Emil attended common and high schools in Chicago and later studied at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. Returning to Chi- cago, he entered the employ of Mar- shall Field & Co., and was employed in various clerical capacities while attending the Chicago College of Law. From the law school he was graduated in 1899. Subsequently he was appointed justice of the peace for the Town of Lake View (1898) and served in that capacity until the opening of the Municipal Court, when he received an appoint- C74 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ment as deputy clerk of that court. In 1898 he served as president of the Swedish-American Republican Club of the Twenty-sixth Ward. His present position is that of sec- retary of the Chicago Lodge, No. 43, Loyal Order of Moose. In 1888 Mr. Johnson was married to Bena S. Christopher, and has, as the result of that union, two sons and one daughter. He is a EMIL A. W. JOHNSON. member of Blaney Lodge, No. 271, A. F. & A. M. ; Columbia Chapter No. 202, R. A. M. ; Illinois Com- mandery, No. 72, K. T. ; Adoniram Council, No. 71, R. & S. M. ; Royal League, Columbian Knights, and the Loyal Order of Moose. The family resides at 2131 Potwyne place. HJALMAR E. ERICKSON was born June 16, 1881, at Salina, Kansas. Having graduated from the public schools of Salina, he studied at the Northwestern Uni- versity in Chicago and graduated from this institution of learning in 1903 with the degree of Pharma- ceutical Chemist. Mr. Erickson has been a resident of Chicago since June, 1895, and is now advertising manager of the Rock Island Lines, with headquar- ters in La Salle Street Station, Chi- cago. He is a member of the Advertis- ing Association of Chicago and the Chamanito Society. He is mar- ried and resides at 5734 Ridge ave- nue, Chicago. FRANK A. PETERSON, the senior partner of Peterson & Melangton, the prominent merchant tailors, was born in Tingeryd par- ish, province of Smaland, on Au- gust 17, 1865. His parents are John Peterson, a retired farmer, and his wife, Johanna. He com- pleted his grammar school course in Sweden and continued his studies for some time in this country (at Ludington, Mich.), having arrived in 1883. Mr. Peterson began his career as tailor in Ludington in 1888. Later he moved to Chicago, where he has reached the front rank among mer- chant tailors because of his technical skill. His establishment is located in the Monroe Building, Suite 200. Mr. Peterson is a Luth- eran in faith and a Republican in politics. He is a well-known mem- ber of the Hamilton Club and the Glen Oak Country Club. He is a prominent Mason of the Blue Lodge, chapter, a Knight Templar and Shriner. To Miss Millie Lindell, of his home parish, he was married March 25, 1895. They have three children LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 575 and. reside at 311 North Lombard avenue, Oak Park. HERMAN OLOF OLSON, professor of Broadview Swedish Seminary, at La Grange, 111., was born October 6, 1885, in Dassel, Meeker county, Minn., where his parents, Carl and Beda Olson, were farmers. When Herman was in his HERMAN OLOF OLSON. third year the parents moved to Artichoke Lake, Bigstone county, where they are still living. He is the third of nine children in the family. After his graduation from the country school Mr. Olson be- came a student in Anoka Academy, 1901-02, and attended evening schools in Minneapolis 1903-04. The following three years he studied in the Maplewood Academy, Maple Plain, Minn., and entered Union College, at College View, Neb., in 1907. Four years later he graduated from this institution, receiving the degree of B. A. In 1911-12 he attended the Minnesota State Uni- versity, and in 1912-13 he pursued a course in the University of Upsala, Sweden, spending the sum- mer of 1913 at the University of Marburg, Germany. The same year he received his master's degree at the Minnesota State University. Prof. Olson is a minister in the Seventh Day Adventist Church and acting president of the Broadview Swedish Seminary, vice-president and member of the executive com- mittee of the seminary. He is abo a member of the Alumni Associa- tions of Union College and Minne- sota State University. He is one of the first seven who were granted scholarships by the American- Scandinavian Foundation in. 1912. He traveled extensively in Fur.ope, Egypt and the Holy Land during 1912 and 1913. Professor Olson is a Prohibition- ist in politics, and has conducted many temperance and evangelistic campaigns in different states during his vacations between the semesters. His Master's thesis, "Religious Movements in Sweden from the Memorable Upsala Synod in Feb- ruary, 1593, to the Issuance, on October 23, 1860, of the Two Royal Ordinances Providing for Greater Religious Liberty in Sweden," has just come from the press of Watson & Co., printers, Chicago. He was united in marriage to Miss Bettie Swenson, of Hessle- holm, Sweden, June 24, 1912. ALBERT OSCAR OLSON, attorney at law, was born in Chi- cago, February 27, 1873. He is the oldest son of Carl O. Olson, one of the many successful Swed- 576 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ish-Americans of Chicago, who for a number of years was engaged in the cartage business on Chicago avenue. Having graduated from the Lake View High School, Mr. Olson went to the Michigan Uni- versity, where he graduated with the degree A. B. conferred upon him in 1898. Two years later he graduated as Bachelor of Laws from Lake Forest University. Since 1901 he has practiced law in his own name, with offices in the Title and Trust Building. Mr. Olson was raised in the Methodist Church, but is now a member of the Union Church in Glencoe, 111., where he holds the office of trustee. Mr. Olson has the honor of having been the first secretary of the Philosophical So- ciety of Ann Arbor University and is a member of the University Club of Chicago, the Chicago and Illi- nois Bar Associations and the Ma- sonic order. His brother, Allan Gustavus Ol- son, is a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy and is now in charge of the recruit- ing station at St. Louis, Mo. Mr. Olson was married February 14, 1906, to Miss Laura Geber and has a daughter, Carolyn Alma, who is nine years old. Mrs. Olson's father, Mr. Emil Geber, was at his death a director in the American Society of Civil Engineers and gen- eral manager of the erecting de- partment of the American Bridge Company. OSCAR CALEB NYLUND, Doctor of Dental Surgery, was born in Askersund, Sweden, March 23, 1874. His father, being a rail- road man, was often transferred from place to place, and the son spent his youth in Ervalla, Vasteras, Lindesberg, Nora, and Bofors. He studied first at Nora, and later at- tended the Manual Training School of Karlskoga. Next he secured a position on the Nora and Karlskoga railroad, at Otterbacken, but as he had little liking for that kind of work, he soon left it, and accepted OSCAR CALEB NYLUND. a position with an implement firm in Stockholm, in the spring of 1890. Two years later he left for America and arrived in Chicago April 26, 1892. Here he secured a place with Marshall Field & Co., where he re- mained three years, in the mean- time attending evening school at the Chicago Athenaeum. Later he was employed by the banking firm of Edward H. Ericson & Co. He afterwards studied dentistry, grad- uating at the Northwestern Univer- sity Dental School April 6, 1899, having since practiced his profes- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 577 sion in Chicago. His office was first located in the Bush Temple of Music, at North Clark street and Chicago avenue. Seven years ago he removed to his present quarters at 30 N. Michigan avenue. Dr. Nylund is a member of the Illinois State Dental Society, the Chicago Odontographic Society and the Scandinavian-American Dental Society of Chicago. He holds mem- bership in the following fraternal orders and clubs : the St. Cecilia Chapter, R. A. M., Lincoln Park Lodge No. 611, A. F. & A. M. ; Monitor Council No. 1414, Royal Arcanum, and the Swedish Club. In the Monitor Council he has been collector for ten years and in the Swedish Club he has served as secretary, president and member of the board of trustees. Dr. Nylund was married Dec. 5, 1900, to Miss Anna Hvitfeldt, of Chicago. Their children are, Ruth Maria Elizabeth, born Sept. 20, 1901, and Berenice, born Oct. 28, 1905. JOHN A. CARLSON, one of the successful Swedish- American real estate dealers on the north side in Chicago, was born January 13, 1874, in the city of Umea, province of Vasterbotten, Sweden. His parents were Mr. Carl Michaelson and his wife, Ma- thilda, nee Matson. After attend- ing the public schools of his home city he spent some years in his na- province, whereupon he, in 1893, emigrated to the United States, ar- riving in this country June 26 of that year. The following year we find him in Cadillac, Mich., where he was employed as clerk in Olson & Goodman's retail shoe store. On Aug. 8, 1895, he arrived in Chi- cago, where he accepted a position with C. F. Appell, a well-known Swedish-American retail shoe mer- chant. Here he remained for nine years, or until September, 1904, when he entered the service of the U S. Department of Labor and Commerce, working in the Bureau JOHN A. CARLSON. of Statistics of that department un- til 1905. Mr. Carlson now secured a position in the Abstract Department in the office of Recorder of Deeds of Cook county, and remained there until April, 1913, when he engaged in the real estate business. His of- fice is located at 5105 N. Clark street. Mr. Carlson is a member of the 23rd Ward Republican Club and of the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois. From 1896 to 1902 he was a member of the First Cavalry, Illinois National Guard. He now holds membership in the Swedish Historical Society of 578 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS America and in the following fra- ternal organizations: King Oscar Lodge, 855, A. F. & A. M. ; Lincoln Park Chapter, Royal Arch Masons ; Three Links Lodge, 812, I. O. O. F. ; Independent Order of Vikings ; Vasa-Orden and North Star Bene- fit Association. Mr. Carlson has served as Noble Grand of Three Links Lodge, was for eight years president of the Three Links Club, and for two years treasurer of Trudwang Lodge, No. 39, I. O. V. Mr. Carlson is not married. He resides at 3043 Osgood street. CARL MATTHIAS POHL, physician and surgeon, was born December 10, 1879, in the parish of Trojeryd, Skaraborgs Ian, Swe- den. He is the son of the late Rev. August Pohl, one of the leading ministers of the Swedish Mission Covenant denomination, and his wife Dorothea C., nee Johanson. In the year 1887 he came to America with his parents and received his public and high school education in Chicago, graduating from the High School in 1899. Afterwards he entered the Rush Medical Col- lege, where he received his M. D. degree in 1903. Dr. Pohl has been practicing medicine in Austin, Chicago, since 1904 and has had a steadily grow- ing practice. He was actively in- terested in the building of the West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, 111., in 1914, and is taking a lively interest in various charitable organi- zations, though he has never been seeking any office. In politics Dr. Pohl is a Repub- lican, and he has his religious home in the Swedish Mission Church at Austin. In 1905 he was united in mar- riage to Miss Agnes Ottilia Flordin of Chicago. This union has been blessed with two children. The doctor has his office at 5801 West Chicago avenue, and resides at 723 North Menard avenue. WILLIAM C. NELSON, president of the society Svea, the oldest Swedish society in Chicago (founded 1857), was born in Chi- WILLIAM C. NELSON. cago July 27, 1868. His parents were Andrew W. Nelson, carriage maker by trade, and Augusta Charlotta Nelson, nee Turnqiiist. He attended the public schools and after his graduation he entered the Bryant & Stratton Business College. Upon finishing his course at this in- stitution he took up the watch- maker's trade in which he remained for two years. In 1885 he accepted a position with the American Screw Company at 69 E. Lake street, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 579 where he has since remained, in the meantime being promoted a number of times, until he now occupies one of the most responsible positions in the service of the firm. Mr. Nelson always has been a Republican but has never held a political office. He is a member of the Masons, Knights of Pythias and the society Svea. The presi- dency of this society he has occupied continuously since 1905. Mr. Nel- son is one of the first members of the Hardware Club of Chicago. Mr. Nelson was married in 1890 to - Miss Henrietta L. Duensing. Two children, a girl and a boy, were born to them. The family residence is at 2530 N. Spaulding avenue. FREDERICK J. CROONBORG was born May 9, 1867, in the city of Mariestad, Sweden. After at- tending the public schools he was apprenticed to a tailor and at the age of sixteen became a journey- man tailor, working in Stockholm, Christiania, Copenhagen and else- where. Finally he concluded to emigrate to America and arrived in Chicago in 1887. He soon found employment as a coat maker, and after a couple of years became a cutter. In these capacities he worked for leading houses in Chi- cago. Mr. Croonborg became a member of the National Custom Cutters' Association at their annual conven- tion in Indianapolis, in 1892, when he was awarded the grand prize gold medal, also first prize diploma as evidence of his proficiency as a cutter and designer. In 1893 he was again honored with the first prize at the World's Fair Conven- tion of the same association, and after that he won many awards as evidence of his proficiency from various tailors' associations. Mr. Croonborg for five years conducted a merchant tailoring business, but receiving a large number of applica- tions for instruction in tailoring, he, in 1901, founded a tailoring school known as Croonborg's Sartorial Academy. FREDERICK J. CROONBORG. In the year 1907 we find him president of the Croonborg Sar- torial Company, with headquarters in New York and a branch in Chi- cago, conducting fashion publica- tions and sartorial academies. This concern liquidated in 1913 owing to the general depression in the tailor- ing industry, the business being un- dermined by unfaithful employes, who, after learning everything they knew of the trade from Mr. Croon- borg, unscrupulously endeavored to- wrest the business from the hands of its founder by unfair methods. Mr. Croonborg's friends rallied to 580 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS his assistance and founded the Croonborg Fashion Company, of which he became the general man- ager and director. This concern now publishes The Croonborg Ga- zette and Authoritative Fashions, and conducts sartorial academies in New York and Chicago. Mr. Croonborg is known and noted the world over as an expert fashion delineator and garment de- signer, author of technical works and director of sartorial academies. He is a thorough organization man. He is given credit for the rise to prominence of the National Cutters' Association of America, in which he was an ardent worker for many years, and of which he is an honor- ary member. He organized the Chicago Custom Cutters' Associa- tion in 1904, and he is an honorary member of that body. He also or- ganized the New York Custom Cut- ters' Club in 1908, and is an honor- ary member of that organization, as well as of a dozen cutters' and tailors' societies in different cities that he has either directly or indi- rectly organized. He is the author of numerous technical works. His office is at 115 S. Dearborn street. Mr. Croonborg was married June 2, 1897, to Miss Hildur Marie Gry- zelius from Mariestad. They have one son. EVANSTON. AXEL LOUIS ELMQUIST, professor in Northwestern Uni- versity at Evanston, is a native of Parker's Prairie, Minn., where he was born February 3, 1884. His father, Peter Johan Elmquist, a re- tired minister, has played a promi- nent part in the organization and development of the Swedish Free Mission Church in America. After the family moved to Chicago young Elmquist had opportunity to attend the Academy of Northwestern Uni- versity, where he graduated in 1901. He received his A. B. degree from the same university in 1904, and the A. M. degree the following year. Having completed his course at the Northwestern, Professor Elmquist went abroad for a couple of years and studied at the universities of Leipzig, Copenhagen and Upsala. On his return to America, Pro- fessor Elmquist entered the faculty of his Alma Mater and was elected instructor in Greek and Latin in 1906. Two years later he became instructor in Scandinavian lan- guages and literature, and in 1911 he was elected assistant professor in the same branches. Since Sep- tember, 1915, he has been assistant professor of Germanic languages. Dr. Elmquist has rendered valua- ble service to the study of the Swedish language in America, being author of several textbooks which are generally used by the classes in those subjects. Among the books published by Professor Elmquist may be mentioned Selma Lagerlof s "En Herrgardssagen," edited with notes and vocabulary (1910); Helena Nyblom's "Det Ringer," with notes and vocabulary (1910) ; selections from Selma Lagerlof's "Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige," with notes and vo- AXEL LOUIS ELMQUIST. cabulary (1912); "Elementary Swedish Grammar" (1914) ; Swed- ish Phonology" (1915) ; Runeberg's "Fanrik Stals Sagner," with notes and vocabulary (1915); "Swedish Reader," with notes and vocabulary ( 1915) . Professor Elmquist is also editor of Bonnier's Series of Swed- ish Text Books [published by Al- bert Bonniers Forlag, Stockholm, Sweden] , is author of numerous ar- ticles and book reviews, published in Sprak och Stil (published in Up- 581 582 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS sala, Sweden), "Englische Studien" (Heidelberg, Germany), Journal of English and German Philology (U.r- bana, 111.), "Modern Language Notes" (Baltimore, Md.), "Pro- ceedings of the Society for the Ad- vancement of Scandinavian Study" (Urbana, 111.) etc. Professor Elmquist is a member and one of the organizers of the So- ciety for the Advancement of Scan- dinavian Study, the American- Scandinavian Society and the Swed- ish Historical Society of America. In the first mentioned society, he was secretary-treasurer in 1913, and is associate editor of its publications since 1915. He was united in matrimony.. June 15, 1907, to Miss Minna Louise Harper of Chicago, 111. They have one son. MARTIN P. ROSENDAHL, who has been established in Evans- ton since 1891, as a painter and decorator, came to Chicago in the spring of 1888, and worked in tha't city until the next fall, when he located in Evanston. After three years he went into business in part- nership with M. L. Holmgren. In 1893 their firm dissolved and Mr. Rosendahl started a business of his own. He is one of the leading painters and decorators in the city, and a member of the Evanston Commercial Association. Mr. Rosendahl does not permit business to engross his attention to the exclusion of higher interests. From the year of its organization in 1888, he has been a member of the Immanuel Swedish Lutheran Church. From 1895 to 1897 he acted as secretary of the organiza- tion. Since 1895 ne has been on the Board of Trustees and served as its treasurer. Since 1896 he has been on the Board of Deacons also and acts as its secretary. He has served as president of the Church Council and Board of Trustees, At different periods he has been edi- tor of the local church paper Im- manuels Harold, and also served as MARTIN P. ROSENDAHL. superintendent of the Sunday School. He is a member of the Board of Charities of the Illinois Conference of the Augustana Synod. He holds membership in the Swedish Historical Society, the So- ciety for the Advancement of Scan- dinavian Study and the National Union of America. Mr. Rosendahl was born in the parish of Ostraby, Skane, Sweden, June 16, 1867. His father, Per Swenson, owner of a country estate, died in 1882, and his mother, Elna Martenson, in 1906, both at Os- traby. The son, after completing LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 583 the grammar school courses, was educated in the technical school in Malmo, where he learned his trade. Mr. Rosendahl has been married twice. His first wife died in 1893, within four months after marriage. On January 18, 1902, he married Miss Lydia Dahlstrom, daughter of August and Augusta Dahlstrom. of St. Charles, 111. Three children have been born to them, Eleanor Violet, Dec. i, 1902; Martin Carl Irving, Oct. 18. 1904; and Marie Lillian, Aug. 23, 1906. CARL G. WALLENIUS, president of the Swedish Theo- logical Seminary at Evanston, 111., was born in Hatuna parish, prov- ince of Upland, Dec. 18, 1865. His parents were Carl Wallenius, a well-known pioneer preacher of the Methodist Church in Sweden, and his wife Gustava, nee Bjork- lund. Erom the collegiate school at Visby, where he graduated in 1886, he entered the University of Up- sala. His aim was to prepare him- self for the ministry in the Swedish State Church. But a decided change in his religious life led him later to follow in the footsteps of his father. In 1887 we find him as assistant pastor in the Methodist Church at Jonkoping, and the following year he came to America in order to seek a more thorough preparation for his life work. At Boston University he devoted some time to theological and philo- sophical studies. His learning and talents attracted attention, and in 1889 he received the call to become professor at the same institution he now serves. During seven years he ably filled the chair of languages and history. In 1896 he became pastor of the Englewood Swedish M. E. Church in Chicago and the following year he accepted the in- vitation to the important pastorate at historic Donovan, 111. The seminary at Evanston again sought his services in 1900 and he remained in the professor's chair CARL G. WALLENIUS. until 1906, when one of the largest parishes, Donovan and Beaver, 111., secured him as pastor. His present duties he entered upon in 1909. Professor Wallenius is a scholar and educator of high order. In the pulpit and on the platform he is a man of exceptional power. His pen is productive and polished. As some time editor of riiktarcn, a weekly published by the Swedish M. E. Book Concern, also as edi- tor of Epworth-Klockan and as as- sociate editor of Sandcbudct, he has greatly enriched the literature of his church. His most important literary prod- 584 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS net is "Svenska Metodismen i Amerika," a large illustrated vol- ume of great historic and cultural value. The Swedish-American Historical Society has in him a staunch supporter; he has served the society as secretary, librarian and president. In recognition of his services as an educator and scholar, The Northwestern University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1914. Doctor Wallenins was married to Miss Hilda Johnson of Chicago in 1894. They have five children. The president's home is on the seminary campus, at Sherman avenue and Lincoln street, in Evanston. OLIVER RICHARD ASPEGREN is one of the leading merchants along the fashionable North Shore. His headquarters are at 1144- 11461/2 Central avenue, Wilmette, 111., where groceries, meats, fruits and vegetables are supplied to the most fastidious. The successful young merchant was born Dec. 6, 1883, at Saronville, Clay County, Nebraska, where his father, Adolph Andrew Aspegren, was a land- owner. His mother's name was Emma Charlotta Israelson. His search for knowledge led him through the Saronville public school ; the Bryant Normal and Business College at Stromsburg, Neb. ; the Lincoln Normal and Business College at Lincoln, Neb. ; the Academy and College of Liberal Arts of Northwestern University in Evanston, 111. ; the Metropolitan Business College, and Sheldon's School of Scientific Salesmanship. In 1903 he received the Bachelor of Accounts degree and in 1908 his university gave him the degree of Bachelor of Arts. His early days were spent on the farm and in a general store in Nebraska. Having graduated from the university he served two years as clerk in the City National Bank of Evanston. In 1910 he joined the OLIVER RICHARD ASPEGREN. firm of Ward & Aspegren in Wil- mette, which in 1914, when Mr. Ward's place was taken by Mr. Ivan Anderson (father of Mrs. As- pegren) assumed its present form and name, Aspegren & Company. Being a man of culture and abso- lute integrity, Mr. Aspegren has gained reputation, business strength and friendship in very large meas- ure. His church, the Emmanuel Methodist of Evanston, has in him a valuable asset. As teacher and assistant superintendent of its Sun- day School, as some time president of its Epworth League, as a leader and some time president of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 585 District Epworth League and in many other capacities he has ren- dered his church and denomination excellent service. Mr. Aspegren is a member of the Scribblers Fraternity at Northwest- ern University and holds member- ship in the New Trier Commercial Association. He serves as a di- rector of the Swedish Methodist Aid Association. Miss Lillian Antonia Anderson became his bride August 9, 1911. One son has been born to them. The family resides at 1321 Elmwood avenue, Evanston. S. HENRY HULTEEN, building contractor, was born in the parish of Ramkvilla, Smaland, Sweden, October i, 1863. His par- S. HENRY HULTEEN. ents were farmers. Having com- pleted his public school education at the age of sixteen, he went to Stockholm, where he learned the carpenter's trade. In 1887 he emi- grated to America and came di- rectly to Evanston, 111. Here he worked at his trade for several con- tractors until 1897, when he went into partnership with Nels Swan- son. The firm of Hulteen & Swan- son existed until 1902, when the partnership was dissolved and he started in business for himself under the firm name of Henry Hul- teen, Contractor and Builder, with an office at his home, 1120 Elm- wood street. Mr. Hulteen is a member of the I m m a n u e 1 Swedish Lutheran Church. He also holds member- ship in the Carpenter Contractors' Association of Chicago, and the Evanston Commercial Association. He is united in marriage to Miss Lottie Dahl, born in Borghamn, Ostergotland, December 30, 1892. They have five children. OTTO OTTERSTROM was born in the parish of Norra Stro, Skane, Sweden, on the T3th day of March, 1871. His parents were Edward K. Otterstrom and his wife, Malena Nilsson. Having at- tended the public schools of his na- tive place, he learned the trade of a shoemaker and worked at the bench until eighteen years of age. when he emigrated to America. He went directly to Princeton, 111., and found employment as a farmhand. In 1890 he went to Joliet and worked as a coachman for a year and a half. Afterwards he moved to Evanston, working in the same capacity for a year, whereupon he engaged in the laundry business and is now one of the directors and sec- retary of the Nelson Bros. Laundry Co., of Evanston and Wilmette. 586 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Mr. Otterstrom is an active mem- ber of the Emanue! Swedish M. E. Church, where he holds the office of chairman of the Board of Trustees. He has made two trips to Sweden to visit his parents, in 1899 and 1909. He was united in marriage June 7, 1902, to Miss Clara Hammar, born in Lysekil, Sweden, December OTTO OTTERSTROM. 27. 1873. They have two sons, Ed- ward Aclolph, born June 15, 1905, and William Francis, born July 9, 1909. The family resides at 1108 Church street. ISAK ANDERSON was born May 8, 1870, in the parish of Horby, Skane, Sweden. His parents, Anders and Bengta Bengt- son, were farmers. When he had finished his public school education, ,he learned the trade of a tailor and emigrated to America in 1890. He found employment in his trade and worked in various shops, until he was able to start a business of his own. He is now conducting a well known tailoring establishment in Evanston, 111., in partnership with Mr. Walters, under the name of Walters & Anderson, 608 Davis street. He is also one of the di- rectors in the Evanston Trust and Savings Bank. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Vikings. ISAK ANDERSON. He was married to Miss Jennie Johnson in May, 1891, and has two children. The family resides at 1035 Ridge avenue. GUSTAV LINDAHL, contractor and builder, was born in Stora Tuna, Dalarna, Sweden, Jan- uary 23, 1883. At the age of twenty-five he left his fatherland and came to America, November I, 1908. He worked as a carpenter for two or three years, when he began to take contracts in his own name and soon became one of the successful builders of palatial resi- dences in the aristocratic suburbs LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 587 on the North Shore. He has also built and sold homes in this desir- able district. Mr. Lindahl is a Republican in politics, a member of the Lutheran Church, and holds membership in the Carpenter Contractors' Associa- tion and the Builders and Traders' Exchange in Chicago. He was married December 28, 1911, to Miss Signe Olson of Kil, GUSTAV LINDAHL. Vermland. They have two chil- dren and the family lives in Win- netka, 111. GUSTAF NELSON is a native of Kumla, Nerike, Sweden, where he was born June 9, 1873. His parents, Nils August Nilson and Johanna Charlotta, nee Anderson, were farmers. Having finished his public school education and worked for some years on the farm, he emigrated to America in April, 1893. Here he engaged in the laundry business and in partner- ship with his brother Eric Nelson, organized the Nelson Brothers Laundry Company in Winnetka, known as the North Shore Laun- dry, with offices at 849 Elm Street. Mr. Nelson is a Republican in politics and held the office of Park Commissioner of the Winnetka Park District from 1908 to 1911. He is vice president and trustee of the First Scandinavian Evangelical Church of Winnetka. GUSTAF NELSON. Mr. Nelson was married Novem- ber 17, 1900, to Miss Thora Bothner, who was born in Moss, Norway. This union has been blessed with three children. The family resi- dence is at 806 Elm street. AUGUST NELSON, vice president of the Nelson Bros. Laundry Co., Evanston, 111., was born May 10, 1866, in the parish of Kumla,. Nerike, Sweden. His par- ents, Nils August and Johanna Charlotta Nelson, were farmers. Having attended the public schools of his native village and worked 588 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS on the farm for some years, Mr. Nelson emigrated to America at the age of twenty-two years, coming here in April, 1888. In partnership with his brother he is one of the organizers of the Nelson Bros Laundry Company of Evanston, and is one of the direct- ors as well as vice president of this successful enterprise. Their office is at 1012 Davis street. Mr. Nel- AUGUST NELSON. son was married July 22, 1893, to Miss Sophia C. Bloomkvist and has five children. AUGUST RODELIUS, jeweler, was bom August 19. 1865, in the parish of Kristdala, Sma- land, Sweden. After graduating from the public school he learned the trade of watchmaker in his na- tive country and came to America in 1888. Here he obtained a posi- tion as watchmaker with a very large firm and worked in one place for twelve years, and the next four years, from 1900 to 1904, as fore- man in another place. In 1904 he came to Evanston and started a jewelry store in partner- ship with Mr. T. Rosen, under the name of Rodelius & Rosen. Five years later he bought the interest of his partner and is now the sole owner of the largest jewelry busi- ness in the classic suburb. Mr. Rodelius is a Republican in politics and a member of the Im- manuel Swedish Lutheran Church, AUGUST RODELIUS where he holds the office of trustee. He is a Mason of the Thirty-second degree, a Shriner, member of the Elks, Svithiod, Royal Arcanum, and the Modern Woodmen. He was married March 15, 1890, to Miss Agnes Wirstedt of Oskars- hamn, Sweden. They have had three sons, of whom two are living. AXEL SORENSON was born in Raa, Skane, Sweden, in 1860. Having attended the pub- lic schools of his native village, he learned the trade of a shoemaker. After becoming a journeyman, he LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 589 traveled through Sweden and Den- mark for three years, and came to America March 2, 1882. In June of the same year, after a stay of one month in Chicago, he moved to Evanston, where he has had his home ever since. Here he worked AXEL SORENSON. at his trade for fifteen years, and opened a shoe store in 1897. Being a first class business man he has a large patronage and en- joys the confidence of all with whom he comes in contact. He was married March 17, 1896, and has three children. ERIC NELSON, laundryman, was born in the parish of Kumla, Nerike, Sweden, May 10, 1871. Having completed his pub- lic school education and worked for some time on his father's farm he emigrated to America .and came here in March, 1890. He became in- terested in the laundry business and organized in partnership with his brother the North Shore Laundry, with offices at 806 Elm street, Win- netka, 111. Mr. Nelson is a member of the Free Mission Church, where he holds the office of chairman of the Trustees Board, and is the superin- tendent of the Sunday school. He was married April 28, 1900, to Miss Elizabeth Gunsteens, a na- tive of Bergen, Norway. They have five children. The family lives at 923 Oak street, Winnetka, 111. ROCKFORD. GUSTAF EMIL IIEMDAHL, pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Zion Church, was born January 8, 1866, in the parish of Skede, Smaland, Sweden, where his father, Anders Peterson, was superin- tendent of an orphans' home. He attended the public schools of Sweden and also a normal school before he went to America in 1880. He located at Swede Home, Neb., hired out as a farm hand and then rented a farm. In 1886 he tried farming for some time in eastern Colorado, and the next two years he lived on a farm of his own in western Nebraska. In 1890 he entered the Luther Academy, in Wahoo, Neb., and graduated in the spring of 1893. The next year he entered the fresh- man class of Augustana College and graduated with the class of 1897, having spent the school year of 1895-96 at the State University of Nebraska. At the opening of the school year of 1897 he was admitted to Augustana Theological Seminary and graduated from that institution in the spring of 1900 with the de- gree of Bachelor of Divinity. Hav- ing received a call from the Swedish Lutheran Church of Princeton, 111., he was ordained at the annual meet- ing of the Augustana Synod at Burlington, la., June 17, 1900. Dur- ing his pastorate at Princeton the congregation paid off a $2,700 church debt, raised $4,000 for im- provements and increased its list of communicant members by one hun- dred and fifty. In 1904 the Rev. Hemdahl published a beautiful souvenir album entitled "Minne af Princeton Svenska Evangeliska Lutherska forsamlings Femtioars- fest, den 17-19 Juni, 1904." GUSTAF EMIL HEMDAHL. In 1906 he removed to Paxton, 111., pursuant to a call from the Swedish Lutheran Church of that city, where the congregation went to work, under his splendid leader- ship, and erected a $30,000 church building, which was finished free of debt. To further the various interests of this large historic church the pastor edited a monthly local paper, Olivebladet. During the spring and summer of 1911 the Rev. Hemdahl, in company 591 592 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS with the Rev. Oscar Nelson, made a trip to the Holy Land, visiting also Algiers, Italy, Egypt, Greece and Turkey. His impressions and ex- periences during that trip he subse- quently narrated in a volume en- titled "Halsningar fran Medelhaf- vets Strander." On October i, 1912, the Rev. Hemdahl took up the work as pas- tor of the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church of Rockford, where he has a large field and is enjoying a suc- cessful ministry. He has held various offices in the Galesburg and Paxton districts of the Illinois Conference, is a mem- ber of the Board of Charities of the conference and was a member of the Luther League Hymnal Com- mittee, appointed by the Augustana Book Concern, which collected the songs for the "Luther League Hymnal." On July 9, 1900, he was married to Miss Selma Anderson, of Moline, 111. Miss Anderson was a graduate of Moline High School and Normal School, and for six years a teacher in the schools of that city ; also for several years a member of Augus- tana College Chorus. The family has one son, Gustaf Reuel, born June 20, 1903. OTTO GRANTZ. The subject of this sketch was born in the parish of Morlunda, Smaland, Sweden, on November 21, 1865. He is the son of Samuel and Christina Grantz. The father, a farmer, served as a corporal in the Swedish army. Mr. Grantz was educated in the elementary schools of Sweden and came to America at the age of seventeen, in June, 1883. After coming to this country, he worked on a farm for about three months, and sub- sequently found employment as a cabinetmaker with the Excelsior Furniture Company in Rockford the same year. He remained with this firm about four years. Then he secured work for a couple of vears in a store and continued his OTTO GRANTZ. efforts to obtain an education by at- tending evening schools and the Rockford Business College. Having obtained a position as bookkeeper with the Excelsior Fur- niture Co., he remained with this concern until 1891, when he was made secretary of the Palace Fold- ing Bed Company, which failed in the business panic of 1895, but he took care of the office work until the following year. Since 1896 Mr. Grantz has been secretary and treasurer of the Rockford Palace Furniture Company, which position he still holds. He is also president and director in the following busi- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 593 ness enterprises : Swedish Building & Loan Association, Rockford Var- nish Co., Rockford Furniture Undertaking Co., Rockford World Furniture Co., vice president in Rockford Manufacturing Co., Rockford Inter-Insurance Co., and director in National Lock Co. Mr. Grantz is a member of the First Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has been a trustee since 1898, and is at present secretary of the board, having previously served as secretary of the congre- gation for several years. In poli- tics he votes the Republican ticket. On November 23, 1893. ne was married to Miss Mary Louisa Anderson, of Bralanda parish. Dais- land, Sweden, and to them one son has been born, who is now a student at the University of Chicago. CONRAD AUGUST NEWMAN, a successful and prominent designer and draftsman, was born in Sma- land, Sweden, March 31, 1860. His father died before this son was born. His mother afterwards be- came the wife of a Mr. Moberg and with her family came to the United States. Her second husband died some years ago. Mr. Newman was a lad of eighteen summers when, with his parents, he crossed the Atlantic. Almost his entire life, therefore, has been spent in the city of Rockford. His education has been acquired in the public schools of that city, and he became a carver in the employ of the Union Furniture Co., with which he still remains. In the mean- time he gained reputation as a draftsman and designer, and it is said by some of the leading stock- holders of the companies by which he is employed that much of their success is due to the designing of Mr. Newman and his skilled work. He has been associated with the Union Furniture Co. for 31 years and with the Rockford Chair & Fur- niture Co. for 26 years. He is also president of the former and vice- president of the latter. CONRAD AUGUST NEWMAN. In Sheridan, 111., on October 4, 1883, Mr. Newman was united in the holy bonds of matrimony to Miss Mary Rasmusson, who was born in Chicago in 1862, and when quite young went with her parents to La Salle county. Her parents were both natives of Norway. Mr. and Mrs. Newman are the proud parents of eight children, six sons and two daughters Earl A., Lyle W., Genevieve M., Ray H., Grace A., Fred C, Edwin W. and Adel- bert V. This family holds membership in the Swedish Methodist Church, of Rockford, and are actively inter- 594 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ested in its growth and upbuilding. Mr. Newman is a Republican in na- tional politics, but locally he votes the Prohibition ticket. The cause of temperance finds in him a warm friend, and he is earnestly inter- ested in everything calculated to promote the moral, social and edu- cational life of the city. His life has been well and worthily spent in the interests of his business and his family, and he holds high rank among his fellow townsmen as an upright and straightforward busi- ness man, who deserves the confi- dence of the community. GUSTAVUS PETERS The subject of this sketch is one of the few leaders among the Swed- ish-American people who began his career in this country before 1860. He was born in the parish of Asheda, Smaland, Sweden, January 4, 1832. His father was Peter Emanuel Anderson and his mother Eva Jacobsdotter. His early life was one of great hardship, and his mother was the mainstay of the family. His early education was obtained at his moth- er's knee. During the summers he was away from home herding sheep, and in the winters his work consisted in cutting and hauling wood for the family hearth. At the age of twelve he learned a trade, and was thus occupied for four years. After his confirmation he felt a strong desire to study in order to become a teacher, and in 1848 he went to a school teacher who taught him the elements of learning and in return he assisted the teacher in giving instruction to the younger scholars. During 1854-55 he at- tended the Kalmar Normal School for a couple of semesters, and grad- uated with good marks in all the studies. Subsequently he came to the Fjellstedt School in Upsala, and afterwards to the Ahlberg School, then at Stockholm, where he spent the scholastic year 1857-58. When Pastor Ahlberg that year moved to Smaland, Mr. Peters be- GUSTAVUS PETERS. came the head of his Seminary for one year. Having received a second invita- tion from the Rev. Erland Carlsson to come to America to assist the few clergymen who at that time were administering to the spiritual needs of the growing Swedish settle- ments, he left his fatherland and via Liibeck and Hamburg he began the voyage across the ocean in the Steamer "Saxonia," July 31, 1859. The 1 7th of August he landed in New York and a week later he ar- rived in Chicago. Here he found his intimate friend, the Rev. Erland Carlsson, and became his assistant. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF- TODAY 595 On September I2th, the same year, he received from the Northern Illi- nois Synod his license to preach in Chicago. The first year he made preaching tours to Elgin, Rockford and other places. When the historic conference was held in Jefferson Prairie, Wis., June 5-10. 1860, the Rev. Peters was one of those who participated in the organization of the Augus- tana Synod. On the loth of June, 1860, he was ordained minister by Rev. T. N. Hasselquist. the first president of the Synod. In the fall of the same year he succeeded the Rev. O. C. T. Andren as pastor in Moline, and remained there until 1863, when he was called to Rock- ford, 111. For a period of twenty- two and a half years he was pastor of the First Swedish Church of this city and had the joy of seeing the congregation develop in numerical strength and influence. In 1885 he resigned from this po- sition, thinking that the work- needed a younger man, and in 1886 he moved to Lincoln, Neb., where he remained for a year and a half, when he moved to York, in the same state. In Nebraska he worked until 1896. Then he moved to Bel- videre, 111., where he was serving the congregation for about two years. Owing to failing eyesight, he has not had any congregation since that time, but has taken care of the work in Oregon and Ro- chelle, going there once or twice a month, preaching to the few Swed- ish people who live in those towns. He has his home in Rockford, at 204 South Second street. The Rev. Peters has been mar- ried twice. His first wife was Ida Helen Strom of Kristdala, Sweden, who passed away May 18, 1863, leaving a daughter ten months old. She also died, June 22nd, the fol- lowing year. On October 8, 1864, he took to himself another help- meet, Miss Sara Johnson, of Ljusdal, Helsingland, who has been a faithful companion. Six children are the fruit of this union, three of whom have gone before the parents to a better land. AUGUST P. PETERSON, a manufacturer of furniture, was born in Falkoping, Sweden, Feb- ruary 2, 1854. He received a good AUGUST P. PETERSON. education, attending the high school in his native town, and after he had come to America in June, 1869, he took a course in a business college. In 1879 he became interested in the manufacturing of furniture, and twenty- four years ago he was elected secretary of the Central Fur- niture Co., in Rockford, being one of its organizers. Later he organ- 596 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ized the Rockford National Furni- ture Co., and is now acting as sec- retary-treasurer and general man- ager of the same. Besides his inter- ests in these companies he is also associated as director with several of the other manufacturing firms of Rockford the Haddorff Piano Co., the National Mirror Works, the Rockford Varnish Co. and the Free Sewing Machine Co. He is presi- dent of the Skandia Coal & Lum- ber Co. Mr. Peterson is one of the suc- cessful business men of whom the city of Rockford is justly proud. He has found time to serve his city in various ways and has filled two elective offices to the satisfaction of his constituents. From 1894 to 1900 he was supervisor, and he has been a member of the City Council for one term. He has for a number of years been a member of the Emanuel Church, an English speak- ing congregation of the Lutheran faith, where he holds the office of trustee. He* was united in the holy bonds of matrimony to Miss Amanda E. Johnson of Rockford, 111., on October 6, 1887, and this union has been blessed with seven children. The family resides at 410 South Third street. AUGUST P. FLOBERG, vice-president and cashier of the Manufacturers' National Bank, was born in the parish of Hellestad, Vestergotland, Sweden, on October 5, 1856. At the age of twelve he came from his native land and has made Rockford his home ever since. He attended the public schools at Rockford and Arnold's Business College. He worked as bookkeeper in the People's Bank from 1875 to 1882 ; then he became secretary and treasurer of the Central Furniture Co. until 1889; since that time he has been vice-president and cashier of the Manufacturers' National Bank. This bank is now one of the strongest in the city. He is also a AUGUST P. FLOBERG. director and officer in a large num- ber of the business concerns for which Rockford is justly famous. Mr. Floberg has been a member of the First Swedish Lutheran Church from his youth, and has acted as trustee and treasurer of the congregation since 1890. He is a Republican in politics, but has not been affiliated with any organiza- tions besides his church and busi- ness connections. He has been a member of the School Board and Library Board of the City of Rock- ford. Mr. Floberg was married, No- vember 17, 1880, to Miss Augusta S. Ekeberg, of the parish of Floby, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 597 Vestergotland, Sweden. They have four children Adelbert R., Frances E., Maria Linnea and Fred A. The family resides at 711 Seminary avenue. JOHN ALFRED BENANDER, pastor of the Salem Swedish Lu- theran Church of Rock ford, was born in Hogsater parish, of Dais- land, Sweden, February 6, 1872. Being one of five children in a fam- ily of limited means, he was obliged to begin as a breadwinner at the early age of nine. He graduated, however, from the public school at twelve. As a young man he came to America, where he lived in Moline and Sherrard, 111., and worked during the summer in fac- tory, at carpentry and painting, at- tended public school during one winter, then entered Augustana Col- lege in accordance with a long cherished desire to prepare himself for the ministry. He was enrolled in the fall of 1893 and graduated from the academy in 1896, from the college in 1900 and from the Theo- logical Seminary in 1903 with the degree of B. D. While a student he taught parish school and supplied vacant charges in Chicago, McKees- port, Pa., Cumberland, Wis., San Francisco and Des Moines. Soon after his ordination to the ministry in June, 1903, the Rev. Benander made a tour of Europe, visiting Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. France and England. Upon his return to this country he took up the work of his first charge, which was Kiron and Odebolt, la., where he labored from 1903 to 1906. Then followed a call from the Swedish Lutheran churches of Aurora and Sandwich, 111. During his pastorate the Aurora church lifted a heavy debt that had burdened the congregation for many years, and the little con- gregation in Sandwich, being with- out church property, was able to buy a beautiful little church and a substantial parsonage. JOHN ALFRED BENANDER. On November 12, 1908, the Rev. Benander came to Rockford to take up the work in the Salem church, then a poor mission field, receiving financial aid from the Illinois Con- ference. This church is fast forg- ing to the front under the efficient leadership of its pastor and has already become one of the most active and influential in the confer- ence. On August 14, 1912, the con- gregation had the opportunity of moving from a rented hall on Four- teenth avenue to take possession of a large and commodious temple that had been erected at a cost of $30,000. While at school the Rev. Benan- 598 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS der was active in a number of socie- ties ; was treasurer of the Augustana Foreign Missionary Society for three years and was president of his class for a like term. While in Iowa he was secretary of the Sioux City District of the Iowa Conference and president of the Luther League. He ' has been secretary, vice-president and president of the Rockford Dis- trict of the Illinois Conference; has been vice-president and is now president of the Rockford District Luther League. He has served on the executive committee of the Illi- nois Conference Luther League and holds now the office of literary sec- retary of the same body. The Rev. Benander was married, June 22, 1904, to Miss Minnie J. Engquist. of Harcourt, la. They have no children of their own, but have assumed the care of a boy and girl, children of a sister who died some time ago. The pastor and his family live in a spacious residence that has been provided for them at 1214 Seventeenth avenue. C. G. W. SANDEHN, dry goods merchant, is a native of Sweden, being born in Jonkoping, on June 3, 1861. Having attended the collegiate school in his native city for some years, he emigrated to America in September, 1876. The family settled in Galva, 111., where young Sandehn continued his studies during the winter of that year. The following spring he ob- tained employment with R. R. Cable & Co. at Cable, 111., and left there for Rockford in 1879. Here he en- tered the employ of George Mills. Half a year later he was employed in the dry goods house of S. Win- throw, remaining until September, 1 88 1, when he changed to C. W. Brown & Co., and next to D. J. Stewart & Co., where he continued until May, 1896, when he, together with L. K. Ross, opened a dry goods house on Seventh street, under the firm name of Sandehn & Ross. In September, 1901, Mr. Sandehn became the sole owner and C. G. W. SANDEHN. continued the business alone until the following February, when he closed out and became a stockholder and director in the firm of D. J. Stewart & Co., the largest dry goods house of Rockford. He still re- mains with this firm, and is at pres- ent manager of the ladies' ready-to- wear department. Mr. Sandehn has been married twice. In 1888 he was married to Miss Carolina Johnson, daughter of A. C. Johnson, a pioneer furniture maker of Rockford. They have had five children, three sons and two daughters. One son died in infancy ; one daughter, Martha, died January 599 n, 1915^ nineteen and a half years old. The oldest son, C. H. Sandehn, is assistant manager in his father's department. The second son, Cooper, is attending college. After his wife's death in Upland, Cal., February 5, 1906, Mr. Sandehn married Miss Celia V. Beckstrand in 1907. Of this marriage there is a daughter, now four years old. He is a Republican in politics and has served one year as vice-presi- dent of the Swedish-American Re- publican League of Illinois. For six years he held the office of county supervisor. He belongs to the First Swedish Lutheran Church, on whose trustee board he has been a member for thirteen years. ANDREW DANIEL BODFORS, organist and teacher of music, was born December 13, 1871, in Cam- bridge, Minn., where his parents were farmers. He received his first education in the public schools of his native town, and then began to study music with the Rev. J. P. Neander, then pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Minn. In September, 1887, he matriculated in the Musical Con- servatory of Augustana College, where his teacher was the celebrated Swedish musician, Dr. Gustave Stolpe, and graduated from there in June, 1891. In 1892 and 1893 he was organist in the Augustana Church at Minneapolis. The following two years Mr. Bodfors studied at the Royal Acad- emy of Music of Stockholm, Sweden, and was honored with the position of assistant organist in the chapel of the Royal Palace during 1895. The same year he was called to fill the position of teacher of music at Augustana College. He accepted the invitation and held this position for nine years, when in 1904 he removed to Rock ford. In this city he opened a school of music "in September of the same year, and was elected organist of the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church on Jan. i, 1905, a position which he has held ANDREW DANIEL EODFORS. since. He is also a trustee of the church, going on the seventh year. Professor Bodfors was united in the holy bonds of matrimony June 26, 1901, to Miss Alma S. Wahl- berg, of Moline, 111. This union has been blessed with one son, Franz, who is six years old. The family re- sides at 302 South Madison street. ALFRED ANDERSON, one of the pioneers in the furniture industry of Rockford, was born in Vestergotland, Sweden, April 19, 1849. He is the son of John Wigren and his wife, Hedda Wigren, nee 600 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Johanson. His father was a car- penter. In 1872, at the age of twenty-three, he came to America and became interested in the manu- facturing concerns of the city of Rockford, with which he worked for a long period. He has retired from active work, but is interested in several factories of Rockford. In politics he votes the Repub- lican ticket, and is a member of ALFRED ANDERSON. the Swedish-American Republican Club. He is a member of the Salem Swedish Lutheran Church, and is married to Miss Ella Peter- son, of Rockford. This union has been blessed with two children. The family home is at 1617 South Fifth street. CHARLES H. KJELLQUIST, one of the best known Swedish- Americans in Rockford. was born in Karrakra, Vestergotland, Sweden, in 1872, and came with his parents to America in 1881. They settled in Rockford, and Mr. Kjellquist has lived here ever since. Having completed his public school education he continued his studies in the Rockford Business College, and then he entered the employ of the first business firm that was started on Seventh street, famous as "the Swede Street." He held various responsible positions with prominent firms, and in 1900 he organized, with John A. Bowman, the Bowman & Kjellquist Clothing Co., a firm which has enjoyed a constant growth until it is now one of the largest of its kind in the city of Rockford. In 1906 Mr. Kjellquist was ap- pointed State Food Inspector by Governor Charles S. Deneen, and this office he filled for a period of nine years in a creditable way. In September, 1914, he was nominated with a large majority, Republican candidate for the office of County Treasurer of Winnebago County, and at the following election, on November 3, he received an over- whelming majority to this very im- portant position, which he is filling to the satisfaction of his constitu- ents. Mr. Kjellquist has always taken an active part in the political life of his city and has always worked for the success of the Re- publican party in national, state and municipal affairs. He has, there- fore, been honored with many po- sitions of trust. As secretary of the Swedish-American Republican Club he was instrumental in strengthening the political influ- ence of his countrymen, and he has also been treasurer of the Young Men's Republican Club. At the annual meeting of the Swed- ish-American Republican League LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 001 of Illinois, at Bloomington, in 1911, Mr. Kjellquist was elected treas- urer of the League and is at present vice president of the Winnebago County branch of the League. As a wide awake and progressive business man Mr. Kjellquist has identified himself with a number of civic and social organizations of the city. He is a member of Rock ford Chamber of Commerce and the fol- CHARLES H. KJELLQUIST. lowing societies : the Free Masons, A. F. & A. M., the Mystic Shrine, A. A. O. N. M. S., the Elks, the Knights of Pythias, Modern Wood- men, Lyran, Rockford R. G. G. V., and others. Mr. Kjellquist has, during his long tenure of office, made a large number of friends and acquaint- ances among all classes of men all around the state; and his popular- ity is best proven by the result at the election of County Treasurer when he received the most enthu- siastic support of his fellow citizens and defeated his competitors for this office. SVEN AUGUST JOHNSON, retired merchant tailor, and one of the Rockford Swedish pioneers from the early fifties, was born in the parish of Wing, Vestergotland, Sweden, November 12, 1831. His parents, Johannes and Annika Romvall, were born in 1793 and 1792 respectively. His father served in the Swedish army for a period of twenty-five years. In Mr. John- son's boyhood days there were few public schools in Sweden, the first grammar school in his neighbor- hood being organized the year he- was confirmed. His early training was, nevertheless, not neglected, as his mother imparted to him the ele- ments of learning. Having learned the tailor's trade in his native province, Mr. John- son at the age of twenty-one emi- grated to America in 1852, coming direct to Rockford. Only a few Swedish families had settled in Rockford previous to Mr. John- son's arrival. Here, as elsewhere, the immigrants were subject to disease, chiefly the cholera, which claimed most of its victims in 1854. Among those who, in this' dark hour, showed themselves most sym- pathetic and self-sacrificing, was young Mr. Johnson. Together with Mr. John Nelson, later inventor of the celebrated Nelson knitting ma- chine, and another young man by the name of Clark, Mr. Johnson without fear of contagion, went from house to house, bringing help and comfort to his stricken coun- trymen. When the First Swedish Lu- theran Church of Rockford was or- ganized, January 15, 1853, Mr. 602 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Johnson was one of those who joined, and he has been an active and honored member of that church ever since. During the first ten years he worked at his trade in the employ of others, but in 1862 he opened a merchant tailoring establishment in Rock ford in partnership with Mr. John Erlander. In 1870 they opened a clothing store. Some '^3'lhv . . SVEN AUGUST JOHNSON. years later, or in 1885, he admitted into partnership Mr. G. A. Wan- strom, who purchased the interest of John Erlander. In 1894, Mr. Johnson bought out Mr. Wanstrom and conducted the business alone, until 1905, when he sold out to his two younger sons, Edward L. and Leanus I. They still continue the business under the name of S. A. Johnson Clothing Co. Mr. Johnson has also been in- terested in the Central Furniture Co., whose president he has been since its organization in 1879. He is a Republican in politics, and has been a member of the city council of Rock ford. In the First Swedish Lutheran Church he has held the office of trustee for a pe- riod of twelve years. Married to Miss Emily Peterson of Kumla, Nerike, since September 3, 1862, he has nine children. He has lived in the same house for forty-five years, at 406 Kishwaukee street. A. L. HULTQUIST, secretary and treasurer of Rockford Standard Furniture Co., was born in the parish of Morlunda, Smaland, Sweden, January 26, 1875. At the age of nine years he came with his parents. Carl G. and Emerentia Christina Hultquist, to America in the spring of 1884. The family set- tled in Cambridge, 111., where young Hultquist attended the public schools and graduated from the high school in 1894. Later he com- pleted a business course in Rock- ford, graduating in the spring of 1895. After leaving business college he associated with his brothers in the retail clothing business until the spring of 1898, when he accepted a position as bookkeeper and office manager with Rockford Standard Furniture Co. This position he held until 1913 ; then he was elected sec- retary and treasurer of the same concern. He has been connected with this company for nineteen years. Mr. Hultquist is a Republican in politics and belongs to the Swedish- American Republican Club of Rock- ford. He has never sought or held public office, as he prefers to divide his time between his business and LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 603 the home. In religion he is a Luth- eran, holding membership in the First Swedish Lutheran Church. His hobby is traveling and fishing, and as a young man he visited all parts of the United States. In the summer of 1913 he also made an extended trip through England, Denmark and Sweden. Mr. Hultquist was united in mar- riage to Miss Hulda Johnson, of A. L. HULTQUIST. Rockford, on September 26, 1911. They have one son, Carl Levi, born August 29, 1914. The family lives at 925 South Third street. JOHN A. BOWMAN, County Recorder of Winnebago County, was born in Smaland, Sweden, January 22, 1860, a son of Samuel A. and Anna G. (Addi- son) Bowman. In 1869 the family came to the United States, and upon landing made their way directly to Rockford. A short time thereafter, they moved to the iron regions of Michigan, where the father worked in the mines. In 1873, he left Michi- gan for South Dakota, where he took up a homestead, and he and the mother lived upon it until their death, the father passing away in 1901, and the mother in April, 1911. In 1884, John A. Bowman left home and going to Battle Springs, S. D., was clerk in a general store for a short time, when he estab- lished himself in the same line of business, continuing to operate until March i, 1890, when he come to Rockford, 111., and engaged in the shoe business. That same year, together with his brother-in-law, Andrew Borg, he built a two story business block and the following year a three story one at the corner of Seventh street and Fourth ave- nue, into which Mr. Bowman moved upon its completion, and continued his shoe business for a year, when he sold it and became secretary of the Royal Sewing Machine Co., now the Illinois Sewing Machine Co. After two years in this con- nection, Mr. Bowman resigned to become secretary of the Excelsior Furniture Co. For two years he was associated with this firm, but resigned and opened a grocery, which he conducted from 1893 until 1899, when he sold out his interest to his partner, Algot Gasslander. In the latter year he went to South Dakota and for a year conducted a shoe store for his brother-in-law. Returning to Rockford, Mr. Bowman and Chas. Kjellquist as partners organized the Bowman & Kjellquist Clothing Co., first lo- cated on East State street and later moved to Seventh street. Upon its reorganization Mr. Bowman be- came president and general mana- 604 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ger. From this position he re- signed in 1908, and engaged in the real estate and loan business, and handled insurance. Mr. Bowman was on the Board of Review from 1907 to 1913, and was then in the fall of the latter year elected County Recorder, being the first man to hold this office in Winne- bago County. He is a director of the Rockford Furniture Co., of which he was the first president, the concern capital- ized for $150,000; a director of the Central Life Insurance Co., of Ot- tawa, 111. He still owns the build- ings he helped to erect, which was the third business block on Seventh street. Fraternally, he is a Ma- son, member of the order of Elks, Odd Fellows and Modern Wood- men. He also holds a membership in the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church, and he has been its treas- urer and a trustee for many years. On November n, 1885, Mr. Bowman was married in South Da- kota to Miss Hannah Hetland. They have six children. CHARLES EMIL SANDBERG was born in the parish of Tunhem, Vestergotland, Sweden, May 21, 1888. He is the son of August Sandberg and his wife, Ellen Wil- helmina, nee Holmin. At the age of two and a half years he came to America with his parents, who set- tled in Ashland, Wis., where young Sandberg attended public school. He learned the printer's trade in the office of Brown & Murray in Ash- land. In the year 1908 he attended the Inland Technical School of Chicago for the purpose of studying lino- typing, and in December the same year he accepted a position with Rockford Printing Co., publishers of Svenska Posten and job printers. He was managing editor of Srenska Posten from February, 1914, until September, 1915, and is at present engaged in the linotype department of Rockford Printing Co. Mr. Sandberg is a Republican in politics, a Lutheran in religion and CHARLES EMIL SANDBERG. a member of the Elks' Club of Rockford. He was married to Miss Elizabeth Bass, of Oconee, 111., Sep- tember 10, 1914, and has one daughter, Jane Ellen. The family resides at 1327 Crosby street. GUSTAF ANDERSON, wholesale grocer, was born June 23, 1862, in the parish of Vanga, Ves- tergotland, Sweden, where his par- ents, A. J. and Anna Maria Bengt- son, were farmers. In 1882 he came to America and worked as a molder until 1890. In May, 1890, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 60=) he became interested with Mr. O. L. Fredriksen in the retail grocery business at 411 E. State street, Rockford, 111. In 1893 the firm of Fredriksen & Anderson opened up a store in Ninth street, Rockford, and in 1897 bought the Barb City Grocery Co., De Kalb, 111., which Mr. Anderson managed for two years. In 1899 they opened a store at 622 Seventh street in De Kalb, and the same year disposed of the GUSTAF ANDERSON. Ninth street store in Rockford. In 1900, together with O. L. Fredrik- sen, A. Lawson and Chas. Sanborn, he organized the Janesville Whole- sale Grocery Co., Janesville, Wis., of which he became vice-president. In 1902 he sold out his interest in the Janesville Grocery Co., and with O. L. Fredriksen, J. A. Fritz and V. Norrlander, organized the Globe Grocery Co., the corporation buying the grocery holdings of Fredriksen & Anderson. Later he disposed of his interest in the Globe Grocery Co. In the same year he, together with O. L. Fredriksen, organized and incorporated the Forest City Wholesale Grocery Co., of 725-731 Seventh street, Rockford, of which he is the president. This business is still carried on successfully. The two partners are jointly interested in considerable real estate holdings and are joint owners of the build- ing housing the Forest City Whole- sale Grocery Co. Mr. Anderson is a Democrat in politics, a member of the Baptist Church and one of the directors in the Swedish- American Hospital As- sociation. He was married, August 28, 1888, to Miss Emma Bernhardina Uggla, who was born in Jala parish, Yestergotland. They have four children and reside at 726 Seminary street. OLOF JOHNSON, pastor of the Swedish Methodist Church, of Rockford, is the son of John Nelson, a building contractor, and his wife, Maria Johnson. The father is still living at Karlshanm, Sweden, strong and healthy in spite of his 87 years. Their son Olof was born October 11, 1861, in the parish of Hallaryd, near Karlshanm. and is the third of seven children. He obtained his public school education in the home parish and came to America in 1887, where he was variously employed until he entered the Swedish Methodist Theological Seminary at Evanston, 111., graduat- ing from that institution in 1889. He had joined the Methodist Church in 1884 and was made a local preacher in 1886. The Rev. Johnson has served the following pastoral charges in sue- 606 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS cession: Englewood, in Chicago; Des Moines, la. ; Victoria ; Gales- burg; Geneva; Union Avenue, in Chicago; May Street, in Chicago; Roseland, in Chicago, and in 1914 he received his appointment at Rockford. In 1888 he made a trip back to the old country, visiting his parents in the old homestead and traveling extensively throughout the country, OLOF JOHNSON. visiting historic places and points of interest. The Rev. Johnson has been twice married, first to Miss Selma Hult- man, of Des Moines, la., in 1892. Having lost her by death in 1902, at Geneva, he was married October 4, 1904, to Miss Ina Sandborg, a daughter of Edward and Mary Sandborg, of Galesburg, born Jan- uary 15, 1867. There are two chil- dren of the first marriage, viz., Frances Linnea, born in Victoria, 111., February 16, 1893, who now is a school teacher in Chicago, a son, Lawrence Emanuel, a student in the law department of Northwestern University, was born March 26, 1896. The second union has been blessed with one daughter, Maurie E. L. The present home of the pastor and his family is at 734 First avenue. VICTOR M. JOHNSON, secretary and general manager of the Free Sewing Machine Co.. was born in Rockford, 111., April 7, 1872, and is one of the sons of the well-known Swedish pioneer in Rockford, Mr. S. A. Johnson. Ed- ucated in the public schools of his native city, Mr. Johnson was grad- uated from the high school in 1891. While in high school he edited, with one associate, The Owl, a school publication which was highly successful and profitable. For six years after graduation he was asso- ciated with his father in the S. A. Johnson Clothing Co., handling the buying and the principal part of the selling of the ready-made clothing, furnishings, etc. For three years, commencing in 1897, he was secre- tary of the Skandia Furniture Co., of Rockford. In 1899 he took a responsible po- sition with the Free Sewing Ma- chine Co., and has been connected with this company for the last eighteen years, the' greater part of this time in an official capacity. In 1910 he organized the John- son Advertising Co., of Chicago, was its president and manager for two years, and made it a great suc- cess. This company still bears Mr. Johnson's name and is one of the largest and most successful adver- tising agencies in Chicago. The offices of the Free Sewing LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 607 Machine Company were located in Chicago from 1901 to 1913. Dur- ing the twelve years Mr. Johnson resided in Chicago he was presi- dent of the Ridgeway Club on In- diana avenue, and a member of the Hamilton Club. Mr. Johnson is connected with the Illinois Sewing Machine Co., Rockford, as secretary and di- rector; the Jarrell Co., Rockford, VICTOR M. JOHNSON. as treasurer and director ; the Rock- ford Book Case Co., as director and the Johnson Advertising Co., as di- rector. He has been secretary-treasurer in past years of the Swedish- American Republican Club and is director in the Swedish-American Hospital Association. He also holds membership in the following social organizations : Chicago Ath- letic Association; Aldine Club, N. Y.; Rockford Country Club; 13. P. O. Elks Lodge, No. 64, Rock- ford ; Modern Woodmen, and the Rockford Motor Club. He belongs to the First Congregational Church, Rockford, and resides at 1725 East State street. He was united in marriage to Miss Louise Ruth Clarke, of Beloit, Wis., March 10, 1897. They have three children. AUGUST E. BARGREN, chief of police of the city of Rock- ford, was born March i, 1863, in the parish of Wing, Vestergotland, Sweden, where his father was a la- borer. When he was five years of age he came to Rockford with his parents. After attending Kish- waukee grade school at Rockford until twelve years of age, young Bargren worked in a candy factory until the age of twenty, when he opened a confectionery store of his own and conducted the business for two years. The following three years he was in the employ of the United States Express Co., and was with the Adams Express Co. for two years. Subsequently he joined the police department in Rcckford as a patrolman. After four years on the force, he was appointed chief of police, a position which he has retained since 1894. having been reappointed by every succeed- ing administration. Mr. Bargren is a Republican in politics and a member of the Swed- ish Republican Club. Religiously, he is a Lutheran, and he holds membership in a number of profes- sional and fraternal organizations, as the Masons, Shriners, Modern Woodmen, Red Men, B. P. O., Elks, Loyal Order of Moose, Royal Arcanum and North Star Benefit Association. lie is also a member of Sveas Soner, Rockford Motor 608 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Club and Olympic Athletic Club, Rockford Country Club, and Ger- mania Gesang Verein ; of the two last mentioned he is an honorary member. He has been on the police force of Rockford more than a quarter of a century, and is today looked upon as one of the most capable po- lice officials in the land. Chief Bargren has special qualifications AUGUST E. BARGREN. for the responsible position he holds, being a psychologist, a so- ciologist and logician, who under- stands human nature and the best means of handling criminals and petty offenders. It is Chief Bar- gren's constructive genius that has made Rockford's police department the institution it now is. And the best that can be said about him is that during his long career the stigma of corruption has never been fastened upon the name of this chief of police. He was married on March 28, 1883, to Miss Josephine Spencer, of Beloit, Wis., and has two chil- dren, Howard Spencer, born 1886, and Lucile Isabelle, born 1895. The family lives at 628 North First street. ALFRED T. LINDGREN, secretary of the Swedish Building and Loan Association and organ- ist of the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Rockford, 111., was born January 15, 1852, in Lindasen of Hellestad parish, Vestergotland, Sweden. His father, Johannes Jonsson, was a farm owner and clothing merchant, holding positions of honor such as commercial chair- man and parish juryman in Giis- ened County Court. His mother, Kajsa Andersdotter, was a miller's daughter of Gullakra, Trevattna parish. Both parents passed away in Sweden. Mr. Lindgren graduated in pub- lic school and had private tuition in Sweden until sixteen years of age, when he came to America, ar- riving in Galesburg, 111., June 6, 1868. By diligent study he soon acquired English and took a course in a business college, also studying music in the Knox College Conser- vatory. In the fall of 1871, Mr. Lind- gren came to Chicago and became a clerk in Lars E. Lindberg's gro- cery store on Division street. This was shortly before the great Chi- cago fire. From this immense con- flagration he fled with the homeless thousands across the Division Street bridge to the prairie west of the river. After the fire Mr. Lindgren returned to Galesburg. where he, in 18/2, became office LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 609 boy in the superintendent's office of the C. B. & O. Ry Co., where he was promoted to clerk, cashier, and chief clerk of the Galesburg di- vision, having been two years, 1887-88, in the general superintend- ent's office in Chicago. On October 19, 1873, Mr. Lind- gren became organist in the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Gales- burg, 111., serving until January, ALFRED T. LINDGREN. 1890, when he resigned both posi- tions and came to Rockford and there became secretary of the Swedish Building and Loan Asso- ciation and organist of the First Swedish Lutheran Church, which work he still has charge of. Although not a professional mu- sician, his love for the organ and church music has kept him engaged in this work for forty-three succes- sive years as organist, choir and chorus leader in two of the largest Swedish Lutheran Churches in America. In April, 1914, he was appointed a member of the committee to rep- resent Rockford in the National Star Spangled Banner Centennial Celebration held in Baltimore, Sep- tember 6 to 15, 1914. Mr. Lindgren has donated an or- gan fund to his native church in Sweden, and has granted a loan without interest for aiding in build- ing their new church. Mr. Lindgren presented to the I m m a n u e 1 Swedish Lutheran Church of Chicago, on its sixtieth anniversary, January 16, 1913, a copy of Hemlandet of October 14, 1871, the first Swedish newspaper issued in Chicago after the great fire, this historic relic being en- closed in an attractive frame. This valuable gift now occupies a prom- inent place in said church edifice. On January 25, 1882, Mr. Lind- gren married Miss Nellie Fredrika Olson of Knoxville, 111. This union has been blessed with one daughter. The family resides at 427 East State street. ALFRED LARSON, superintendent of the Co-operative Furniture Co., of Rockford, was born in the parish of Sjogerstad, Yestergotland, Sweden, October 6, 1860. He is the son of Lars Krantz, a carpenter, and his wife, Anna Christina Kling. Mr. Larson came to America in June, 1880, and worked as a blacksmith for the Rock Island Plow Co. the first eight years. In June, 1888, he moved to Rockford, where he bought stock in the Rockford Co-operative Furni- ture Co. and began to work as a cabinetmaker. In 1899 he was elected director of this company ; in 1902 he became its president, and 610 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in 1904 superintendent, which posi- tion he now holds. He is also a stockholder in the Rockford World Furniture Co., the National Lock Co., Rockford Varnish Co. and Su- perior Mirror Co. Mr. Larson is a Republican in politics and a member of the Swedish-American Republican Club of Rockford. He also holds mem- bership in the Modern Woodmen Society. ALFRED LARSON. Married on November 8, 1887, to Miss Anna Lovisa Arnstedt, of Hjertlanda, Sweden, he is the father of five children. The family lives at 909 Kishwaukee street. JOHN ERLANDER, 1 retired merchant tailor, and one of the Swedish pioneers of Rockford, was born in the parish of Slatthog, Smaland, Sweden, April 7, 1826. His parents were Jons and Stina Person, and his father followed the trade of a carpenter. Born several years before the public school sys- 1 Deceased, Feb. 14, 1917. tern was in general vogue in Sweden, the only book learning he received in his boyhood was to read the Bible and Catchecism with his father as tutor. At the age of twelve he became an apprentice with a country tailor, who, accord- ing to the custom of the times, went from house to house sewing for his customers. In the month of April, 1854, Mr. Erlander left Goteborg in a small sailing vessel "Lulea" and was seven weeks on the voyage to New York. From New York to Chicago he journeyed partly by rail in~a cat- tle car, and partly by canal boats. The first year he worked at his trade with a Swedish tailor, Gadde, on Kinzie street, in Chicago, but left for Rockford in the following summer. Here he found employ- ment with S. R. Franklin, and afterwards, with John Fraley, who owned the only sewing machine in Rockford. For two years Erlander was the only man in Rockford who knew how to use it. When he went into partnership with Mr. S. A. Johnson, organizing the clothiers, furnishers and merchant tailor firm of Erlander & Johnson, they be- came owners of this machine. This firm, which did a prosperous busi- ness from 1860 to 1885, was the first of its kind in Rockford. Mr. Erlander has also been in- terested in the various manufactur- ing concerns of Rockford. In his home at 402 South Third street, the Union Furniture Company was organized, and he became its first president. He has also the honor of being the first president of the Swedish Mutual Fire Ins. Co., or- ganized 1873, and held this office LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 611 for thirty years. The last twenty- six years he has been one of the directors in the Central Furniture Co., and is stockholder and charter member of the Manufacturers' Na- tional Bank. In politics Mr. Erlander has voted the Republican ticket, and he held the office of county supervisor from 1878 to 1887. In all matters pertaining to his church he has taken a lively interest. He has been JOHN ERLANDER. a member of the First Swedish Lu- theran Church since 1855, where he was a trustee, 1857-58, 1870-74, 1875-77, ar >d usually president of the board. For a number of years he was an officer of the Sunday school. He has often served as a lay delegate to the various confer- ence and synodical meetings, and several times as a member of the synodical council of the Augustana Synod, and delegate to the General Council of the Lutheran Church. When the Augustana Hospital in Chicago was organized, he was one of its first directors and collected over $1,300 in cash and merchan- dise in Rockford for the hospital at the time of its beginning. Mr. Erlander was a lay delegate to the meeting at Jefferson Prairie, Wis., June 5-10, 1860, when the Augustana Synod was organized. He was the last surviving lay mem- ber of that meeting. At the great celebration of the fiftieth anniver- sary in Rock Island, 1910, of the organization of the Synod, Mr. Er- lander was one of the guests of honor. Mr. Erlander has been married twice. His first wife, whom he married December 24, 1855, was Stina Kajsa Pettersdotter, of Ver- namo, Smaland, Sweden ; and De- cember 12, 1857, ne married her sister, Ingrid Stina Pettersdotter, the Rev. A. Andreen officiating at both weddings. One son was born in the first marriage, and five sons and two daughters were born in the second. The family resides at 404 South Third street. CARL FREDRIK ANDERSON, retired manufacturer, was born in the parish of Dinebo, Vestergotland, Sweden, April 16, 1840. His father, Anders Nilson, was a veterinary surgeon. He came to Rockford in 1873 and found employment in the Union Furniture Co. and Rockford Chair Co. factories, where he soon became one of the stockholders. Since then he has been interested in organizing factories of different kinds, of which he has been part owner. At present he is a director and president of the Rockford Varnish Co., director in the Swedish Home- 612 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS builders' Loan Association, and is interested in the First National Bank, the Rockford Lock Co. and the Rockford Drop Forge Co. In May, 1905, he withdrew from ac- tive service and is now enjoying a well-earned rest. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church, and was chairman of the Board of Deacons when this church was or- CARL FREDRIK ANDERSON. ganized. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Illinois Conference. Married since November 18, 1872, he has two children. JOHAN FREDRIK SEEDOFF, pastor of the First Swedish Lu- theran Church of Rockford, was born in the parish of Askeby, Oster- gotland, Sweden, April 21, 1861. Having completed his elementary education, he continued his studies at the Fjellstedt School of Upsala for a period of five years, where- upon, in 1882, he emigrated to America, where he entered the Augustana College at Rock Island, 111., graduating from that institu- tion in the spring of 1886. In the fall of the same year he was matriculated at the Augus- tana Theological Seminary, com- pleting his theological course in May, 1888. On June 24, the same year, he was ordained minister at Galesburg, 111., and immediately took charge of the Swedish Lu- theran Church of Topeka, Kan., which he served until September, 1890, when he removed to Chisago Lake, Minn., to become pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church of that place. Here he remained until 1896, when he received a call from the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Rockford, to become the suc- cessor of his friend, the Rev. Joel L. Haff, who died in February of that year, after a pastorate com- prising only ten months. In the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Rockford the Rev. See- doff has labored for more than twenty years, with continued and increasing success. During this long pastorate he has shown him- self to be one of the most able and powerful ministers in the synod. Having assumed charge under un- favorable auspices, lack of employ- ment compelling hundreds of mem- bers not owning homes to leave the city shortly after he entered upon his duties as pastor in Rockford, the Rev. Seedoff succeeded not only in materially increasing the mem- bership of his congregation, but also wiped out the debt remaining from the time the large present church edifice was built ( 1883- 84), this without having to re- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 613 sort to arranging bazaars and other entertainments. The last in- stallment of the debt was paid in 1902. From that time the church work has progressed without finan- cial stress, although a costly par- sonage has been purchased and thousands of dollars have been ex- pended in repairs on the church property. At the fiftieth anniver- sary, January 15-18, 1904, of the JOHAN FREDR1K SEEDOFF. founding of the church, an illus- trated souvenir album, edited by the Rev. Seedoff, was published at the expense of the young people of the church. The Rev. Seedoff has faithfully served his denomination also in the capacity of member of many im- portant boards. He was a member of the board of Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., for five years, Augustana Hospital in Chicago for six years, the Board of Charities of the Illinois Conference for four years, and the executive committee of the same conference for one year. At the present he is a mem- ber of the board of directors of Augustana College and Theological Seminary for the second term, hav- ing been re-elected at the synod- ical meeting in Galesburg in June, 1916. In 1896, the Rev. Seedoff. to- gether with the Revs. Joel L. Haff and Theo. Kjellgren, started a monthly publication with the title, Ungdomsvanncn. This paper in 1900 was bought by the Augustana Book Concern at Rock Island, and is still in existence. On March 20, 1890, the Rev. Seedoff was married to Miss Maria Lundgren of Sandviken, Sweden. WILLARD A. BROLIN, secretary and treasurer of Skandia Furniture Co., was born in Rock- ford, 111., January 2, 1865. He is the son of C. J. Brolin, a machinist, and his wife, Eva G. Brolin, nee Carlson. He attended the grammar school of his native city and has since then followed a business career which has been eminently successful. He is interested in a number of the manufacturing enter- prises which have made Rockford one of the largest manufacturing centers in Illinois. Mr. Brolin is president of the fol- lowing concerns : National Mirror Works, Rockford Milling Machine Co., Rockford Furniture Co. and Sundstrand Adding Machine Co., and vice-president of Skandia Coal & Lumber Co. Besides this he is a director in People's Bank & Trust Co., Skandia Furniture Co., Skandia Coal & Lumber Co., National Lock 614 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Co., Rockford Furniture Co., Stone- field-Evans Shoe Co., Royal Mantel & Furniture Co., Rockford Desk Co., Rockford Milling Machine Co., Rockford Tool Co., Rockford Ma- chine Tool Co., Rockford Varnish Co., Rockford Drilling Machine Co., Rockford Transfer Co. and Rockford Manufacturers' & Ship- pers' Association. In politics Mr. Brolin is a Repub- lican and a member of the Swedish- WILLARD A. BROLIN. American League of Rockford. He was married in Rockford, June 12, 1895, to Miss Augusta C. Magnu- son, with whom he has seven chil- dren. The family resides at 215 East street. OSCAR LUDVIG FREDRIK- SEN, wholesale grocer, is a native of Jala parish, Vestergotland, Sweden, where he was born, October i, 1867. His parents, Axel A. and Anna Fredriksen, were farmers. At the age of nine he came to America with his parents and attended the common schools of this country. Subsequently he worked at different occupations until 1887, when he ob- tained a position as delivery boy with Johnson & Harding, retail gro- cers. He retained this position until the summer of 1889, when he be- came a member of the firm of O. W. Haegg & Co., retail grocers. In May, 1890, he became inter- ested with Mr. Gustaf Anderson in OSCAR LUDVIG FREDRIKSEN. forming the firm of Fredriksen & Anderson, which succeeded O. W. Haegg & Co., and continued the business successfully at 411 E. State street, Rockford. In 1897 they bought and obtained possession of Barb City Grocery Co., De Kalb, 111., and further in 1899 opened a store at 622 Seventh street, De Kalb. All these ventures proved success- ful and the firm later disposed of the Ninth street, Rockford, store, and the store in De Kalb. In 1900 Mr. Fredriksen, together with Mr. Gustaf Anderson and others, organ- ized and incorporated the Janesville LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 615 Wholesale Grocery Co., and to- gether with Gustaf Anderson, J. A. Fritz and V. Norrlander, organized the Globe Grocery Co. In the same year, November, 1902, in partnership with Gustaf Anderson, he organized and incor- porated the Forest City Wholesale Grocery Co., at 725-731 Seventh street, Rockford, of which Mr. Fredriksen is the secretary and treasurer. This business is still car- ried on successfully. The two part- ners are interested jointly in con- siderable real estate holdings and are joint owners of the building housing the Forest City Wholesale Grocery Co. Mr. Fredriksen is a Republican in politics, is a member of the Lu- theran Church and holds member- ship in the Royal Arcanum. Married since September n, 1895, to Miss Anna Paulina Sward, of Jala parish, he has five children. The family resides at 617 North Second street. CARL OSCAR WESTER, superintendent of Free Sewing Ma- chine Co., Rockford, was born June 21, 1866, at Dylta Bruk, Nerike, Sweden. His parents were Per Wester and his wife, Johanna Nel- son. When he had received his pub- lic school education and attended evening schools at O'rebro, he emi- grated to America in 1886 and obtained work first with the Rock- ford Watch Co. Afterwards he was employed by the Pullman Car Co. Coming back to Rockford, he has been employed by the Excelsior Furniture Co., the Union Special, the Skandia Plow Co., the Nelson Knitting Co. and subsequently with the Free Sewing Machine Co., where he began in the toolmakers' experimental department ; after- wards he became a master mechanic and is now holding the office of superintendent in the same com- pany. Mr. Wester is a member of the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church and holds membership in the Rockford CARL OSCAR WESTER. Engineering Society and the Ma- sonic Order. Married since 1901 to Miss Anna C. Erickson, of Orebro, he has one daughter. The family resides at 904 South Fifth street. J. AUGUST CARLSTROM was born in the parish of Alboka, Oland, May 30, 1864. His early boyhood was spent on a farm in hard work. He came to America in the spring of 1881 with his father. His first employment in the New World was on a farm in 616 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Ogle county, where he remained a year and a half. His father re- turned to Sweden in 1884. For a period of four years Mr. Carlstrom attended the Wells School at Oregon, 111., living in the home of Professor Wells while working his way through school. Having taught school for a few semesters, he went to St. Paul, Minn., where he worked in the re- tail shoe business for a few vears. J. AUGUST CARLSTROM. The firm by which he was employed sent him to manage branch stores in Omaha, Denver, Fergus Falls, N D., Quincy, 111., and Rochester. N. Y7 Mr. Carlstrom came to Rockford in the spring of 1893 an d secured a position with Rockford Mirror Plate Co., which finally changed to Rockford Frame & Fixture Co. He started as a bookkeeper and worked his way up to secretary and treas- urer of the company. In 1907 he became connected with some busi- ness men, with whom he started the Excel Manufacturing Co., of Rock- ford, in which he fills the position of secretary and treasurer. Mr. Carlstrom was married in 1891 and has two sons. CARL GUSTAF E. SANDSTEDT was born at Sjovik, in the parish of Sands jo, Smaland, Sweden. August 28, 1866. His parents, P. A. and Hilda L. Sandstedt, were farmers. Having graduated from the public CARL GUSTAF E. SANDSTEDT. school of Sandsjo, he entered the military school of Helsingborg, where he was graduated in 1885. Subsequently he attended Brown's Business College. In April, 1893, he came to America and worked for four years in the factory of Forest City Fur- niture Co. and one year on a farm. The following seven years he was employed with the Free Sewing Machine Co. of Rockford, and has since conducted a grocery store in his own name at 104 Seventh street. Mr. Sandstedt is a Republican in politics and is a member of the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 617 Swedish Lutheran Zion Church. He is a Master Mason in Rockford Lodge, Xo. 102, and a member of Winnebago Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons. He was united in marriage in 1892 to Miss Anna L. Sandstedt, from Sjovik, Sandsjo, Sweden. They have one daughter, Ragnhild, and reside at 1046 East State street. CARL A. ROSELAND was born April 28, 1865, in the parish of Killeberg, Skane, Sweden, where his father, N. P. Roseland, was a coppersmith. He arrived at Princeton, 111., in the early spring of 1885 and immediately went to work on a farm. In addition to his trade, that of a tin and coppersmith, he also had acquired knowledge oi telegraphy and had been employed by the Southern Branch of the State Railways in Sweden. It was his intention to continue in the same line of work in America, but in or- der to do that he must first learn the language learn to read and write English. He therefore en- tered a private school in December of that year and studied strenuously all winter, and in the spring of 1886 he found employment in railroad work. He soon saw, however, that his trade offered bigger opportunities in this country than anything else within his reach, and having heard that Rockford was a growing manu- facturing town, he decided in the spring of 1887 to go there. Here he immediately found employment at his original trade and held his position until the year 1900, when he decided to start a business of his own under the name of the Rose- land Can & Specialty Co., manu- facturers of tin cans and general lines of tinware. Mr. Roseland is the treasurer and general manager of this enterprise, with offices at 203-209 Prairie street. The com- pany's plant has grown rapidly and at present it gives employment to seventy-five persons. Mr. Roseland is a member of the First Swedish P>aptist Church, CARL A. ROSELAND. where he holds the office of trustee and treasurer. He is director of the Swedish-American Hospital As- sociation, a Free Mason of all de- grees, an Elk, a Modern Woodman, a member of A. & F., Royal Ar- canum and Nobles of Mystic Shrine. He serves on the building committee of the new Shrine Tem- ple now being erected, is a mem- ber of the Manufacturers' and Ship- pers' Association and the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Roseland was married to Miss Charlotta Dalin in 1890. They reside at 613 Jefferson street. CIS THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS WILL J. JOHNSON was born December 9, 1863.111 Win- nebago county, Illinois, and has lived in the same county all his life. He was graduated from the Rock ford High School in 1881, and intended to learn the baker's trade, having worked after school hours and on Saturdays in a baking shop. But he was offered a position as re- porter by both local dailies the night WILL J. JOHNSON. he graduated, accepted one the next morning and has been in the news- paper work ever since, a period of thirty-six years. The last sixteen years he has been on the staff of the Register-Gazette, and has for six years been a member of American Press Humorists. Mr. Johnson was married in 1887 and has three sons, all living Sid- ney, Howard and Warren. One of the sons is a reporter on the Rock- ford Morning Star, following in the steps of his father. Mr. Johnson has never sought public office and never held any, though he has ma- terially aided many persons in their political ambitions. He lives with his family at 1832 Oxford street, where he owns his home. GUSTAF FLODELL, bookseller and steamship agent, was born in Gudhem, near Falkoping, Sweden, March 12, 1845. His par- ents, Lars and Stina Santeson, were farmers. He received his ed- GUSTAF FLODELL. ucation in Sweden and came to America in 1869. At 310 East Seventh street for a number of years he conducted a book store and steamship agency, which later was moved to 809 Third avenue. He is president of the Swedish Mutual Fire Insurance Co., and director of the Central Furniture Co. In politics he is a Republican, and is a member of the Lutheran Church. Mr. Flodell has been married twice. His first wife was Eva Pe- terson, who was born and raised in the same place in Sweden as LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 619 her husband. They were married in April, 1870, and she died July 18, 1903. No children were born in this marriage. On August i, 1909, he was married to Miss Ida Josephine Johnson, of Minnesota, and two children have been born to them. ANDERS KJELLGREN was born in Erikstorp, in the par- ish of Grolanda, Vestergdtland, Sweden, May 16, 1846. His par- ANDERS KJELLGREN. ents, Johannes and Anna Petro- nella Kjellgren, were farmers. He came to America in 1864 and learned the trade of a cabinet- maker. In the early eighties he started with other friends the Rock- ford Chair & Furniture Company and became its first president ; he has also been president of the Su- perior Furniture Co. since its be- ginning about six years ago. One of the very first Swedish business enterprises in Rockford is the Union Furniture Company, and Mr. Kjellgren is one of its charter mem- bers and is still a director in the same. He belongs to the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church, where he served as deacon and organist at its be- ginning. Previously, or in the early seventies, he was for a period of eight years organist in the First Swedish Lutheran Church. Mr. Kjellgren has traveled ex- tensively, not only in Europe, but in the Holy Land and adjacent countries. He is married since 1876 to Christina Mathilda Sullberg, from Morlunda, Sweden, with whom he has seven children. He has one child in a previous marriage. LEVIN FAUST was born February 16, 1863, m the city of Falkoping, Vestergotland, Sweden, where his parents were farmers. He worked on the farm for his father until the age of twenty, when he decided to follow a mechanical profession, and ob- tained employment in Motala Me- chanical \Yorks. After two years he secured similar work at Atlas Mechanical Works at Stockholm, where he was occupied as a me- chanic for two years. In 1887 he made up his mind to emigrate to the United States, and in the early spring of the same year he landed in New York. He went directly to Rockford, 111., and worked for three years at W. F. & John Barnes' machine shop. In 1890 he founded Mechanics' Ma- chine Co., of which concern he has been secretary up to February, 1916. At the present time he is president 620 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS of Rockford Drilling Machine Co., secretary of Rockford Drop Forge Co., treasurer of Mechanics' Ma- chine Co., vice-president of Rock- ford Tool Co. and director of Rock- ford Milling Machine Co. Outside of business he has inter- ested himself considerably in get- ting a modern park system for the city of Rockford. He has for five years in succession been president of the Pockford Park District. Mr. LEVIN FAUST. Faust has always taken a great in- terest in the Swedish singing or- ganizations and has been president of Sveas Soner Chorus for about fifteen years. J. FRANKLIN NELSON, son of the famous inventor, John Nelson, and himself an inventor of wide reputation, was born in the city of Rockford, 111., July 26, 1868. His mother's name was Eva Chris- tine, nee Person. In his search after knowledge, he went through Cornell College, having previously graduated from the high school at Rockford. He inherited his father's genius for mechanics, and gave himself to the perfecting of the wonderful knitting machine. As a final result of his own tireless energy and the co-labors of his father and broth- ers, we see today the Nelson ma- chine as the only one in the world being able to knit a rib-top sock without a seam. Mr. Nelson is a director of the great Forest City Knitting Com- pany. In politics he is a Republi- can. He is a prominent member of the Masonic order and the Knights of Pythias. In August, 1902, he was mar- ried to Miss Hulda Larson, born in Sweden. They have two chil- dren. A. E. FREBURG, druggist, was born in the parish of Gudhem, near Falkoping, Sweden, August 14, 1877. His parents were P. A. Freburg and his wife, Alber tina, nee Setterberg. Having gradu- ated from the high school in Wood- hull, 111., he entered the Chicago College of Pharmacy in 1898 and studied at the Highland Park Col- lege of Pharmacy in 1901. While attending college he worked at night in several drug stores in Chi- cago. In 1903 he opened a drug store of his own, People's Phar- macy, at 409 Seventh street, Rock- ford ; later he erected a new build- ing and moved into the same in 1908. Mr. Freburg is president of the Seventh Street Business Men's As- sociation since 1913, director of Swedish-American National Bank, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 621 director of the Swedish-American Hospital Association and vice-presi- dent of Winnebago County Repub- lican Association. He was also a director of the Chamber of Com- merce 1912-13. He belongs to the Presbyterian Church and holds membership in several fraternal or- ganizations the Masonic, K. of P., Elks, Odd Fellows, Vikings, Svithiod, Modern Woodmen, Svea Seiner and Lvran. A. E. FREBURG. He was married to Miss Mattie L. Elmer, September 22, 1902. They have one daughter. ROSS P. BECKSTROM, the able superintendent of the Rock- ford city water works, was born in DeKalb, 111., June 19, 1885. His parents were Oscar F. Beckstrom, a chief engineer, and Minnie Berg- land. In the public and high schools of Rockford he received his theo- retical preparation for his life work. As an engineer and contractor, Mr. Beckstrom attained the high- est reputation while yet a very young man. Some of the largest projects in his home city have been entirely entrusted to him. In 1906 he supervised the erection of the Rockford Malleable Works, a plant covering eight acres. During the past six years he has built up an immense business of his own, known as the Ross P. Beckstrom Company. This concern, of which ROSS P. BECKSTROM. he is the president, has erected the largest reinforced concrete struc- tures in Rockford. Some of these measure over 700 feet in length and 200 feet in width. The remarkable engineering feat which brought fame and honor to Mr. Beckstrom was performed in 1912, when Rockford's only water reservoir sprang aleak and it be- came necessary to construct a new reservoir in the shortest possible time. In this emergency, the city turned to Mr. Beckstrom, who com- pleted the enormous task, from the foundation to the roof, within six 622 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS weeks. Night and day this great work was pushed. The splendid solution of that difficult problem paved the way for his present ap- pointment. Mr. Beckstrom is also president of the Rockford Concrete Company. He is a member of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, and of the Swedish-American Re- publican Club. He holds member- ship in the American Water Works Association and the Illinois Water Supply Association. His religious faith is Lutheran. Three years he served as trustee of the Emmanuel Lutheran Church. He is president of the Luther League. His residence is at 909 Seminary street. Mr. Beckstrom is not married. FRITHIOF NELSON one of Rockford's leading manu- facturers, was born July 18, 1865, in Rockford, 111., where his father, John Nelson, laid the foundation for the modern knitting industry by inventing and perfecting the re- markable knitting machine. His mother was Eva Christine, nee Per- son. A completed course in high school led to Bryant & Stratton's Business College. Having gradu- ated from said institution, he de- voted his energies to the upbuilding of the great knitting industry, which counts him as a leader today. The Forest City Knitting Co., of which he is secretary and treas- urer, as well as a director, is one of the largest in the country. Its daily output is over 3,000 dozen pair Of socks. Mr. Nelson has ex- tensive business interests. He is a director of the Nelson Knitting Co., and of the Manufacturers' Na- tional Bank. His fraternal relations are with the Masons and the Elks. Politi- cally he is a Republican. On January 31, 1894, he was mar- ried to Miss Emma M. Hobler, of Batavia, 111. They have two chil- dren. EDWARD A. WETTERGREN, city clerk of Rockford, 111., was born in Rockford, June 30, 1872. His parents were John and Anna C. EDWARD A. WETTERGREN. Wettergren, both deceased. Hav- ing graduated from the public schools of his native city, he took a course in a business college and became a newspaper reporter for the Register-Gazette, holding this position from 1893 to 1897. Then he secured a position with Chas. E. Jackson, a real estate dealer, with whom he remained until 1911, when he became city clerk of Rock- ford. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 623 Mr. Wettergren is a Republican and a member of the Swedish- American Republican League, of Illinois, having been treasurer of the league for one year. He belongs to the following fraternal organiza- tions: Masons, Elks, Royal Ar- canum, Knights of Pythias and Ben Hur. He is past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias and is now a regent of Royal Arcanum. Mr. Wettergren was united in marriage to Miss Amanda Kern, of Rockford, September 19, 1895. Three children, two sons and a daughter, have been born to them. The family residence is at 420 South Third street. WILLIAM JOHNSON, a prominent citizen of Rockford, 111., member of the law firm of Johnson & Johnson, was born in Chicago, October 23, 1876. During his early boyhood, his parents moved to a farm in Champaign County, Illinois, where he grew to rugged manhood performing the duties incumbent on the boy of the farm, and attending the public schools in winter. He matriculated in the law class of the Northern Illinois College of Law at Dixon, 111., September i, 1897, and successfully pursued the course of legal study prescribed by the college, and graduated with honor in the post-graduate class in May, 1900, receiving the degree of Master of Laws. In conjunction with his law course he was under the instruction and in the law office of H. A. Brooks, a practicing attor- ney of Dixon, 111., for a period of two vears. While attending college he took a very prominent part in society work, debating and parliamentary law, is a very fluent speaker, and has a diploma from the Dixon Col- lege of Oratory. He successfully passed his ex- amination for admission to the bar held at Mt. Vernon, 111., in Decem- ber, 1900, and was, during that month, admitted to practice law at the bar. WILLIAM JOHNSON. During the latter part of Feb- ruary, 1901, he opened a law office at 527 Seventh street, Rockford, and, although a stranger in the city, managed from the start to build up a satisfactory law practice, and, in September, 1902, formed a law partnership with his brother, under the firm name of Johnson & John- son, who are at present enjoying a good practice. On January 4, 1907, William Johnson was appointed a member of the Court of Claims of the State of Illinois, and continued a nember of the Court of Claims 624 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS until in April, 1913. He is also president of the Swedish- American National Bank of Rockford. and secretary of the Swedish-American Hospital Association, and has taken an active interest in the work of each of the organizations. Mr. William Johnson is also As- sistant State's Attorney. He is a well known member of the Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias. His religious faith is Lu- theran. JOHN FERDINAND WESTER, druggist, was born in Motala, Oster- gotland, Sweden, November 16, 1871. He is the son of Ludvig JOHN FERDINAND WESTER. .Wester, a watch manufacturer, and his wife, Dorotea Wester. In his boyhood Mr. Wester attended the public school and high school in the city of Oskarshamn and took a course in a business college of the same city. In May, 1891, he came to America and engaged in the drug business and owns now the Fifth Avenue Pharmacy, which under his management has become a success- ful enterprise. Mr. Wester is also a director in the Rockford Light & Furniture Co., and belongs to the Mechanics' Lodge, No. 102, and John Nelson Lodge, No. 352, K. of P. In politics he is a Republican, a member of the Swedish-American Republican Club and member of the School Board of the city of Rock- ford. He is actively interested in Svea Soner and the Mechanics' Club. Mr. Wester is married to Miss Jenny Sophia Adler, of Oskars- hamn, Sweden. They have five children, and the home of the fam- ily is at 1010 Eighth street. HERMAN E. HELM, editor of Svcnska Post en, was born in Grangesberg, Dalarne, Sweden, December 19, 1890. He is the son of Carl Erik Hjelm and his wife, Augusta Hjelm, nee Persson. He received his college education in the Carolingian College, Orebro, where he graduated in 1910, and spent two years at the University of Upsala. Then he went abroad, visiting Ger- many and France, and studied lit- erature and Romance languages at the University of Montpelier and at the Sorbonne University in Paris, during the year 1912-13. Mr. Helm came to the United States in 1914 and secured a posi- tion immediately with the Hetn- landet, of Chicago, as city editor. In the fall of the same year that pub- lication was consolidated with Svenska Amerikanaren. He then secured a position with the State LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 625 Bank of Chicago, which position he held until October, 1915, when he was appointed editor in chief of Svenska Fasten, Rockford. He has been a contributor to sev- eral newspapers in Stockholm, HERMAN E. HELM. Sweden, and has written stories of fiction, etc., under the pseudonym 'Till Carl-Erik." GUSTAF E. JOHNSON, a member of the well known law firm of Johnson & Johnson of Rockford, 111., was born in Chicago, November i, 1874. He spent his boyhood on his father's farm in Champaign County, Illinois, work- ing during the summer and attend- ing public school during the winter months. In the spring of 1899 he entered the law offices of Kerr & Lindley at Paxton, Til. He pursued his studies with zeal and was admitted to the bar in May, 1902. In the fall of the same year he formed a law partnership with his brother, William Johnson, at Rockford, where the latter had opened a law office the year before. The firm has had a varied and extensive ex- perience in legal work, and com- mands today the highest reputation. GUSTAF E. JOHNSON. In 1912 Mr. Johnson was elected State's Attorney in and for Winne- bago County, the duties of which office he has successfully and faith- fully discharged. Mr. Johnson is a Lutheran in faith. WILLIAM NELSON, a leader in Rockford's industrial life and one of its foremost citi- zens, hails from Sycamore, 111., where he was born October 29, 1857. His father, John Nelson, a pioneer in these parts, became the inventor of the modern knitting machine. His mother was Eva Christine, nee Person. Having finished his school educa- tion, young Nelson affiliated him- self with his father's new enter- prise, and soon became its guiding 626 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS genius. When the Nelson Knitting Co. was organized, in 1880. he was chosen its superintendent, remain- ing as such for thirty-two years, which were years of remarkable growth. He is still a director of said company. The Forest City Knitting Co. was started in 1890, with Mr. Nelson at the helm as president. He has ever since held this position and seen the enterprise enlarge to one of the greatest of its kind in the United States. Mr. Nelson is a prominent Ma- son and a distinguished member of the Republican party. Former Governor Yates in 1901 appointed him a member of his staff with the rank of colonel. Miss Olivia Helen Olson, born in Vermland, Sweden, became his wife in 1888. Five children have been born to them. ROCK ISLAND. MARTIN T. RUDGREN, the only Swedish-American mem- ber of the city commission of Rock Island, was born in Rock Island April 7, 1879. He is the son of Carl John and Christina W. (Glad) Rudgren. The father was one of the active members of the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Rock Island, being one of the or- ganizers of the same. Mr. Rud- gren was educated in the public schools of Rock Island, Augustana College, and Gustus School of Business. After graduating from the business college in 1898 he ac- cepted a position as clerk with Deere-Mansur Company of Mo- line. A strong Republican, he has given his party good service and was elected tax collector in April, 1904, for the term of one year. In 1907 the city clerk of Rock Island became a candidate for mayor and the Republicans at a voluntary pri- mary nominated Mr. Rudgren for city clerk and the people elected him in April, 1907, for a term of two years, and in 1909 re-elected him for another two-year term. In 1911 the people of Rock Island adopted the Commission Form of Government Act, to secure a better form of government, and in the primaries and election, under the new form, Mr. Rudgren was elected for a four-year term, and by the council placed in charge of the Department of Accounts and Finances, which made him vice- president of the new council. He was re-elected Commissioner in 1915 for another four-year term, being the only one of the old coun- cil elected. He has kept independ- ent of any gang or political faction, and consequently has been able to MARTIN T. RUDGREN. act with an unbiased judgment in furthering the affairs of the city. Mr. Rudgren is a member of In- dependent Order of Svithiod, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and Loyal Order of Moose. On Oct. 21, 1908, Mr. Rudgren was married to Miss Mary L. Lindgren, who was born in Swe- den. They are members of the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Rock Island. 627 628 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS L. G. ABRAHAMSON, clergyman, editor-in-chief of Augustana and one of the most prominent and influential men among the Swedish-Americans in general and in the Augustana Synod in particular, was born in the parish of Medaker, in the province of Vestmanland, Sweden, March 2, 1856. His parents, Anders Gustaf and Britta Maria Abrahamson, nee Nilsson, were farmers. Young Abrahamson spent his early years on the farm. In December, 1868, the family emi- grated to the United States, locat- ing in Jamestown, N. Y., where the elder Abrahamson passed away in 1890. At fifteen the son commenced to earn his own living. In 1872 he entered Augustana College and Theological Seminary and attended that institution at Paxton and Rock Island until 1880, when he was or- dained minister of the Augustana Synod, at once assuming charge of the congregation at Altona, 111. Having labored there for six years, he in 1886 accepted a call from the Swedish Lutheran Salem Church in Chicago, of which he was pastor for twenty-two years, till 1908, when he was elected editor-in- chief of Augustana, the official organ of the Augustana Synod. This honorable and responsible position he still occupies. Dr. Abrahamson early displayed exceptional power both in the pul- pit and in the field of practical church work, and his energy was soon enlisted in the service of the church in a more general way. He has served the Illinois Conference and the Synod, generally for long periods, in many executive capaci- ties, among others as member of the executive committee, president and treasurer of the conference and member of the board of di- rectors of Augustana Hospital, member and treasurer of the Syn- odical Mission Board, member of the Synodical Council, and the board of directors of Angustana L. G. ABRAHAMSON. College and Theological Seminary, and member of the Board of For- eign Missions of the General Coun- cil, of which board he now serves as president. The church has few more zealous friends and pro- moters of missionary work than he, as shown by him partly in active work in the mission field in Utah, and later for eleven years in con- ducting the department of missions in Augustana. Feeling the insufficiency of the courses afforded by Augustana Col- lege in the seventies, Dr. Abraham- son several years ago pursued a full course as a non-resident student, LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 629 earning from his Alma Mater the college diploma and the degree of A. B. Much of the time not taken up by ministerial duties he has spent in his library, constantly aug- menting his fund of book lore. His taste for travel Dr. Abra- hamson has indulged to a great ex- tent. He has visited all parts of the United States, made four tours of Sweden and an extended tour of Europe, preferably visiting the scenes connected with the life of Luther and the story of the Reformation, and other points of historic interest. In his capacity as editor-in-chief of Augustana his real worth has re- vealed itself at its best. With a mind sane and conservative, a logic clear and convincing and a style simple, yet lofty, he has shown himself an editor of no small abil- ity and a literary opponent that must be reckoned with. Dr. Abra- hamson is known also as an author. In 1893 ne > together with the late Dr. Carl Swensson, published "Jubel-Album," a large illustrated volume recounting the history and progress of the Augustana Synod, and in 1914-16 he published "Her- rens Behagliga Ar," a work in three volumes containing short ser- mons. Dr. Abrahamson is a force- ful speaker who has often appeared at large secular as well as religious festivals. The honorary degree of A. M. was conferred upon him by Beth- any College in 1897, and in 1900 he received the honorary degree of D. D. from Augustana College and Theological Seminary. By King Oscar II., Dr. Abrahamson in 1894 was made a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star, and in 1910 he was by King Gustaf V. created a commander of the same order. On August 24, 1 88 1, Dr. Abra- hamson was married to Miss Florinda M. Morris, a daughter of Anders P. and Johanna Morris, of Chandler's Valley, Pa. Four daughters and two sons were born to them. Of these only three daughters are now living. The family residence is at 3449 Seventh avenue, Rock Island. ARVID THEODORE SAM- UELSON, head of the pianoforte department of Augustana College, Rock Island, was born in Ceresco, Neb., Sept. i, ARVID THEODORE SAMUELSON. 1890. His father was John Au- gust Samuelson, a farmer by oc- cupation. His mother's maiden name was Augusta Rudeen. His preliminary education he obtained in the public school in his home district, whereupon he studied at 630 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS the Lincoln Academy and Ne- braska State University at Lincoln, graduating from the school of mu- sic of that university in 1910. In 1911 he did post graduate work at the same institution, and in 1914 he received the degree Bachelor of Music. Mr. Samuelson for several years gave private instruction in piano- forte. Upon graduating from the university school of music, he was given a position in the same insti- tution as instructor of pianoforte, which position he held until July, 19.15, when he accepted a call from the conservatory of Augustana College to become the head of the pianoforte department. This posi- tion he still occupies. Prof. Samuelson in 1911-12 made an extensive concert tour through several of the western states. He has also done much chorus directing and is considered as one of the most talented of the younger Swedish-American mu- sicians in Illinois. Prof. Samuelson is a member of the Swedish Mission Church of Lincoln, Neb. 'GRANT HULTBERG, assistant manager of the Augus- tana Book Concern at Rock Island, was born in Sugar Grove, Pa., June 27, 1870. His father was An- ders J. Hultberg, one of the earlier Swedish settlers in that community, and his wife, Anna. Lovisa Hult- gren, nee Wiegren. As a boy he assisted his father in his work on the farm. His early education he obtained in the public schools and the Sugar Grove Seminary. Later he attended Augustana College at Rock Island, where he was grad- uated in the spring of 1898, receiv- ing the degree of A. B. Having served as associate edi- tor of Augustana for a little over two years, 1898-1900, Mr. Hult- berg entered the law school of the Drake University in Des Moines, la., from which he was graduated in 1901 with the degree of LL. B. GRANT HULTBERG. During the following five years he was editor and writer of law books for West Publishing Company in St. Paul, Minn., at the same time writing regular contributions for the Green Bag, a legal publication of Boston, Mass., and collaborating with R. W. Cooley and E. B. Brockway in writing Cooky's "Briefs of the Law of Insurance," a work in five volumes. Since Oc- tober, 1907, he is assistant manager of the Augustana Book Concern. During the spring term of 1909 and the school year 1909-10, he taught civics and commercial law at Au- gustana College. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 631 Mr. Hultberg has always been active in both civic and political work. While in St. Paul he helped in organizing the Norden Club and became one of its charter members. Politically a Republican, he is pres- ident of the Swedish-American Re- publican Club of Rock Island. He is a member of the Zion Swedish Lutheran Church of Rock Island, in which he has held the office of trustee.. for. six years. September n, 1907, he married Miss Hulda Lundquist, of St. Paul, Minn. They reside at 713 Forty- second street, Rock Island. ANDREW G. ANDERSON was born in Kila parish, Vermland, Sweden, Dec. 4, 1857, the son of Olof Anderson, a farmer, who with his family emigrated in 1870, set- tling at Red Wing, Minn. The son obtained his first schooling in the old country, continuing his studies in Red Wing. In 1873, he secured a position in the office of Luther sk Kyrkotidning, where he remained until the next year, when he went to Rock Island at the time the Augustana, the organ of the Au- gustana Synod, was removed from Chicago to the Swedish Lutheran seat of learning. When his first employer sold his business, Mr. An- derson continued with his succes- sors and became a member of the firm of Wistrand, Thulin and An- derson, of Moline. After two years the firm sold out to the publishing board of the Augustana Synod. Mr. Anderson continued as fore- man of the printing department un- til 1889, when he became manager and treasurer of the Augustana Book Concern, an office he has held ever since. Mr. Anderson has served on the board of directors of Augustana College for years, and as treasurer of the institution. He is a member of Zion Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has served as a deacon and Sunday- school superintendent. On Oct. 26, 1880, he was married to Miss Hilda L. Lindstrom, daughter of Johan ANDREW G. ANDERSON. P. Lindstrcm of Moline. Two sons and three daughters have been born to them. His political support Mr. Ander- son gives to the Republican ^arty. He served as alderman of the sev- enth ward for several terms, 1900- 1908, and his word carried weight in the City Council. He was chair- man of the water works committee, and later of the finance committee. Since 1910 he has served on the Board of Education, being chair- man of the committee on teachers and textbooks since 1912. Mr. An- derson has served in the County Central Committee as well as in the 632 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS City Committee, in which he now presides. In 1910 the Royal Order of Vasa was conferred on Mr. Anderson. He is a member of the Tri-City Press Club. Ever since its organization he has been a member of the Board of Charities of the Illinois Conference and the treasurer of the board. On the board of the Lutheran Hospital he has served from the time it was organized. The General Council of the Lutheran Church of America elected him treasurer in 1913 for a biennial term and again in 1915. CARL AUGUST BLOMGREN, professor of theology at Augus- tana Theological Seminary, Rock- Island, was born April i, 1865, at the Solstad mine in the parish of Misterhult, Smaland, Sweden. His parents were John Peter Blomgren, a miner by occupation, and his wife, Johanna, nee Danielson. When he was ten years old the family emi- grated, settling in Calumet, Mich., where he attended public schools for the next five winters. In 1880 he entered the third class of the academic department of Augustana and in 1885 graduated from college with the degree of A. B. From that time until 1887 Mr. Blomgren supplied the pulpit of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Lowell, Mass., also pursuing higher studies at Harvard during the school year of 1886-87. In the fall of 1887 he entered the Senior Class of the Augustana Theological Seminary, was gradu- ated in the spring of 1888 and or- dained to the ministry on June 24 the same year, whereupon he took charge of the Swedish Lutheran churches at McKeesport and Brad- dock, Pa. In 1890 he assumed the pastorate of Bridgeport and Stam- ford, Conn. For the next three years, along with his pastoral work, he pursued studies at Yale Uni- versity, receiving the degree of Ph. D. from that institution in 1893. ^ n 1894 Dr. Blomgren became pastor CARL AUGUST BLOMGREN. of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, where he served to 1904. During the years 1895 to 1898 he was a special student in the Semitic department of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, subse- quently serving as instructor in Hebrew at the Mt. Airy Theological Seminary until 1904, when he left Philadelphia to assume a similar position at Augustana Theological Seminary. In 1905, after one year's service to his Alma Mater, Dr. Blomgren was called to occupy the chair of Hebrew as permanent pro- fessor. His other subjects are : Old Testament Exegesis, Catechetics LIFE SKETCHES Ol' MEN OF TODAY 633 and Evangelistics and Old Testa- ment Introduction. Dr. Blomgren is the author of the following books : "A Study in Oba- diah" (1903), "A Treatise on the Book of Job" (1905), "Old Testa- ment Prophecy" (1906), "Intro- duction to the Book of Daniel" (1907), "Elements of the Christian Religion" (1907), all these pub- lished by Augustana Book Concern. He also is author of several con- tributions to Tidskrift for Theologi och Kyrkliga Fragor" and a num- ber of pamphlets. He is a member of American Oriental Society since 1890. At Lowell, Mass., February 13, 1889, Dr. Blomgren was united in marriage with Miss Sigrid Amalia Soderberg, who passed away June 8, 1914. This union was blessed with one son and two daughters. The son, Sigfrid Luther Blomgren, is a minister -in the Augustana Synod. The family residence is at 825 35th street, Rock Island. JOHN VICTOR BERGOUIST, composer and musician, director of music at Augustana College, at Rock Island, was born in St. Peter, Minn., May 18, 1877. His parents were C. F. Bergquist, a merchant by occupation, and his wife, Emma Bergquist, nee Appelquist. When the son was only seven years of age his parents removed to Minne- apolis, where young Bergquist at- tended both public and high school. Having completed a three-year course at the conservatory of Gus- tavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, Minn., he graduated from that institution in 1895, whereupon lie pursued private studies in Min- neapolis for four years. In order to put the finishing touches to his musical education, Mr. Bergquist went to Europe, where he in 1900-01 studied in the conservatory of Berlin under such master musicians as Franz Grun- icke, Xaver Scharwenka and Wil- helm Berger. In 1902 we find him in Paris, a pupil of the world-re- JOHN VICTOR BERGQUIST. nowned organist, Alexander Guil- mant. In January, 1903, Mr. Bergquist returned to America to resume his position as organist of the Swedish Lutheran Augustana Church, a position to which he had been elected in January, 1896, and which he filled till September, 1912, when he became director of music at Augustana College. Simultaneous- ly he held positions as principal of the Conservatory of Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter, and Minnesota College, at Minneapolis, and assistant teacher in the John- son School of Music in the last 634 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS mentioned city. Besides the ener- getic musician led the work in a music conservatory of his own, the Cecilian Studios, and served as di- rector of the Swedish male chorus Orpheus and the male chorus of a Norwegian Lutheran Theological Seminary. During the five years he has now completed as director of music at Augustana College he has shown himself to be a teacher and a leader of the highest order. Professor Bergquist's ability as a composer has found its highest expression in his masterpiece, "Golgotha," an oratorio begun by him in 1904 and completed in 1905. The impetus to this fine work of art he received while attending the passion . play at Oberammergau, Bavaria, Germany, in 1900. "Gol- gotha" was first given in Minne- apolis in 1906, with full orchestra and a chorus of 200 voices, and again in Minneapolis and St. Paul in October, 1908. Since then it has been given at numerous places in the country. In 1915 it was given at Rock Island under the com- poser's own direction. "Golgotha" is a work that reflects great honor on its composer and lasting credit from the music-loving public. Pro- fessor Bergquist has also composed a Reformation Cantata, three organ sonatas, which have been played by leading organists of the country, and a miscellaneous number of songs for male chorus, mixed chorus and solo voice ; also a mis- cellaneous number of piano solos. In 1911-12 Professor Bergquist was secretary-treasurer of Minne- sota State Music Teachers' Asso- ciation, and is at present a member of the Board of Examiners of the Illinois Music Teachers' Associa- tion. A member of the Odin Club of Minneapolis, he was its secre- tary in 1912. He is a member of the Swedish Lutheran Zion Church of Rock Island. On June 7, 1905, Professor Berg- quist married Emelia Elvira John- son, of Minneapolis. They have three children, one boy and two girls. The family residence is at 1000 38th street, Rock Island, 111. CARL EDWARD NELSON, proofreader at Augustana Book Concern, Rock Island, is the son of Lewis and Anna Maria Johnson CARL EDWARD NELSON. (nee Nelson) and was born on his father's farm near St. James, Minn., June 26, 1876. His prelim- inary education he received in the public schools at St. James, Minn. Later he entered Gustavus Adol- phus College, St. Peter. Minn., where he took his A. B. degree in 1903. For a short time he was associate LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 635 editor of Nordvdsterns Handcls- tidning, Duluth, Minn., and for three years associate editor of Min- nesota Stats Tidning, St. Paul, Minn. Since then he has been en- gaged as proofreader at Augustana Book Concern. As a side issue he has been business manager of Khia- Missionaren since 1910. Mr. Nelson is a Republican in politics ; religiously, he is a member of the Zion Swedish Lutheran' Church in his home city, where he is a deacon, and has served his church also in the capacity of secre- tary for three years and vice presi- dent of the Sunday School. On June 6, 1903, he married Signe Wilhelmina Samuelson, from Elghult, Smaland, Sweden, which union ' has been blessed with five children. His residence is at 966 Thirty-eighth street, Rock Island. CARL KRAFT, clergyman and associate editor of Augustana, Rock Island, was born Feb. n, 1870, in St. Cloud, Minn., where his parents, who came from the province of Vestergctland, Sweden, had settled and were oc- cupied with farming. Later they removed to West Union, Carver County, Minnesota, where the son grew up. After having tried his fortune working on railroads, in sawmills and in various other pursuits, Kraft, in the nineties, entered Gustavus Adolphus College at St. Peter, Minn., from which he was grad- uated in 1899, whereupon he taught public and parochial school in Min- nesota, South Dakota and Chicago until 1901. Then he became asso- ciate editor of the Minnesota Stats Tidning, serving in that capacity until 1902, when he was matric- ulated at the Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary. Having studied at this institution for two years, he finished his theological course at the Augustana Theologi- cal Seminary in the spring of 1905, and was ordained minister at Stan- ton, Iowa, June nth of the same year. CARL KRAFT. The Rev. Kraft served as pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Churches of West Sweadahl and Little Cot- tonwood, Minn., from 1905 until Nov. i, 1910, when he became office editor at the Augustana Book Concern in Rock Island, continuing in that capacity until July i, 1912, when he was elected associate edi- tor of Augustana. This position he still occupies with marked ability and distinction. During his stay in Minnesota he was a member of the Board of Directors of Gustavus Adolphus College from 1906 to 1910. G36 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Although pressed with varied edi- torial duties, the Rev. Kraft has found time to devote to strictly lit- erary pursuits. Thus he has trans- lated three books from the German, namely "Tomas, Folkpredikanten" (1912), "Guds Stad och Brunnar" (1914) and "Prastbarnen" (1915), all published by the Augustana Book Concern. He has translated also a number of poems from Eng- lish into Swedish. June 21, 1905, he was married to Miss Josephine Holcomb, of Scan- dia, Minn. They have one son. Their residence is at 1119 Thirty- eighth street, Rock Island. ANDREW KEMPE, lawyer, principal of the commercial department of Augustana College at Rock Island, and treasurer of the same institution, was born in the parish of Raby, Skane, Sweden, March 27, 1872. His father was Olof J. Kempe, a stone mason by trade. His mother's name was Anna Olson. At the age of one year he accompanied his parents to America. Here they settled in Vasa, Minn., and in the public schools of that place the son got his preliminary education. In 1888 the family removed to St. Peter, Minn., where young Kempe in the same year entered Gustavus Adol- phus College, from which he was graduated in the spring of 1892 with the degree of A. B. The following two years he taught public school in Nicollet County, Minnesota. In 1894-98,1 he taught in the commercial depart- ment of Gustavus Adolphus Col- lege ; in 1898-99 he filled a position as teacher in the Danville Military Institute, Danville, Va., and in 1899-1904 he was a member of the staff of teachers in Upsala College, Kenilworth, N. J., at the same time studying law at the New York Law School. In September, 1904, he accepted a position as teacher in the commercial department of Au- gustana College, and has remained in the service of that institution ANDREW KEMPE. ever since. In 1905 he passed the examinations required, and was ad- mitted to the bar in Illinois. Since 1910 he is the treasurer of Augus- tana College. In addition to his educational and other work at Au- gustana College, he is also a prac- ticing attorney, being in partner- ship with Mr. Grant Hultberg, under the firm name of Hultberg & Kempe. Together with the Rev. Theo. Ekblad, he assisted Dii Gustav Andreen in soliciting the Augustana College Jubilee Fund of $250,000. Prof. Kempe is a member of the Rock Island Club. Politically he is LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 637 a Republican, holding membership in the Swedish-American Republi- can Club of Rock Island. He be- longs to the Grace Lutheran Church of Rock Island, which he serves as secretary. On June 23, 1898, Prof Kempe married Miss Jeanette Stempel, of St. Peter, Minn. They have two children, and the family residence is at 3932 Eighth avenue, Rock Island. ~"".PTp\ OSCAR V. HOLMGRAIN, clergyman, literature secretary at the Augustana Book Concern, Rock Island, was born in the parish of Simtuna, province of Uppland, Sweden, March n, 1852. His par- ents were Carl Adolf Holmgren, director of music, and his wife, Johanna Mathilda Holmgrain, nee Sundberg. The son studied at the Hudiksvall Collegiate School and graduated in the spring 1871. He went to Upsala in the fall of the same year for the purpose of en- tering the university. Failing to secure the needed funds, in Jan- uary, 1872, he took up a clerkship in some of the government depart- ments at Stockholm. The income being small, he decided to emigrate to America and arrived in New York in May, 1872. At first he engaged in business pursuits in Irwin, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pa. In the spring of 1879 ne removed to Rock Island to enter Augustana Theological Semi- nary, but being called as assistant teacher in the college department, he devoted two years exclusively to teaching. Thereupon he entered the seminary, and having finished the theological course, he was or- dained minister June 18, 1882. Since then he has served the fol- lowing congregations: Beaver and Rankin, 111., 1882-85 ; Worcester, Mass., 1885-87; Farmersville, 111., 1887-96; Chesterton, Ind., 1896- 1900. In April, 1900, the Rev. Holm- grain became office editor of the Augustana Book Concern at Rock OSCAR V. HOLMGRAIN. Island, a position he filled until 1910, when he was appointed litera- ture secretary of the same institu- tion. A linguist and scholar of note, possessing a wide experience in the literary field, the Rev. Holm- grain is eminently fitted for the im- portant position he occupies. He is the author or translator of a great number of books, a large part of them being juvenile literature published for Christmas. The first one was "De Dyrbara Loftena," by C. Geikie, a translation published as early as 1890. The Rev. Holmgrain was county treasurer of Ford county, Illinois, 638 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS 1890-94; secretary of the Illinois Conference, 1889-91, and was treasurer of the same conference 1896-1906. He is a member of the Grace Lutheran Church in Rock Island. Politically he is an Inde- pendent. On June 24, 1882, he married Miss Jennie Christina Linderholm, of Sterling, 111., born in Ysane, Blekinge, Sweden. They have two sons and reside at 611 Forty-fourth street, Rock Island. NELS ALFRED LARSON, lawyer, county judge of Rock Is- land County, is a native of the pro- vince of Ostergotland, Sweden, where he was born Dec. 31, 1879, the son of John Fredrik Larson and his wife, Wilhemina Larson, nee Johnson. When but two years old he was brought to this country by his parents, and his preliminary education was secured in the public and high schools of Moline, 111., graduating from the latter in 1898. Entering the University of Illinois, in 1900, he made his way through college by assisting a civil engineer and working in the shops of Moline during vacations until 1903, when he was graduated from the law de- partment of said university with the degree of LL. B. Immedi- ately thereupon he was admitted to the bar and in November of the same year, entered upon the prac- tice of the bw. In 1908 he formed a partnership with J. F. Murphy, under the firm name of Murphy & Larson, a connection that continued until the fall of 1914, when Mr. Larson was elected county judge and the firm was dissolved. Mr. Larson is still an incumbent of the bench and fills the position with great credit to himself and his na- tionality. Not only as a lawyer and judge Mr. Larson has made a name for himself. A national organizer, a capable executive, and an enthusi- astic worker, he has been very ac- tive also in the business world and met with great success. In 1907 he organized the East Moline Sash NELS ALFRED LARSON. & Door Works of which he was at one time president, in 1909 he became a director in the State Bank of East Moline, and in 1911 was elected its president ; in the Trio Manufacturing Co. he has been a director since its organization in 1908, served as its treasurer for nearly three years, and is at present the secretary of the company; he has been a director of the German Trust & Savings Bank of Rock Island since its organization ; he is the secretary of the Safety Insur- ance Agency of Rock Island, which he organized in 1912. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 639 Politically Mr. Larson is a Re- publican. He served for a time as secretary of the Republican Cen- tral Committees of Rock Island County and the city of Moline, and is a member of the Swedish-Amer- ican Republican League of Illinois. He holds membership in the Rock Island Club and the East Moline Commercial Club. Fraternally he is a member of the Elks, Independ- ent Order of Svithoid and the college fraternity Delta Upsilon. Svea Male Chorus of Moline has in him a valued member. On April 10, 1907, Mr. Larson was united in marriage to Miss Emma H. Jenkins, and they have two children. Mr. Larson's offices are located in the courthouse at Rock Island, while his home is sit- uated at 1339 Fifteenth street A., Moline. NILS JOHAN FORSBERG, pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Zion Church of Rock Island, was born at Persberg, Vermland, Sweden, July 25, 1855. His parents were Jonas Forsberg. a miner, and his wife, Lovisa Forsberg, nee Nils- son. In the local public schools he got his early education, whereupon he entered the Raslatt Forestry and Surveying School in Smaland. from which he graduated October 24, 1875- Longing for an opportunity to see foreign countries and their people, he hired out as a sailor and for about three years he labored as such on Norwegian vessels, in the meantime visiting many foreign ports. In 1880 he arrived in America, and in 1885 he entered the Augustana College at Rock Island. Subsequently he studied at Augustana Theological Seminary and was ordained minister in June, 1890. Since then he has had charge of several congregations, among others the Swedish Lutheran churches in McKeesport, Pa., and Calumet, Mich. The Swedish Luth- eran Zion Church in Rock Island he has served since September i, 1910. NILS JOHAN FORSBERG. Being scholarly inclined the Rev. Forsberg, along with his pas- toral work, pursued higher studies, resulting in the degree of A. M., May 30, 1901. Possessing not only a thorough theological training and a great fund of general knowledge, but also an intimate knowledge of human nature and more than ordinary natural gifts as a speaker, the Rev. Forsberg is an excellent preacher whose sermons make last- ing impressions. On March 15, 1892, the Rev. Forsberg was married to Miss Elin Sofia Lindahl, a cultured lady, born 640 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in Motala, Sweden, a union which has been blessed with six children. The family resides at 4400 Seventh avenue, Rock Island. LOUIS OSTROM, a prominent oculist and physician of Rock Island, was born in Hallen, Hanebo parish, Helsingland, Sweden, May i, 1874. His father, Louis Ostrom, is a pipe organ builder by trade, and widely known in this country. His mother's maiden name was Karin Olsson. At the age of six he arrived in America in company with his par- ents. After studying in the Swed- ish parochial school and the pub- lic schools of Moline, 111., he en- tered Augustana College in Rock Island, from which he graduated in 1895 with the degree of A. B. In 1897 he registered in the medical department of the Uni- versity of Iowa, where he studied for two years, and then transferred to the Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Here he took the degree M. D. in 1899, whereupon he located at Leonardville, Kans., and engaged in general practice. While there he received a call from Kansas Medical College at To- peka, Kan., to the chair of chem- istry and as a director of the chemi- cal laboratories, a position he filled for one year, but as this inter- fered with private practice, he re- signed and located in Rock Island, 111., as a specialist, devoting all his professional attention to diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. In the spring term of 1903. he was acting professor of botany at Augustana College, during the ab- sence of Prof. J. A. Udden, and later was professor in anatomy, physiology and histology in the pre-medical department of the same institution. In 1904-5 he was doing post-graduate work in New York, simultaneously with occupy- ing the chair of natural history at Upsala College, Kenilworth, N. J., and serving as clinical assistant at St. Bartholomew's Clinic, assistant LOUIS OSTROM. surgeon at St. Mark's Hospital and at New York Eye and Ear Infir- mary. At present he is oculist to St. Anthony's Hospital, Rock Is- land, and oculist to the Rock Island Railway. He was at one time pres- ident of the staff of the last men- tioned hospital. Since his gradu- ation in medicine he has taken post- graduate courses with some of the most noted specialists in America. He is author of numerous es- says in medical journals and has in- vented a number of surgical in- struments known and used all over the world. Dr. Ostrom is an ac- complished musician, playing sev- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 641 eral instruments, organ, piano, cor- net, clarinet, etc., and has served as director of Augustana College Band. Dr. Ostrom is a member of the American Medical Association, Il- linois State Medical Society, Rock Island County Medical Society and Chicago Laryngological and Onto- logical Society. Fraternally he be- longs to the Masons, Elks, Wood- men, Knights of Honor, Independ- ent Order of Svithiod and North Star Benefit Association. He is a member also of the Rock Island Club, of which he was at one time one of the directors. At present he is a director of the German Trust & Savings Bank of Rock Island. Politically he is a Republican, being a member of the Swedish- American Republican Club of Rock Island County. In 1897-98 he served as an alderman from the Seventh Ward of the city of Rock Island. He is a member of the Grace Lutheran Church of that city. Sept. 12, 1899, Dr. Ostrom was married to Miss Sophia C. Hult, of Rock Island. They have five sons, and the family residence is at 1037 2Is t street, Rock Island. OLOF Z. CERVIN, one of the prominent Swedish- American architects in the state and official architect of the Augus- tana Synod, was born at Paxton, 111., October 18, 1868. His parents were the Rev. A. R. Cervin, Ph. D., for many years professor of Greek and mathematics at Augustana Col- lege and a pioneer in the spiritual and intellectual work among the Swedes of America. His mother's maiden name was Emma C. Thulin, sister to C. G. Thulin, treasurer of the Augustana Synod for a long term of years. In 1887 Mr. Cervin graduated from Augustana College, receiving the degree B. S., and thereafter spent a year on the actual construc- tion of buildings in Ishpeming and OLAF Z. CERVIN. Houghton, Mich. After training for a few years with architects in Chicago and Rock Island, he en- tered Columbia University and in 1894 took the degree of Master of Arts, having written a "History of Colonial Architecture." This has been printed in two different pub- lications. After spending a year in a New York office, Mr. Cervin in 1896 lo- cated in the twin cities of Rock Island and Moline, 111. The same year he was appointed official church architect of the Augustana Synod. Mr. Cervin has designed many 642 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS buildings in all parts of the coun- try. These include the Deaconess Hospital, in Omaha, Neb. ; the Lutheran Hospital, in Moline, 111.; Tri-City Sanitarium, Moline ; the Tuberculosis Hospital, Rock Island ; the Rethphage Home for Epileptics and Insane, at Axtell, Neb. ; the Swedish L u t h e r a n Orphans' Homes in Andover, 111.. Vasa, Minn., Omaha, Neb., and Stanton, la. : Swedish Lutheran churches in Lake Park, Minn., Orion and Bel- videre. 111., Savonburg, Kan., Wor- cester, Mass., Wausa, Neb., and in many other places ; the Augustana Book Concern Building, the Ma- sonic Temple and the Rock Island Club building, all in Rock Island. He makes hospitals and schools a specialty, and at present he has a large $80,000 departmental school in Rock Island under construction. Besides the history mentioned, Mr. Cervin has written numerous articles for American architectural journals. Among these articles may be mentioned a historical sketch of the Spanish-Mexican Missions of California, articles on the architecture of the Scandi- navian countries, written during his trips to those countries in 1903 and 1904, and one article on the church architecture of the Swedes in America, published in "Prarie- blomman" for 1902. Mr. Cervin is treasurer of the Rock Island Safety Deposit Co., and vice-president of the Colonial Hotel Co., both of Rock Island. He holds memberships in the Rock Island Club, the Moline Club, the Rotary Club, the Y. M. C. A., the Illinois Society of Architects, the Tri-City Architects' Association, Swedish Historical Society of America and a number of fraternal organizations. Religiously he is a Lutheran, being a member of the Grace Lutheran Church of Rock Island, and politically he is an in- dependent. On October 24, 1909, Mr. Cervin married Miss Ruth Theodora Eng- berg, of Chicago. They have two boys, and the family residence is at 3400 loth avenue, Rock Island. GUSTAV ALBERT ANDREEN, president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, and one of the greatest factors in the cultural GUSTAV ALBERT ANDREEN. advancement of the Swedish- American nationality, was born at Baileytown (Porter), Ind., March 13, 1864. His father was the pioneer Swedish Lutheran clergy- man, Andreas Andreen ; his mother's name was Hilda Esping. From Baileytown the Rev. Andreen removed to Swedona, 111., and here the son attended the public and LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 643 parochial schools. At the age of eleven he, in 1875, entered the Augustan a College at Rock Island and was graduated at the head of the college class of 1881. Having taught public school in Kansas in 1881, he served as in- structor at his Alma Mater from 1881 to 1884, then studied law in 1884-86, whereupon he became teacher at Bethany College, in Lindsborg, Kan., rilling that posi- tion till 1893, when he entered Yale University, doing post-graduate work, which led to the degree of Ph. D. in 1898. From 1894 to 1898 he was instructor at the university. Called to take the chair of Scandi- navian languages and literatures at Yale University in 1898, he in the same year went to Europe for more thorough study of the old Xorse and Scandinavian literatures, spending one year, 1898-1899, at the University of Upsala, Sweden, and one year, 1899-1900, at the Universities of Christiania, Nor- way, and Copenhagen, Denmark, for that purpose. He returned in the fall of 1900 and assumed his new duties at Yale. In the following year Dr. Andreen was elected president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, taking charge of that important position in August. For fifteen years he now has been the head of this Swedish-American in- stitution of learning, which under his able leadership has enjoyed a development more rapid than dur- ing any previous period in its his- tory. During his stay in Sweden Dr. Andreen succeeded in enlisting the interest of prominent men of that countrv in behalf of his Alma Mater. These efforts later bore fruit in a contribution of 100,000 crowns from the old country toward an endowment fund for Augustana. A few years after he was elected president of this in- stitution Dr. Andreen, with the as- sistance of the Rev. Theo. Ekblad and Prof. Andrew Kempe, started to work among the Swedish- Americans for the same purpose. In their noble efforts they suc- ceeded so well that at the great celebration in Rock Island in 1910, which marked the fiftieth anni- versary of the founding of the Augustana Synod and Augustana College and Theological Seminary, Dr. Andreen could report that Augustana had an endowment fund of $250.000. In January, 1908, the heirs of the late F. C. Denkmann, of Rock Island, signified their intention to, in memory of their beloved parents, donate a modern library building to Augustana. This building, costing not less than $207,000, was finished in the early spring of 1911 and dedicated May 31 of the same year. In late years Dr. Andreen has suc- ceeded in materially increasing other funds of the institution. Dr. Andreen has done much public speaking, principally in be- half of the institution he repre- sents. On the platform he handles the two mother tongues of the Swedish-Americans with like flu- ency. Dr. Andreen is the author of the following works "Det Svenska Spraket i Amerika," pub- lished by the Verdandi Society in Upsala in 1900; "The Idyl in Ger- man Literature" (his doctoral thesis), and "Den Hogre Skol- 644 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS verksamheten inom Augustana- Synoden," both published by Angustana Book Concern, Rock Island, the former in 1902, the lat- ter in 1910. in 1905 Dr. Andreen was or- dained minister by the Augustana Synod. In recognition of his meritorious services in the cause of education among his countrymen. Dr. Andreen in 1904 by King Oscar II. of Sweden was made a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star, and in 1910 King Gustaf V. created him Commander of the Royal Order of Vasa. On August 7, 1890, Dr. Andreen was joined in wedlock to Miss Maria Augusta Strand, a lady of Norwegian descent. This union has been blessed with seven chil- dren, five of whom are living. CARL JOHAN BENGSTON, clergyman and editor of the Luth- eran Companion, was born at Skogs- torp, Stafsinge parish, Halland, Sweden, July 22, 1862. His par- ents were Sven Johan Bengtson, a tailor by trade, and his wife, Neta Christina, nee Andreasson. In 1875 the family came to this country and lived first in Corry and Titusville, Pa., finally removing in 1899 to Jamestown, N. Y. Young Bengston attended public school in Sweden and in the United States before entering the academic department of Augustana College, January i, 1880. He graduated from the college in 1888 with the degree of A. B. In 1890 he had completed the courses in the Theo- logical Seminary of the same insti- tution and was ordained minister the same year, immediately taking charge of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Hartford, Conn., where he remained until August, 1893, when he became pastor of the Swedish Lutheran churches at New Sweden and Upland, la., con- tinuing in this position until 1900. In December, 1900, he became associate editor of Angustana, the CARL JOHAN BENGSTON. official organ of the Augustana Synod. This position he filled until 1908, when he was elected literature secretary at the Augus- tana Book Concern. Resigning this post in 1910, the Rev. Bengston the same year by the Home Mission Board of the Augustana Synod was appointed pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church of Missoula, Mont. After a few years' service in this position he was elected pas- tor of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Knoxville, 111., of which he had charge until January i, 1915, when he assumed the edi- torship of the Lutheran Com- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 645 panion, the English organ of the Augustana Synod. This responsi- ble position he still occupies. The Rev. Bengston has held many positions of trust and honor within his denomination. In 1898- 1900 he was secretary of the Iowa Conference. For a number of years he was secretary of the Church Ex- tension Society of the Augustana Synod. The Synod elected him its treasurer in 1902, which post he occupied for ten consecutive years. He was editor of the Synod's Sun- day-school paper, Barnens Tidning, from 1902 to 1914, and editor of the church year book, "Kors- baneret," in 1908. From 1912 to 1916 he was secretary of the Illinois Conference, and from 1913 to 1916 a member of the Board of Directors of Augustana Book Concern. He is a member of the Grace English Lutheran Church of Rock Island, in which he holds the office of deacon. In fields outside of the church the Rev. Bengston also has been active. In 1892 he organized the Co-operative Provision Co., of Hartford, Conn., and was its first president. This organization still does business. In politics a Re- publican, he was a member of the 28th General Assembly of Iowa, from Jefferson county, 1900-01. From 1897 to 1901 he was a mem- ber of the Board of Directors of the Swedish Lutheran Church Fire Insurance Co., of Burlington, la. As an author he is known through the following publications: "Lutherska Kyrkan i Ett Hundra Fragor och Svar," a translation which appeared in 1898; "Lifvets Brod" and "Yicl Jesu Hand," both published by Augustana Book Con- cern in 1909. The Rev. Bengston is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of National Geographical Society. He was married June 4, 1891, to Miss Emilia Otilia Swanson, of Jamestown, N. Y., born in Hvena, Smaland. They have no children. Their residence is at 3435 Seventh avenue, Rock Island. NILS FORSANDER, for more than a quarter of a cen- tury professor of Church History, Symbolics, etc., in Augustana Theo- NILS FORSANDER. logical Seminarv, and now retired o - 1 after a life's work well done, was born in Gladsax parish, province of Skane, Sweden. September TI, 1846. His parents were Anders Pehrson, a public school teacher, and his wife, Elna Pehrsdotter. His early education he obtained in the local public school, whereupon he attended the Latin School in Sim- 646 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS rishamn during the years 1859-61, the collegiate school in Lund, 1861- 68, and a private college in the same city in 1869-70. During the summer of 1870 he met the Rev. T. N. Hasselquist, who was then visiting Sweden, and the following September accom- panied him to Paxton, 111., where he entered the Augustana Theo- logical Seminary. Having com- pleted his theological course, he was ordained to the ministry at the synodical meeting at Paxton in 1873. Since that time he had charge of the following congrega- tions : Aledo, Sagetown and Rari- tan. . 111., 1873-75; Kossuth, la., 1875-80, and the Bethesda Church in Page county, Iowa, 1880-90. In 1874-75 he was secretary of the Illinois Conference, and in 1876-78 and 1882-84 of the Iowa Confer- ence. In 1887-1890 he held the same office in the Augustana Synod. In the fall of 1889 he was called as acting professor in the Augus- tana Theological Seminary, and in the following year was elected regu- lar professor, the courses assigned to him being church History, Sym- bolics, Isagogics, Homiletics. Pas- toral Theology and Apologetics. In this capacity he served the synod faithfully and with great success for over a quarter of a century, or till 1915, when he retired, having in the meantime gained the reputa- tion of being one of the most emi- nent scholars of Church History in the Lutheran Church of America. Besides as a professor and scholar Dr. Forsander has made a name for himself as an able editor and productive author. He was as- sociate editor of Bethania in 1881- 85, of Hemranncn in 1887-89, and of Augustana Theological Quarter- ly in 1900-03. The last mentioned publication had Dr. Forsander as its editor-in-chief in 1904-12. He has been a valued contributor to Augustana, Luther sk Kvartal- skrift, Ungdomsvannen, K\rkohis- torisk Arsskrift, The Lutheran, The Lutheran Church Reziew, The Independent and other periodicals ; also to "The Lutheran Cyclopedia" and the church year book, "Kors- baneret." Dr. Forsander is the author of the following books : "Grundlinier till f orelasningar ofver Augsburgiska Bekannelsen" (1899), "Den Oforandrade Augs- burgiska Bekannelsen. med Inled- ning och Forklaring" (1902), "Life Pictures from Swedish Church His- tory" (1913) and "Lifsbilder ur Augustana-Synodens H i s t o r i a" (1915), all these published by the Augustana Book Concern. He is author also of the following pamph- lets : "The Swedish Liturgy" (1900), published by Lutheran Liturgical Association, of Pitts- burgh, Pa. ; "The Council of Upp- sala," "Hvarfor Grundlades Augus- tana-Synoden," and "Den Luther- ska Kyrkans Forhallande till Andra Kyrkosamfund," published by the Augustana Book Concern. Dr. Forsander is a diligent student and has accumulated an extensive library, especially rich in theological literature. As a recognition of his faithful work and eminent scholarship, the Augustana College and Theological Seminary conferred upon him the degree of D. D. in 1894, and King Oscar II. of Sweden in 1907 cre- ated him a Knight of the Royal LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 647 Order of the North Star. Dr. Forsander is a member of the American Church History Society of New York, and of Kyrkohis- toriska Fcreningen of Upsala, Sweden. January 6, 1875, m Burlington, la., he married Miss Johanna Char- lotta Ahlgren, a lady of deep piety and high culture. She was a na- tive of Gammalkil, Ostergotland. It was a great loss to him when she died, January 30, 1909. In memory of her he donated to Augustana College and Theological Seminary the sum of $1,000, to be known as the "Mrs. N. Forsander Scholar- ship." This was followed in 1911 by a donation of $1,300, to be named "The Dr. N. Forsander Scholarship." In 1912 he donated $1,000 as the beginning of a fund for a future seminary dormitory- Dr. Forsander resides at 608 38th street, Rock Island. CLAUDE W. FOSS. professor of History and Political Science, former vice-president of Augustana College, at Rock Island, and one of the most active and use- ful laymen in the Augustana Synod, was born in Geneva, 111., August 28, 1855. His parents were Carl Johan Foss and his wife, Charlotte Christine Foss, nee Erick- soh. They arrived in Chicago from Habo parish, Vestergotland, Sweden, in 1854, and settled in Geneva, 111., but removed to Goodhue county, Minnesota, in 1855- His early training was obtained in the public schools and at the Red Wing Collegiate Institute at Red Wing, Minn. Having been engaged in the work of public school teaching for four years, he entered Augus- tana College in the fall of 18/9. Here he was graduated with the degree of ?,. A. in June, 1883, hav- ing also pursued studies in the scientific course. In 1884 he was called to the chair of History and Political Science at Augustana College, CLAUDE W. FOSS. which position he still holds. In 1888 he was elected vice-president of the institution, serving in that capacity until 1900. On the death of Dr. T. N. Hasselquist he served as acting president until the elec- tion of Dr. Olof Olsson as presi- dent in 1891. He continued to hold the position of vice-president under the entire presidency of Dr. Olsson, and upon the death of the latter he was again appointed acting presi- dent, which position he held until June, IQOI, when Dr. Gustav Andreen was elected president. Since that time he has devoted him- self more exclusivelv to his chrtir 648 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS and literary work. The degree of Ph. D. was conferred on him by Augustana College in 1900. Besides the above mentioned positions, Dr. Foss has held many important posts of trust and honor within his denomination. Member of the Board of Directors of Augustana Book Concern con- tinuously since 1901, he served as vice-president of that board during the years 1904-08. For a long period he has been a member of the Board of Home Missions of the Augustana Synod and treasurer of the Synod's Board of Foreign Mis- sions. The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America in 1908 sent him as commissioner to inspect its mission field in South India, where he trav- eled extensively in 1908-09. By ap- pointment of the Augustana Synod he, upon completion of his work in India, inspected the Synod's mis- sion in Persia in 1909 and traveled in Egypt, the Holy Land, Asia Minor, southern Russia and south- ern and central Europe. Dr. Foss has carried on a very extensive and varied literary work. He has been editor of Luth- eran Quarterly Review, Augustana Journal and Olive Leaf, and con- tributor to various other magazines and periodicals. From Swedish to English he has translated a number of juvenile books and also a num- ber of Swedish hymns. His largest literary \vork is "Glimpses of Three Continents," a series of travels in India, the Bible lands and Europe, published by Augustana Book Con- cern in 1912. Professor Foss is a member of the American Institute of Civics, the American Academy of Politi- cal and Social Science, the Ameri- can Historical Association and the Swedish Historical Society of America. In politics he is a Republican, and takes a lively interest in all political matters, local, state and na- tional. August 2, 1887, Dr. Foss was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Margaret Shuey, of Augusta county, Virginia. They have no children. They are members of Grace Lutheran Church, of Rock Island. MOLINE. ALFRED E. LINDBERG, the well-known pastor of the Swed- ish Baptist Church in Moline, is of noble descent. His mother, Ag- neta Sophia, belonged to the Drugge family, noted among the nobility. His father, Erik Gnstaf Lindberg was the supervisor of a large estate. At Soderfors he was born March 10, 1869, and twenty years later he came to America. Here he continued the studies he had begun in school and with pri- vate tutors. Three years he spent in study and one year in teaching at the Academy and the Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, 111. From 1895 until 1897 he served as pastor of the Swedish Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. He left the congregation 100 per cent stronger in numbers and moved to the Swedish Tabernacle in Boston, where he remained 13 years, until 1910. They were successful years in every way. A new edifice, a parsonage and sexton's house were erected, costing $70,000, with only $15,000 debt. A large Sunday school was gathered and the mem- bership increased 50 per cent, al- though two new daughter churches were organized. San Francisco became his next field from 1910 until 1915. Here a doubled congregation and a debt of $7,000 wiped out, were some of the tokens of his success. His present pastorate began in 1915. His power as a speaker and organizer and his zeal as a di- vine continue to be distinctly felt. His denomination has honored him in many ways. He has served as president of state conferences during ten years. He was president of the Scandinavian Temperance Alliance in Boston, and secretary ALFRED E. LINDBERG. of the Swedish National Union in said city. A man of literary taste and tal- ent he has found time to publish several church papers, and a num- ber of small books of which may be mentioned: "Kristendoms-Sko- lan," "Lek och Noje," "Vagrod- jaren," "Siktning och Sigtning," "Hannonien mellan Vetenskapen och Bibeln," "Nykterhets-Kateke- sen." Most of these are now out of print. fi49 650 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS The Rev. Lindberg was married to Miss Anna Sophia Charlotta P"ager from Sanclhem, Vestergot- land, Sept. 28, 1898. Three sons and three daughters have been born to them. The parsonage is at 1217 1 2th avenue, Moline. MARTIN ROBERT CARLSON, mayor of Moline, 111., is a native of Moline, where he was born May 2, 1877. His parents are Gustaf Frederick Carlson, and Mathilda, nee Isakson. Having finished the grammar school, young Carlson, then 14 years old, began working for his brother Albert, handling newspapers and magazines. He had already as an eleven-year-old schoolboy acquired the newsdealer's varied experiences. When 18 years old he was admitted into partner- ship with his brother. Their busi- ness grew rapidly and developed into the largest and best supplied book, stationery and office supply house in the Tri-cities. Carlson Brothers handle everything from a pin to a complete office outfit. In 1909 he was elected a mem- ber of the Board of Supervisors, and during the two years he held this office, he was on the finance committee, where he showed rare common sense, financial keenness and executive ability. On April 4, 1911, he was elected Mayor, being the first under the new commission form of government, and the only mayor that has been born and reared in the city. In 1915 he was re-elected for four years. He is giving his city a real business ad- ministration, conducting the civic affairs as conscienticuslv as he would his own. The result is that Moline's affairs are in better shape today than they ever were. Mr. Carlson belongs to the Ma- sonic fraternity, Moline Lodge of Elks, No. 556; King Philip Lodge No. 94; Red Men, Swedish Olive Lodge, No. 583, of Odd Fellows, Moline Council of Royal Arcanum, No. 2009 ; Modern Woodmen of America, Camp 38; North Star Observatory, No. I, and the Moline MARTIN ROBERT CARLSON. Club. In politics he is a Republi- can and a leader in the Swedish- American Republican League of Illinois. His religious affiliations are with the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mayor Carlson's rise is a bril- liant one for a man still in his thirties, but the possibilities of his future are still brighter, for his constituents will not be content to have him remain where he is, but will insist that he represent them in higher offices, for they appreciate and recognize his sterling integrity and ability. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 651 Miss Hada M. Burkhart of Cen- terville, Ta., became his wife Sept. 17, 1914. The Mayor's residence is at 1845 1 5th street place. JOHN M. MAGNUSOX, the president and treasurer of the J. Peterson Company, in Moline, was born in Grasmark, Sweden, in 1871. In the public schools he re- ceived his education, and when 19 years old he emigrated to America. His first employment he found with his uncle, Johannes Peterson, a manufacturer of and dealer in pianos and organs. Here he re- mained seven years. When the Moline Furniture Works, in 1897, offered him a position as superin- tendent he accepted and gave twelve years of valuable service to said concern. Mr. Magnuson entered into his present position in 1909. The J. Peterson Company is widely known as the maker of the famous Mo- line pianos. It also manufactures fixtures and furniture for offices, stores and banks. Mr. Magnuson's integrity and efficient management has been an invaluable asset to this growing enterprise. AMANDUS FRIDOLF BERG- STROM, pastor of the First Lutheran Church of Moline, a man of learning and great influence within his denomina- tion, is a native of Sweden. In the parish of Doderhult, Smaland, he was born April 12, 1875. Nine years old he came to America with his parents, Carl J. Bergstrom, a farm- er, and Christine Johnson. Having completed his prepara- tory studies he entered Augustana College in 1892, and received his A. B. in 1898. He continued his studies in the Augustana Theologi- cal Seminary, from which he grad- uated with the B. D. degree in 1902. As a post-graduate he at- tended Chicago University during five quarter terms. In 1902 he was ordained and en- tered upon his first regular pastor- AMANDUS FRIDOLF BERGSTROM. ate, the Tabor Swedish Lutheran Church at Chicago, 111. Here he labored successfully during nine years, and accepted in 1911 the unanimous call to his present pas- torate. His denomination has in many ways recognized his ability and re- warded his faithfulness. He is at this time president of the Lutheran Hospital Board in Moline, and president of the executive commit- tee of the Board of Augustana Col- lege and Theological Seminary. He is vice-president of the Illinois Conference of the Augustana 652 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Synod, and is a member of its mis- sion board. The city of Moline has placed him on its Public Li- brary Board. To Marie L. Charleson of Mon- month, 111., a graduate of August- ana College he was married June 24, 1903. They have four children. The Rev. Bergstrom resides in the parsonage, 1014 Fifth avenue, Mo- line. GEORGE W. JOHNSON, president and treasurer of the Mo- line Furniture Works, is a native of Henry County, Illinois, where his parents, Sven P. Johnson and Christina Peterson, were early set- tlers. Born Oct. 9, 1857, he re- ceived his early education in the public schools. His father, who became a prosperous farmer, died in 1889. George and his brother. Julius, then began to devote them- selves to other pursuits than agri- culture. The first named moved to Moline, where he entered business. The large works over which he now presides were then in embryo. A co-operative plant was started by some Swedish-Americans. But its existence was precarious and re- mained so several years, until Mr. Johnson and a few others rendered financial aid of a substantial na- ture. The project was reorganized and its management was turned over to Mr. Johnson, whose executive abil- ity and absolute integrity have proven invaluable assets. The com- pany has steadily developed its fac- tories for the manufacture of store, bank and office fixtures, until it has become the largest special fixture factorv in the middle West. As a Republican and a man true to his civic duties, Mr. Johnson has time and again received deserved recognition. During Harrison's presidency he held the office of postmaster at Orion, 111. He has twice been elected to the state legis- lature. Mr. Johnson married Caroline F. Hagg of Henry County, May 31, 1882. Three sons and one daughter have teen born to them. GEORGE W. JOHNSON. The daughter is dead. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are devoted members of the Swedish Lutheran Church. JOHANNA EMELIA T. DAHL- GREN, superintendent of the Lutheran Hospital in Moline, is a native of Chicago, born Dec. 20, 1875, be- ing the daughter of Peter Magnus Dahlgren, a carpenter, and Ingrid Christina Swenson. The family lived for a number of years in Des Moines, la. Here she received her early education, later attending the LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 653 Englewood High School in Chi- cago. In 1892 she entered Augustana College, completed the normal course in 1893, and continued in the college department 2.y 2 years. Having decided to become a nurse, she entered Augustana Hos- pital in Chicago in 1901, and grad- uated in 1903, whereupon she pur- sued post-graduate studies at the Chicago Lying-in Hospital. JOHANNA EMELIA T. DAHLGREN. For one year, 1903-04, she was acting superintendent of the Bless- ing Hospital at Ouincy, 111. The next year she served as head nurse of the maternity department of the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. From there Miss Dahlgren was called as superintendent of the En- glewood Hospital, where she ren- dered excellent service from 1905 until Jan. i, 1916, when she ac- cepted the unanimous call to the present position. Miss Dahlgren is a member of various state and national organi- zations of nurses. She is a Luth- eran in faith and belongs to the Bethlehem Swedish Lutheran Church in Chicago. Politically she is a Republican. HENRY ECKLAND, an architect and constructor of wide experience and pronounced ability, was born in Sweden 48 years ago. His father was a defender of his country, a soldier of the old true HENRY ECKLAND. blue kind. Mr. Eckland came to America at an early age, and re- ceived the major part of his tech- nical education in the schools of this country. He studied architec- ture and building construction, and in 1894 entered the University of Illinois, where he took an architec- tural course. By natural talent and careful training, Mr. Eckland has attained the highest state of proficiency in his profession. He is a member of the firm of Eck- land, Fugard & Knapp, with offices in the McKinnie Building, Moline, 111., and in the Harris Trust Build- 654 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS ing, Chicago, 111. He has designed and erected a large number of buildings, public and private, among which is the new Moline High School Building, the new M. E. Church edifice at Washington, la., and the new Swedish Lutheran Church at DeKalb, 111. The first years of his practice he spent in Kewanee, 111., where he left many imposing monuments. Mr. Eckland's skill as an engi- neer, his taste as a designer and his absolute integrity have brought him business and influence in growing measure. He is married to Esther Nelson, of Chicago, and has three children. He and his wife are de- voted and highly respected mem- bers of the Swedish M. E. Church in Moline. J. F. FREEMAN, the manager of Freeman's Cancer Institute of Moline since its very inception in July, 1910, is a native of Sweden. He was born August 18, 1855, in Vestra Ryd parish, Ostergotland, where his parents, Jonas and Sara Maria Johnson were engaged in farming. He received his education in the parish school. In 1880 he came to the U. S. and located at once in Moline, where he followed the carpenter's trade. He soon found employment at the Deere & Mansur Co., where he remained 13 years, nine of these as a foreman. In 1894 a similar position was offered him by the Moline Plow Co. He accepted and remained until the spring of 1898. At that time he was compelled, by an increasing number of patients, to devote himself exclusively to the treating and healing of cancerous growths. In 1887 he had cured his first case of cancer. The patient is still alive and well after 29 years. His continued success has, without ad- vertising, brought him an increas- ing number of patients. Over, 2.- 500 cases have been treated, and according to his records 90 per cent have been cured, and that without the knife. J. F. FREEMAN. When Mr. Freeman's present well-appointed institute was opened he found in his son, Dr. D. B. Free- man, a graduate of the State Uni- versity of Iowa, a well-needed and able assistant. The institute is lo- cated at 1330-1334 Seventh avenue, Moline. Mr. Freeman was married to Miss Hanna Lovisa Strand of Grenna, Sweden, April 21, 1882. They have four sons and two daughters. Mr. Freeman is a Republican, a member of the Swedish-American Republican Club, and of the Svea LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 655 Male Chorus. He is a member of the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Moline, having been deacon during three years and trustee during many years. For eight years lie served as president of the Board of Trustees. CARL G. LONDBERG, a well-known life insurance man of Moline, was born in Saby par- ish, province of Smaland, Sweden, CARL G. LONDBERG. Sept. 23, 1876, being the eldest of seven children of August and Char- lotte (Johanson) Londberg, who came to the United States in 1891 and located in the Upper Penin- sula of Michigan. The father was a landscape gardener by occupa- tion, and died in Michigan in 1893, leaving his son Carl and his smaller brothers with grave responsibilities. He attended school in Sweden until he was 14 years old, and after coming to this country attended public school for two years. In the fall of 1900 he came to Rock Island and began a course of study at the Augustana College, from which institution he graduated in 1908 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. During this time he spent two and a half years in preaching and teaching in South Bend, Ind., and Chicago, 111., and worked with marked success as city and home missionary in the city of Chicago. Since June i, 1908, he has been local representative in Moline of the Scandia Life Insurance Com- pany of Chicago, for which posi- tion he is well fitted by natural ability and training. He has been very successful in this business, and is one of the leading agents in the company's service. He has in- . creased his business from year to year until now, when he averages more than $150,000 a year. He has a well founded reputation for business integrity and uprightness, and the prospects are bright for his doing an increased amount of busi- ness from year to year. Mr. Lond- berg is a member of the First Lutheran Church in Moline, and in politics he is a Republican. JOHN E. SETH, a well-known minister and writer within the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant of America, and present pastor of the Mission Tab- ernacle Church of Moline, was born in Solberga parish, Smaland, April 26, 1865. His parents, Jonas F. Johanson and Karin Jonasson, be- longed to the sturdy farmer folk of that province. At twenty-two years of age he came to America. Five years later, 1892, we find him among the grad- 656 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS nates of Chicago Theological Semi- nary. He had already begun his ministry as pastor of the Bethlehem Church in Chicago. After a year and a half in this charge he moved to Escanaba, Mich., in Oct., 1892. In the spring of 1893 he accepted a call to Superior, Wis., remaining until September, 1894. As a student of Carleton Acad- emy he spent a school year in JOHN E. SETH. Northfield, Minn., whereupon he moved to Duluth, Minn., serving successfully the Mission Church there until March, 1898. He then accepted the call to become assist- ant pastor in the great Swedish Tabernacle in Minneapolis. August i, 1899, he was elected superintendent of the Home Mis- sion Society of the Northwest and continued as such until March, 1900, when he became pastor of the Swedish Mission Church at Su- perior, Wis. In this pastorate, his second in that city, he now re- mained five years. The church at Spokane, Wash., called in the spring of 1905. and he yielded. During his seven suc- cessful years in that city he led in the building of a fine church and parsonage and witnessed an in- crease of members from 65 to 365. Two years, 1912-1914, he labored in the Tabernacle Church of San Francisco, and after a year's rest in Seattle, Wash., he began his present important work in Decem- ber, 1915. Rev. Seth has been a public- spirited man. He served as a mem- ber of the Carnegie Library Board in Superior, W r is., and was chair- man of the Board of City Charities in Spokane, W r ash. As a member of the Swedish World's Fair Com- mittee in San Francisco, 1915, he performed signal services and as a recognition from King Gustaf V. was made Knight of the Royal Order of Vasa. Among his literary products may be mentioned the volume "Spansk- Amerikanska Kriget," published in 1898. His wife, Hilma A. Samuelson, hails from Vasa, Goodhue County, Minn. They were married Oct. 30, 1895, and have two sons and a daughter. AXEL HJALMAR KOHLER, for many years prominent among Swedish- American citizens, of Rock Island County, was born May 17, 1844, in the parish of Ta- num, province of Bohuslan, Swe- den, and is a son of Gustaf Adolf von Kohler, and his wife, Juliana (Gedda) Kohler. In the i6th cen- tury the Kohler family belonged to Germany, later to the Baltic LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 657 provinces, afterward to Finland, and reached Sweden in the latter part of the i/th century. Gustaf Adolf von Kohler was an officer in the Swedish army. Hjalmar Kohler was educated in the "Real Gymnasium," Goteborg, Sweden. He became tutor for Gustaf and Wilhelm Dyrssen, who are now admirals in the Swedish navy, and Gerhard Dyrssen, ex-sec- retary of the navy, and at present governor of the province of Verm- land. In 1868 Mr. Kohler came to the United States and went to Red- wing, Minn. Later he went to Menominee, Wis., where he worked in a sawmill. In December, i8 r '8, he came to Moline, 111. While clerking in a store he was called upon by a representative of Deere & Co. to translate news ar- ticles from the German and French languages to English, describing the merits of the Deere plows just in- troduced in Europe. In 1869 he served as estimator for countrymen that had construction contracts on the C, B. & Q. R. R. In 1879 he was elected town col- lector of Moline. The following year he was appointed deputy county clerk, and in 1890 was elected county clerk and re-elected in 1894, and served as such until the end of 1898, when his term ex- pired. He then entered the law of- fice of his son, Axel H. Kohler. The Moline Dispatch then declared that "Colonel Kohler, who has seen eight years of service as county clerk and ten years as deputy, . . has been a faithful officer, pleasant to all, and his office has been a model one. Courtesy to ev- erybody is one thing that Colonel Kohler has insisted on in his office ; and all have received it. Colonel Kohler was complimented very highly in a series of resolutions by the county board for his efficient labor in connection with the state meeting of the supervisors, and at the last meeting was presented by the same body with a gold-headed cane as a token of the members' appreciation of his good work." AXEL HJALMAR KOHLER. On May i, 1885, he was ap- pointed aid-de-camp on the staff of governor Richard J. Oglesby. and in 1889 was reappointed to this po- sition by Governor Fifer. In 1893 he was appointed judge advocate on the staff of General William Clendennin. During his 18 years of service in the county clerk's office, there was hardly a day that some of his constituents did not call at his home asking advice or other services from him. He served them and never charged them a penny. Being musical he joined the Olive Male Chorus of Moline, and 658 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS in 1911 was elected president of this organization and re-elected every year since. He is an honor- ary member of the Frey Lodge, In- dependent Order of Svithiod, is also a member of the Illinois State Historical Society, and the Na- tional Geographic Society of Wash- ington, D. C. Mr. Kohler was married in April, 18/0, to Anna C. Johnson, who was born at Nykroppa, Verm- land, Sweden, and died in Illinois, March 3, 1907. There are two sons and three daughters in the family. Colonel Kohler was invited to write "The History of Moline" in the "Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Rock Island County," which works were pub- lished by Munsell Publishing Co., 1914. Colonel Kohler owns consider- able improved property in Moline, and also has a 32O-acre farm in Kansas. After an absence of forty- four years, Colonel Kohler visited his fatherland, Sweden, 1912. The family residence is at 1212 Seventh avenue. JOHN SUNDINE, associate publisher, business man- ager and half owner of the Moline Daily Dispatch, was born in Moline, 111., July 20, 1876. His parents were Carl Sundine, a merchant, and his wife Augusta Sundine, nee Skoglund. He is the eldest of twelve children, seven of whom are living. Mr. Sundine received public and high school education in Moline. He entered the newspaper work twenty-four years ago as a report- er, first on the Moline Journal, then on the Dispatch. After a time he became circulation manager on the last named daily and was later promoted to the position of busi- ness manager, which he"now holds. During the Spanish-American war Mr. Sundine served all through the war in the navy as fleet printer under Admiral Remey. on board the U. S. S. Lancaster, stationed at Kev West. He was also assist- JOHN SUNDINE. ant to Flag Secretary Belknap, in the government office at that point. Mr. Sundine's career has been rapid, and his record is clear-cut. He has been active in politics, but not as yet held any public office. Since he reached the voting age he has been a member of the Repub- lican City Central Committee, of which he has served as chairman. He has been a delegate to every Republican county convention, and has served as sergeant-at-arms at two Republican national conven- tions. He is a member of the Elks, M. W. A., Odd Fellows, Moline Com- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 659 mercial Club and of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Moline. JOHN A. SWANSON, the chief recorder of the North Star Benefit Association, was born JOHN A. SWANSON. at Kalmar, Sweden, March 28, 1875. Eleven years old he came to America with his parents, Gustaf Svensson, a livery owner, and Ma- thilda Svensson. They located on a farm at Knoxville, 111., where young Swanson continued the stud- ies begun in Sweden. At 13 years of age he lost his mother and from his sixteenth year he had to shift for himself. As a grocery clerk he worked in Des Moines, la., from 1891 to 1900. That year he removed to Moline, where he en- gaged in the grocery business until February, 1915, when he was elected to his present important of- fice. He is also a director of the Swed- ish Mutual Fire Insurance Com- pany of Moline. Politically he is a Republican and belongs to the Swedish Republican Club. In the Order of Vasa he has held the of- fice of treasurer. The Tabernacle Church of the Swedish Mission Covenant has in him a devoted and highly honored member. He has served his church faithfully as a trustee, treasurer and Sunday school superintendent. He entered matrimony with Nel- lie E. Nordstrom of Des Moines, la., July 3, 1902. Mr. Swanson's office is at 419-423 i5th street. He resides at 1129 22nd street in Mo- line. ROBERT CORNELIUS SHALL- BERG, is a native of Moline, 111., where he was born, July 28, 1884. His par- KOBERT CORNELIUS SHALLBERG. ents were Andrew Shallberg, a dealer in building material, and Jo- hanna Falk Shallberg. Having graduated from Moline High 660 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS School in 1903, he entered Brown's Business College. After a com- pleted course he found a position with the Peoples Savings Bank and Trust Company. The young messenger grew and measured up to every new duty in so perfect a manner that we find him in 1911 as the assistant cashier of the bank, a position he still holds. In 1913 he became a director of the bank. Mr. Shallberg is also a director of Mo- line Heat and is treasurer of Ob- servatory 100 of the Xorth Star Benefit Association. In 1913 he held the important position of city treasurer in Moline. He is a Republican and a mem- ber of the Swedish Republican Club. He also holds membership in the Elks, in the Swedish lodge of I. O. O. F. and in the After Din- ner Club of Moline. The First Swedish Lutheran Church is his place of worship. He married Miss Winnie R. Wi- berg of Altona, 111., March 18, 1908. They have three children and reside at 1417 Tenth street in. Moline. G. LEANDER PETERSON, one of the best known Swedish- American business men of Moline, was born on a farm in Henry County, near Swedona, Dec. 24, 1864. His grandparents were the third Swedish family that settled in Mercer County. He has studied at Augustana and at the Daven- port Business College. In the early nineties he was associated with Ernst W. Olson, G. A. Gustafson and Julius Johnson in publishing Nya Pressen, a Swedish weekly newspaper, at Moline and later at Chicago. For two terms he served as assistant clerk of the House of Representatives at Springfield. Mr. Peterson is a man of varied activities as shown by the number of positions of trust to which he has been chosen. Thus he was for a term of years secretary and later president of the Xorth Star Benefit G. LEANDER PETERSON. Association, a fraternal insurance association ; he has been president of the Svea Male Chorus of Mo- line ; has been president of the Western Division of the American Union of Swedish Singers; has served on the board of directors of Augustana College and Theological' Seminary ; has served for a num- ber of years as president of the board of trustees of the Augustana University Association ; has been vice-president for Rock Island County of the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois, be- sides being one of its organizers, and LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 661 secretary of the Rock Island Mr. Peterson for a number of County Central Committee and has years was president of the Rock served one term as president of the Island Tropical Plantation Com- Swedish-American Republican pany. He is now engaged in the League of Illinois. real estate business in Moline. GALESBURG. SIG. B. NELSON, prominent attorney and financier in Galesburg, came to America with his parents, Olof Nilsson and Sigrid Bennett, when one year old. He was born in the city of Kristian- stad, Sweden, July 23, 1885. In 1904 he graduated from Brown's Business College. Three years later he graduated from Knox Academy and in 1910 he received the A. B. degree at Knox College. Through these institutions of learning he worked his way, teaching night school and clerking in Galesburg banks. In the fall of 1910 he became cashier of Wataga State Bank. He rose to vice-president of said bank in March, 1914. As a law student he has attended the Chicago School of Law, from which he graduated in 1914; he has also received pri- vate instruction from Galesburg's leading attorneys, J. & F. Carney. In April, 1914, he formed a part- nership with said attorneys. The firm Carney, Carney & Nelson holds first place in Knox county today. Mr. Nelson has four times been elected treasurer of the Svea Mutual Protective Insurance Co. He holds that office at present, and is also a member of the executive committee. His strength as a finan- cier is shown by the fact that he took the initiative in the organiza- tion of the following banks, viz., the Wataga State Bank, the Woodhull State Bank and the First National Bank of Oneida. He also assisted in organizing three or four other very successful state and national banks. Mr. Nelson is a man of literary taste and an orator of note. As a college student he won several SIG. B. NELSON. honors and prizes in the debating field. He is a member of Greater Galesburg League, the Federated Brotherhood, the Masons, the M. W. of A., the Mystic Workers and the I. O. O. F. In the Toangetaha Country Club and the Knox County Bar Association he also holds mem- bership. The Trinity Lutheran Church has in him a strong supporter. He served as its Sunday school super- intendent for some time. 663 664 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS June 24, 1914, he married Miss Doris Dunlop, of Woodhull, 111. They reside at 840 North Seminary street. As a staunch defender of law and order, Mr. Nelson was elected on the "dry ticket" to the office of city attorney, which office he today fills with honor. ARTHUR W. ALSEN, partner of the Shadley & Alsen un- dertaking establishment in Gales- burg, hails from Peoria, 111., where his father, Carl A. Alsen, was a contractor and builder. His mother's name was Josephine H. Johnson. He was born April 27, 1883, and in the city of his birth he re- ceived his first school training. When his parents moved to Cam- bridge, where they took up farm- ing, young Alsen entered high school and completed the four-year course in three years. In Brown's Business College in Galesburg he developed such a mastery of his subjects that he easily captured the much coveted prize of represent- ing the college at the World's Fair in St. Louis. During three months he was a demonstrator in penman- ship and calculations at the Fair, receiving medal and honors for his skill. Late in 1904 he became as- sistant timekeeper with the C., B. & Q. R. R. Here he remained until September, 1907, when he accepted an offer from the Cline & Shaw Fuel Co. to become auditor. He entered his present partner- ship in December, 1915, and has his office at 392 East Tompkins treet. Mr. Alsen is an active Repub- lican. In. the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois he has held such offices as vice-presi- dent of Knox county and sergeant- at-arms of the state organization. He has been a member of the elec- tion board of the city of Galesburg during the past six years. He is a well-known member of the Y. M. C. A., the M. W. of A., the Elks, and the Swedish Lodge ARTHUR W. ALSEN. of I. O. O. F. in Galesburg. The Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church has in him a pillar. He is one of its trustees and has been the treasurer of the church since Jan- uary, 1914. Miss Hazel C. Nelson of Chi- cago became his wife Sept. 25, 1912. They have one daughter and reside at 572 Hawkinson avenue. SANDER ANDERSON, the city assessor of Galesburg, 111., was born Jan. 26, 1864, in Warren County, Illinois, at Scotchtowri, where his father, Andrew B. An- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 665 derson, was a farmer. His moth- ers' name was Johanna Johnson. In the district and city schools he received his early preparation. During the period of 1881-1901 he was affiliated with the J. B. Hol- land publishing house. From 1903 to 1909 he was associated with the Wagoner Printing Company. His present position he has held SANDER ANDERSON. since 1909, and has performed his duties in a manner very creditable to himself and his city. Mr. Anderson is a Republican in politics In his church, the First Swedish Lutheran, he is highly re- garded. As superintendent of the Sunday school he has served faith- fully for a number of years. He resides at 382 North Pearl street. Mr. Anderson is not married. OSCAR WILHELM JOHNSON, the senior member of the O. W. Johnson & P>rothers Grocery Co., is a native of Galesburg, 111., where he was born August 31, 1866, and where he received his education in public schools and in the Western Business College. His parents were Peter Johnson, a mechanic, and Maria Johnson, nee Anderson. He entered upon his business career early in life, and can look back upon a career both successful and honorable. In 1893 his present enterprise was started. OSCAR WILHELM JOHNSON. Mr. Johnson is a Republican and a well-known member of the S w e d i s h-American Republican League of Illinois. In the Country Club and the Y. M. C. A. he also holds membership. His church, the First Swedish Lutheran, has in him a pillar of strength. During 25 years he has been an officer in it sometime secretary, treasurer, trustee, assist- ant Sunday-school superintendent, president of the Men's League, member of building committee and of music board. During 19 years he has served as treasurer and still occupies that position. As a director of the Board of 666 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS Charities in the Illinois Conference he served five years. He also has been secretary on the executive committee at the Andover Orphan- age. To Miss Ellen Olson, of Gales- burg, he was married, November 19, 1890. They have two children. The family residence is located at 873 Bateman street. JOHN F. PETERSON The subject of this biography hails from the province of Vester- gotland, where he was born in JOHN F. PETERSON. Kvinnestad parish, June 17, 1863. His parents were Fetter Johnson and Ellen Nilsdotter. His natural gift for business developed early, and we find him at the age of 21 conducting his own business in Goteborg. Later he became man- ager of a large concern at Norra Hagen, in Dalsland province. In 1901 he decided to seek his fortune in America. Here at Gales- burg he entered the employ of the C. B. & Q. R. R. Later he entered again the grocery business and was for a time connected with the Grif- fith and the Larson-Hultgren com- panies and the J. E. Ohlson con- cern. In 1914 he entered upon his present occupation as traveling representative of the First National Nurseries in Rochester, N. Y. Mr. Peterson is a Republican and holds the office of sealer of weights and measures in Gales- burg. He is an honored member of the Swedish Baptist Church, of which he is a trustee, having pre- viously been secretary and treas- urer. With his wife, Anna Engberg, of Falkoping, Sweden, and two chil- dren he resides at 1729 East Fre- mont street. The marriage took place December 3, 1898. HARRY W. PETERSON, an energetic and successful life in- surance man of Galesburg, was born in Geneva, 111., May 15. 1885. His parents were Peter M. Peter- son and Anna C. Peterson, nee Johnson. Having obtained his pre- liminary education in the public schools at Geneva, he finished his studies at Illinois University and Augustana College, whereupon he immediately entered upon a busi- ness career. At first he was employed by Reid, Murdock & Co., of Chicago, in their claims department. Next we find him with the American Steel & Wire Co. at DeKalb, 111., where he occupied a position as as- sistant storekeeper. Attracted by the opportunities for an increased income offered by the life insurance LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 667 business, Mr. Peterson accepted a position with the Northwestern Life Insurance Co. as their local representative at Geneva, 111. His ability and success in this field soon attracted attention, and the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York secured his valuable services as their district manager in Galesburg. Mr. Peterson is a member of the Rotary Club, the Galesburg Club and the Soangetahy Country Club. He is also a Mason, an Odd Fel- low and a member of the local lodge of the Independent Order of Svithiod. Religiously he is a Lu- theran, being a member of the First Swedish Lutheran Church of Gales- burg, in which he holds the office of trustee. He is also a member of the Galesburg Y. M. C. A., where he serves as director. Mr. Peterson resides at 436 East Losey street, while his office is at 313, Bank of Galesburg. CARL LINDEROTH, the prominent Galesburg con- tractor, was born October 7, 1864, in Linderod, Skane, Sweden. He comes from a military ancestry. His father, N. P. Blomdahl, was a member of a noted regiment during 32 years, and his mother's father, Magnus Loh, fought in the Turko- Russian war. His parents, though poor, gave all their twelve children a fair edu- cation. Carl, being the oldest, started early in self-support. Eleven years he worked as car- penter and builder in Stockholm. In 1892 he made a trip to the World's Fair in Chicago and de- cided to remain in America. When his family arrived they settled in Galesburg, 111. He accepted employment on the C. B. & Q. R. R., where he ad- vanced to foreman in the building department. During 16 years he remained in this position. In 1909 he was offered a place as superin- tendent of construction with the Collins Brothers, of Rock Island. In this capacity he had charge of CARL LINDEROTH. large constructions in Oklahoma, Iowa and Illinois. The Monmouth-Galesburg Con- struction Co. offered him a partner- ship in the firm, which offer he ac- cepted in 1910. Greatly due to Mr. Linderoth's skill and energy, this firm has become one of the lead- ing enterprises in Galesburg. In several states we find today this concern erecting large structures of all kinds, such as hospitals, schools, churches, theaters, etc. Mr. Linderoth is a member of the Galesburg Club, the Galesburg Commercial Club and Christian Science Church. 668 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS He married Anna Nilsson, of Linderod, September 19, 1883. They reside at 417 North Cherry street, and have two children. CHARLES HENRY WESTER- BERG is the efficient and popular Circuit Court clerk of Galesburg, in which city he was born October 12, 1868. His father, a cabinetmaker, gave CHARLES HENRY WESTERBERG. the boy his own name. His mother's name was Gunilla Jonas- son. The public schools and Brown's Business College gave young Wes- terberg his preparatory training. He paid his own way through the Western Business College by work- ing at Johnson's brick yards. Later he clerked in different grocery stores, in a drug store and at Brown's Corn-Planter Works. From 1890 until 1907 he held several im- portant clerkships in the mechanical department of the C. B. & Q. R. R. While in charge of the fuel depart- ment he was elected treasurer of the city of Galesburg in April, 1907. Since December, 1908, Mr. Wester- berg has held his present important position, having been re-elected in 1912. His administration has been unusually able and scientific. He is a Republican in politics and a prominent member of the Swedish- American Republican League of Illinois and he has served as vice-president of the Knox county organization. He is a mem- ber of Galesburg Business Men's Club. Mr. Westerberg is a leading member and a trustee of the Eirst Swedish Lutheran Church. He married Ida C. Smith, of Sutton, Neb., June 16, 1908. Two children have been born to them. The fam- ily resides at 918 North Seminary street. OTTO E. FRIEDLUND. As an able director of physical edu- cation and recreation the subject of this sketch has made a name for himself throughout the Y. M. C. A., and has proven a drawing card for the Galesburg branch. He was born in Jordan, Minn., on July 28, 1885. His father, Nils Fried- lund, was a cooper by trade. He went through the public school at Minneapolis, studied in the high school, and with private tutors, at- tended the Northwestern Conserva- tory and the University Summer School. In 1907 he became assistant physical director at Minneapolis Y. M. C. A. As such he remained during four years. He also served as instructor on the Minneapolis LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 669 Park and Playgrounds (seven years in all) and was for a year director of the Calhoun baths. Having pursued his studies in the Y. M. C. A. night school dur- ing three winters, he entered in 1911 the International Y. M. C. A. College at Springfield, Mass. From this institution he graduated with honors in 1915. In September of that year he accepted the call to his present position. OTTO E. FRIEDLUND. A lover of athletics and having a fine physique and clean habits, he became a leader of sports while yet a college student. Base ball, foot ball, basket ball and track ath- letics found in him an able and en- thusiastic supporter and player. lie served at times as captain, instruc- tor and coach. Mr. Friedlund is a Republican in politics. He is a member of the First Lutheran Church and of the Galesburg Rotary Club. He also belongs to the Mystic Workers of the World. He resides at 410 North Cherry street. CHARLES F. HURBURGH, prominent lawyer and citizen of Galesburg, 111., was born in Sweden, January 10, 1872. A year later his parents emigrated, settling at Altona, 111., where the boy was raised. After finishing public school he obtained a liberal educa- tion at Abingdon Normal College and Knox College, both institutions being situated in his home county. CHARLES F. HURBURGH. From the former institution he was graduated in 1892 and from the latter in 1895. Mr. Hurburgh has served his county in the capacity of sheriff for the official terms of 1902-04 and 1904-06, having acted as deputy sheriff for two years, 1903- 02. Prior to entering the service of Knox county he held the posi- tion of principal of the public schools of Maquon, 111., from 1895 to 1900. In 1906 Mr. Hurburgh was elected a member of the Sen- ate of the State Legislature, and in 1910 he was re-elected. As a state 670 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS senator Mr. Hurburgh created a name for himself as an ardent worker for good legislation, par- ticularly with reference to the rail- roads. .In 1912 he was the Pro- gressive candidate for governor of the state of Illinois. The Demo- crats, however, brought home the victory at the election in the fall of the same year. August 6, 1903, he was married to Miss Anna Scott, at Duncan, 111. Mr. and Mrs. Hurburgh are mem- bers of the Congregational Church. He is a popular member of the Galesburg Business Association and several other organizations. CARL GOTTFRID JOHNSON. born in Oscarshamn, Sweden, Jan. 5, 1865, came to America and Galesburg with his parents, C. X. Johnson and Helena Sofia (Mal- strom), at the age of four. Hav- ing finished his public school edu- cation, he spent a few years as a worker in a boiler factory and on a farm. In 1883 he entered Augus- tana College and received his S. R. degree six years later. In the fall of 1889 he came to Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn as a medical student, where he obtained his M. D. degree in the spring of 1892. He then ac- cepted an appointment as interne and ambulance surgeon at Eastern District Hospital in Brooklyn. From there he went the following fall to the Minneapolis City Hos- pital, where he was appointed house physician and surgeon. Hav- ing served as such for a year, Dr. Johnson passed the Minnesota State Board examination and en- gaged in private practice in Minne- apolis. His home city, however, had just claims upon him and he went to meet them in January, 1895. Soon after his return he was ap- pointed on the staff of the Gales- burg Cottage Hospital. Repeated re-elections followed until 1909. From 1906 until 1909 he served as chief of the medical staff; in 1907- CARL GOTTFRID JOHNSON. 1908 he also held the office of health commissioner of Galesburg. A large part of 1897 Dr. John- son spent in post-graduate work in Germany, France, England and Sweden. It proved a most profita- ble period to him and later redound- ed to the advantage of his city. Dr. Johnson is a member of the Galesburg Medical Society, Knox County Medical Association, Illi- nois State Medical Society and American Medical Association. As a Republican he was elected city alderman in 1904 and served one year. He is an Odd Fellow. The First Swedish Lutheran LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 671 Church, of which he is a member, had in him a faithful trustee dur- ing 1908-1914. As a director of Augustana College from 1899 to 1911 and of Augustana Hospital in Chicago from 1904 until the pres- ent, he has rendered invaluable ser- vices. The local Y. M. C. A. has in him a staunch supporter. August 5, 1896, Dr. Johnson was married to Miss Hannah Larson, of Moline, 111. They have a son and a daughter. At 220 North Chambers street the family resides. The doctor's office is in the Bank of Galesburg Building. M. O. WILLIAMSON, one of the best known Swedish- Americans of Illinois, was born on the Atlantic Ocean, July 14, 1850, while his parents were on their way from Jejfso, Helsingland, Swe- den, to this country. They lo- cated in Knox county, Illinois, which has since been the family home. The district school and the high school gave him his education. When a lad he learned the harness trade at Wataga, 111. Twenty-eight years he remained at this trade. He was elected and served as town and city clerk, alderman and justice of the peace ; was elected county treasurer of Knox county in 1886 ; was elected county clerk of the same county in 1890, 1894 and 1898, and was elected state treas- urer in 1900. He was one of the organizers of and is an active mem- ber of the Swedish-American Re- publican League of Illinois, and was its president in 1897. He was a member of the Republican County Central Committee of Knox countv for more than twenty years, and was either chairman or secretary all that time. He is a Republican, and while not active in politics at this time, takes a lively interest in public affairs, be- lieving that to be the duty of every citizen. He is a Knight Templar, Mason, Odd Fellow, Knight of Pythias, an Elk and a member of the Galesburg M. O. WILLIAMSON. Business Men's Club. He was for two years a member of the Lincoln Monument Association of Illinois, and it was during his term of ser- vice that the rebuilding of the Lin- coln monument was completed and the remains of the martyred Presi- dent laid away in its final resting place. He was one of the organizers and for fifteen years a member of the board of directors of the North Star Benefit Association, a fra- ternal insurance company of Mo- line, 111. He was one of the organ- izers of the People's Trust & Sav- ings Bank, of Galesburg, 111., in C72 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS 1903, and was elected its first president. This is one of the largest financial institutions in that part of the state, and he occupies that same position at this time. He was married in 1871 to Mary A. Driggs, at Wataga, 111., and his family consists of wife and two daughters, both married. PHILIP N. GRANVILLE, cashier of the Bank of Galesburg, was born at Abingdon, Knox County, Illinois. His parents were John Granville, a shoe merchant, and Bothilda, nee Soderstrcm. In public school and at Knox Acad- emy he received his early training. He clerked in various stores, and later worked for C. B. & O. R. R. Co., in the Galesburg office. Then he entered the employ of the Cov- enant Mutual Benefit Association, and became its cashier. In 1887 he was elected treasurer of the city of Galesburg for two years. Messrs. Haugan & Lindgren, bankers, of Chicago, engaged him to open a branch bank in Galesburg to be known as Bank of Galesburg, Hau- gan & Lindgren, Bankers. The bank was opened in April, 1889. and continued as such until the fall of 1891, when several citizens be- came interested in a state bank proj- ect. Mr. Granville was one of the petitioners for the chartering of Bank of Galesburg as a state bank, and on Oct. 3, 1891, a charter was granted. Mr. Granville was elected a director and secretary of the board, which positions he has held since that time. In September, 1892, he was elected cashier, and has held that position until the present time. The bank has grown gradually since that time. The capital stock at the time of incorpo- ration was $100,000. The capital stock now in 1916 is $125,000. and the surplus and undivided profits are $386,000, making a total of over $510,000, thus placing this bank on the roll of honor among state banks. He is a director of the Wagoner Printing Co. PHILIP N. GRANVILLE. Mr. Granville has grown up in the Swedish M. E. Church of Galesburg, now named Emmanuel M. E. Church, and at present is a trustee, also member and treasurer of its Brotherhood Society. In poli- tics he is a Republican. He served as alderman in 1906-1907, and was elected again in 1914. In the Odd Fellows Order Mr. Granville has filled various positions of trust, being a Past Noble Grand and Past Representative of First Scandinavian Lodge No. 446, I. O. O. F., as well as having been its treasurer for many years, still oc- cupying that office. Is also Past LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 673 Chief Patriarch of Colfax Encamp- ment No. 28, I. O. O. F., and mem- ber of Canton Galesburg P. M. In Masonic circles he is a 320! degree member of Peoria Con- sistory, S. P. R. S., and member of Mahommed Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. ; also a Past Commander of Galesburg Commandery, No. 8, Knights Templar ; Past Thrice Illustrious Master of Illinois Coun- cil, No. i, R. & S. M., and present treasurer thereof ; treasurer of Galesburg Chapter, No. 46, R. A. M., and also treasurer of Alpha Lodge, No. 155, A. F. & A. M. ; member of Nonpareil Chapter, No. 618, O. E. S., and of Bethel Shrine. No. 27. Mr. Granville has been a member of the Galesburg Club al- most since its organization. Miss Bessie Olson, of Galesburg, became his wife, November i, .1903. They have two children. At 533 East North street they have their residence. ROBERT J. WALBERG, one of Galesburg's well-known at- torneys, has been in Galesburg since September 17, 1879. His parents were J. A. Walberg, a grocer, and Susan Munson. Having finished his studies in the public and high schools, he became associated with his father in his growing con- cern. After eleven years of experience as a business man he decided to study law, and in 1909 he began his preparatory studies. In Feb- ruary, 1912, he passed his examina- tion with honor and was admitted to the bar. For a time he entered partnership with James A. Davis, then city attorney, but later he es- tablished his own offices at the present location, rooms 3-6, Thomp- son Building. He was appointed justice of the peace in Knox county in 1913. Being a stalwart Republican and a prominent member of the Swedish- American Republican League, he was elected senatorial committeeman for the 43d district in 1914. Mr. Walberg is a member of the Knox County Bar Association, the Galesburg and the Soangetaha Clubs. His fraternal relations are with the Masons, the Elks and the Red Men. His religious connec- tions are with the Methodist Epis- copal Church. September 20, 1903, he married Miss Florence Cowan, of Colches- ter, 111. They reside at 622 Mon- mouth boulevard. STATE-AT-LARGE. LEONARD BERGER BENSON, Swedish Lutheran clergyman, of Galva, 111., was horn in the parish of Alfshcg, province of Halland, Sweden, July 2, 1882. His father was Sven Elof Benson, farmer by occupation ; his mother's maiden name was Johanna Svensson. When the son was but two years old his parents emigrated to America, set- tling in the state of Iowa. In the public schools of Albert City, in that state, young Benson obtained his early education. At the age of nineteen he entered the Buena Vista College of Storm Lake, la., where he studied for one year. In 1902 he was enrolled at the Baptist City Commercial Col- lege in Des Moines, la., from which he graduated July 31, 1903. Desiring a higher education than here afforded, Mr. Benson in 1904 went to Augustana College, at Rock Island. Here he studied for four years. In 1909 he was a student at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, returning in 1910 to Augustana College, from which he was graduated in the spring of the same year with the degree of A. B. In the fall of 1910 he was matriculated at Augustana Theo- logical Seminary, finishing his theological course in the spring of 1913, when he received the degree of B. D. On June 15 the same year at the synodical meeting in Chicago he was ordained minister 67 of the Augustana Synod, and on July 20 took charge of the Swedish Lutheran Church of Galva, where he has labored since with marked success. One of his first endeavors after having entered upon his duties as pastor was to secure for his congre- gation a new church edifice. In LEONARD BERGER BENSON. these efforts he has succeeded so well that at the present writing, in August, 1916, the new edifice, cost- ing about $50,000, is nearing its completion. Designed by Mr. Andrew E. Norman, the well- known church architect of Chicago, the new Swedish Lutheran Church of Galva, rich in artistic details, is one of the most representative new church buildings of western Illinois and a source of joy to pastor and congregation alike. 676 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS On June 26, 1913, the Rev. Ben- son was married to Miss Helen Gustafson, of Orion, 111., a native of Morlunda, Smaland, Sweden. The parsonage is at 403 Southwest 4th street, Galva. CHAS. F. ANDERSON, the present mayor of Princeton, 111., was born in Od parish, Vester- gotland, Sweden, June 16, 1866. At the age of five he came to Amer- ica and to Princeton, together with his parents, Samuel and Clara Anderson. He was educated in the Princeton schools and started early on his successful business career. Clerking in a general store led to the traveling salesmanship in 1889. The following year he estab- lished himself in the grocery busi- ness, to which he added a meat mar- ket five years later. In 1904 he organized the Princeton Seal- ing Wax Co. At present he serves as director in said company, also in the Princeton Dry Goods Co. and the Princeton Hotel Co. He has served his city, state and his party (the Republican) very efficiently in many positions of trust. In 1890 he was elected alderman of Princeton and served as such during eight years. During the last three years of said period he was also a member of the City School Board. Governor Chas. S. Deneen in 1908 appointed him a member of the Illinois Canal Com- mission, which position he filled until the end of the governor's term in 1912. When the city appointed a com- mittee to investigate the commis- sion form of government he was made chairman of the committee. When that form of government was adopted by the city he became the first mayor under the new char- ter, being elected May i, 1914. Fraternally Mr. Anderson is con- nected with the Masons, the Wood- men and the Swedish Benefit Asso- ciation. He is also a member of the Bureau County Republican Club and is a director of the Commer- CHARLES F. ANDERSON. cial Club of Princeton. The Swedish Lutheran Church is his church home. Miss Evelyn Larson, of Prince- ton, became his wife October 16, 1895. They have one son, Lloyd F., born August 13, 1899. The family residence is at 714 North Church street, Princeton. TITUS A. CONRAD, clergyman in the Swedish Luth- eran Augustana Synod, was born in Rishult, Traheryd, Smaland, March 28, 1874, his parents being Mag- nus Anderson, a farmer, and LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 677 Johanna Christina A n d e r s o n. When nine years old he came to the United States, to relatives living in Afton, Minn. In the pub- lic schools at Afton he received his first training. His thirst for knowl- edge led him in 1895 to Gustavus Adolphus College at St. Peter, Minn., where he received his A. B. degree in 1901. During the fol- lowing three years he studied in TITUS A. CONRAD. the Augustana Theological Semi- nary, received the B. D. degree in 1904 and was ordained the same year. In 1905-1906 he continued his studies as a post-graduate at Iowa University. An eager student, he allowed nothing to hinder his academic work ; he supported him- self during his school years, first as a farm hand, later as a school teacher, and finally as a preacher. In the capacity of a student-preach- er he served Swedish Lutheran churches in the following cities and towns : Vista, Alexandria, Moor- head and Duluth, in Minnesota ; also in Elgin, 111. His first pastorate was Swedona, 111., where he labored with great success during 1904- 1907. His present pastorate, entered upon in 1907, is Monmotith. 111., where he has led in the erection of a beautiful temple, costing $65,000, and increased the membership with 250 new communicants. His denomination has honored him in many ways and recognized his great ability. He is a member of the board and vice-president of Augustana Pension and Aid Fund. He is also a member of the board of Augustana Book Concern. He is editor of Barncns Tidning, a semi- monthly magazine for the Sunday schools of the Augustana Synod. His literary work also includes the parish paper, Var Forsamling. Politically the Rev. Conrad is a Republican ; he holds membership in the Swedish Republican Club. At one time he served as president of the Warren county organization. He married Miss Antonia Marie Rovelstad, of Elgin, 111., September 7, 1904. This union has been blessed with four children. OSCAR E. CARLSTROM, one of the leading attorneys in Mercer county, hails from New Boston, 111., where his parents, Charles A. Carlstrom and Clara Carolina, nee Spang, were land owners. He was born July 16, 1878, and received his education at New Boston High School and Northern Illinois College of Law, at Dixon, 111. Having received his diploma he was admitted to the bar in 1903 and began the practice of law at Aledo, 678 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS 111. At first he entered partner- ship with Hon. T. N. Basset under the name of Basset & Carl- strom. This firm existed for 18 months. After that and until No- vember, 1913, he practiced alone. Then he formed the partnership of Graham & Carlstrom. Hon. W. J. Graham was the other member of the firm. Later a brother of Mr. Graham entered the partnership. OSCAR E. CARLSTROM. On October 15, 1915, the firm was dissolved and Attorney Carlstrom opened his present offices in the Carlson Building at Aledo. He is a member of the Aledo Club and a leader among the Re- publicans, locally as well a-s in the Swedish-American State League. Four years he served as corporation counsel in Aledo. His fraternal connections include the following: A. F. & A. M., Xo. 252, Aledo; R. A. M., Chapter No. 21 1 ; Aledo; I. O. O. F., No. 234, Aledo; Elks, No. 397, Mou- rn outh, 111. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Aledo, 111. During the Spanish-American war Mr. Carlstrom served his conn- try with honor. August 26, 1899, he enlisted for service in the Philip- pine Islands. As corporal he was honorably discharged May 6, 1901. On December 30, 1903, he was married to Miss Alma Christine Nissen, of Grand Meadow, Minn. They have one son, born in 1905. The family residence is at 709 So. College avenue, Aledo, 111. ; '""*' * *"* ' ;CHARLES A. SAMUELSON, banker and leading citizen of Sher- rard, 111., was born in Haddarp, Lonneberga parish, province of Smaland, November 18, 1856. His parents were Samuel Johnson and Kristina Olson. At the age of fourteen he came to .America and joined his brother, Jonas Samuel- son, who owned and operated a coal mine near New Windsor, 111 . Flere he continued his studies on spare hours and worked for his brother. After four years he bought the mine from his brother and operated it during three years. Fie then sold it and went to farming and stock raising. Here as elsewhere he met with success and in 1882 he bought a large tract upon a part of which the town of Sherrard is built. When this town came into existence in 1894 through the new coal mines and the Rock Island & Mercer County railroad, Mr. Samuelson opened a business in lumber, grain, imple- ments and hardware. He also be- came a shipper of live stock. His enterprises grew with great rapid- ity. In 1915 he disposed of them LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 679 in order that he might devote his time exclusively to banking and overseeing the cultivation of one thousand acres of farmland. He has served during fifteen years as a trustee in his school dis- trict. Twelve years he was road commissioner, and treasurer of Richland Grove township. As a member of the State Legislature, he has represented the 35th district CHARLES A. SAMUELSON. two terms, being reelected in 1890 by acclamation. The 33rd district he represented one term, beginning 1892. In this capacity he has served with great credit to himself and his electors. In 1900 Governor Yates appointed him on a commit- tee to solicit aid in the state for the sufferers in Finland and North- ern Sweden. As a Republican he has taken a leading part in organizing and maintaining the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois ; for a time he was its vice-president. As a delegate to state and county con- ventions he has served many times. Sherrard elected him mayor in 1908, and he filled the office with honor during four years. His fraternal relations include the K. of P., I. O. O. R, M. W. A., Red Men and the North Star Bene- fit Association, Moline, in which he has been director six years and treasurer five. His religious affiliations are with the Swedish Lutheran Church, where he has held the positions of deacon, trustee and treasurer. He is an honorary member of the Au- gustana Endowment Fund. Feb. 27, 1879, he was married to Emma M. Lawson, of Swedona, 111. They have had six children. Two are living. AUGUST WILHELM STARK, the superintendent of the Lutheran Orphans' Home and Salem Home for the Aged in Joliet, 111., was born Nov. 2, 1854, in Sweden, at Eksjo, where his father, Johan Gustaf Johnson, followed the car- penter's trade. His mother was Martha Christina Stark, whose family name he and his younger brother adopted. Having completed his public school course young Stark spent some years as a railroad man, until he left for America in 1873. He located at first in Tidioute, Pa. Dur- ing the school year 1876-77, he attended the Collegiate Institute at Jamestown, N. Y. A desire to enter the ministry had possessed him since 1874, when he experienced conver- sion, and 1878 he began in earnest his preparations for said calling. He entered Augustana College and graduated in 1883, receiving the A. 680 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS B. degree. Two years later he fin- ished the course at Augustana Theological Seminary and was or- dained at Rockford, 111., June 28, 1885. His first pastorate was Round Rock, Texas. Here he remained only a year, accepting in 1886 a call to Des Moines, Iowa. The Swedish Lutheran Church in that city had in him a faithful pastor until 1891, when the church at De AUGUST WILHELM STARK. Kalb, 111., secured him. Here he remained a beloved shepherd of souls until 1912. In October that year he entered upon his present duties. Before he became superin- tendent of these homes he served on the board of directors. His church has honored him in many ways. On many of its con- ference committees he has been an efficient member. He has also served as vice-president of the Illi- nois Conference of the Augustana Synod. Miss Wilhelmina Peterson, of Chicago became his wife Jan. 14, 1886. They have had seven chil- dren, one son dying in infancy. Mrs. Stark is at present matron of the Orphans' Home. Rev. Stark is a Republican in politics. The Rev. M. J. Laure, Ph. D., pastor of the "Mother Church" of the Augustana Synod, was born in Espinge parish, province of Skane, September 22, 1874. He was the twelfth and youngest child of Lars Olson, farmer by occupation, and his wife, Gunilla Nilson. Having finished his studies in the parish school and the business college at Llorby, he came to America in 1896. Six years later he entered Augus- tana College and Theological Semi- nary, where the A. B. degree was given him in 1906, the B. D. degree in 1908 and the Master of Arts degree in 1909. That same year he entered Iowa State University, where he passed the final examina- tions in 1911 and received the de- gree of Ph. D. in 1912. In the year of 1908 at Chicago he was ordained a minister of the Augustana Synod. He served suc- cessfully in the active pastorate even while he pursued his studies at the seminary and the university. During 1907-1912 he was pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Mediapolis, la. He assumed his present duties as pastor of the his- toric church at Andover, 111., in 1912, having previously declined several offers to leading city pulpits within his denomination. His treatise on "The Prop- erty Concepts of the Early He- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 681 brews" was published by the State University of Iowa in 1915. His research work in this field re- vealed facts which led to the de- velopment of the ''Taboo Theory" of the origin of the idea of owner- ship, which shifts the course of the institution of property from a ma- terial and legal to a superstitious and religious basis. Dr. Laure is a director of the Andover Orphanage and Farm MARTIN JOHN LAURE. School at Andover, 111. He mar- ried Miss Anna Nelson of Lin- derod, Skane, March 4, 1899. Two daughters have been born to them. FRANK GUSTAV STOHL a young progressive farmer and business man of New Windsor, is the son of a soldier. His father, Anders Johan Stohl, was a dis- tinction corporal in the Swedish army and served with honor during twenty-six years. With his wife, Elin Swenson, and children, he arrived in America in 1892, mak- ing his new home in New Windsor, 111. The subject of this sketch was born in Vittaryd, Moheda parish, Smaland, Aug. 21, 1879. His ele- mentary training he received in the public schools in Sweden and in New Windsor. Later he entered the commercial department of Au- gustana College in Rock Island, 111. Mr. Stohl has many interests, farming and insurance occupy the major part of his time. As a mem- FRANK GUSTAV STOHL. ber and treasurer of the Svea Mu- tual Fire Insurance Co. of Knox, Henry and Mercer counties, he has built up an extensive business and doubled the company's affairs. His township has elected him school trustee and justice of the peace. He is also official crop re- porter for the township, an ap- pointment under the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D. C. His party, the Republican, he has served as precinct committee- man during several years. The Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois appointed him a 682 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS member of its executive commit- tee during 1915-1916. He is also sergeant-at-arms in said league. The Swedish Lutheran Church of New Windsor, of which he is a member, has in him had a faith- ful secretary during many years. The church has honored him by electing him delegate to several conventions of the district and the synod. One year he served as member of the General Council. Mr. Stohl is not married. ALFRED NELSON, the present pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Prophetstown, 111., began his ministry when he had received his ordination at Rockford, III, in the year 1885. Born February 12, 1852, in Var- kumla, Vestergotland, he came to America and Geneseo, 111., 1868, in company with his parents, August Nelson, a farmer by occupation, and Anna Swenson, nee Wallin. Later the family moved to the Hal- land settlement in Iowa. Having finished his public school studies, he entered Augustana College in 1879 and graduated from Augus- tana Theological Seminary in 1885. Thus equipped he began his pas- toral work in Henderson Grove, 111. Simultaneously he served as pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Wataga and opened a new mission in North Henderson. After a four- year pastorate in said places, he re- signed and accepted a call to the Swedish Lutheran Church in Swe- dona, 111. His four-year term here ended when he was appointed trav- eling representative of the Augus- tana Book Concern. As such he traveled through most of the states and parts of Canada. During this period, 1893-1906, he preached in nearly a thousand churches. From this position he stepped into the managership of the Chicago branch of the Book Concern, where he remained until 1914. In October, that year, he accepted a call to the Swedish Lutheran Church at Chi- ALFRED NELSON. cago Heights, 111. After a year's work in this field he moved to the present parish and its annex, Mor- rison, 111. Miss Ida I. Lindstrom, of St. Charles, 111., became his wife July 9, 1885. Seven children were given them ; three are living. JULIUS JOHNSON. As a former manufacturer and publisher Mr. Johnson is well- known in the city of Moline, 111. He was born April 18, 1871, at Lynn, Henry county, 111., where his parents were among the early Swedish settlers. In the public LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 683 schools and at Augustana College, Rock Island, he received his educa- tion. Having completed the same, he returned to farming for several years, whereupon he moved to Moline and engaged in business, first as part owner of the Swedish weekly Nya Pressen, and later in the manufacture of pianos. From time to time he has been entrusted with various positions in the office of the secretary of state, JULIUS JOHNSON. the state treasurer, the state insur- ance inspector's department and other branches of the state service. He has thus become thoroughly familiar with the business of the various state officers and depart- ments, and has a wide acquaintance in different sections of the state. Politically he is a Republican and has taken an active interest in state politics for more than twenty years. Mr. Johnson is married and has two children. He holds member- ship in the Lutheran Church and in various fraternal and benevolent organizations. PALMER E. ANDERSON is a native of Princeton, 111., where his parents were among the early settlers. He was born on March 29, 1874. Here he also received his training for life and entered busi- ness as a young man. At present he is a member of the real estate firm of Clark, Anderson & Ferris. As a Republican he has always been very active in politics. Dur- PALMER E. ANDERSON. ing the past year he has served as president of the Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois, and is secretary of the Bureau County Republican Central Committee. He is a member of the board of di- rectors of the Bureau Valley Coun- try Club and secretary of the Princeton Hotel Co. As president of the Board of Education of the Princeton public schools he has served his community with unusual ability and success. As a man of integrity and strength he has proven himself worthy of all the honor and responsibility his city has placed 684 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS upon his shoulders. He has served once as alternate delegate-at-large to the Republican national con- vention. Mr. Anderson is married to Win- nie Mae Spake. They have two children Palmer Spake and Dar- lene Mae Anderson. LEONARD S. TELLEEN, one of the prominent Swedish- American lawyers of Illinois, is the son of the well-known clergyman, LEONARD S. TELLEEN. the Rev. Johannes Telleen, and his wife, Maria Anderson, and was born in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 3, 1877. From public school he en- tered the Augustana College, where he received his A. B. degree in 1896. The succeeding two years he continued his studies in the Au- gustana Theological Seminary. Later he turned to the study of law and in 190x3-1901 we find him at the Iowa College of Law. , In 1901-1903, he pursued his studies at the University of Nebraska, in the law department, which conferred upon him the LL. B. degree. He was admitted to the bar in Nebraska in 1902, and the following year to the bar in Illinois. The city of his home, Cambridge, 111., has recognized his worth time and again in various ways. Dur- ing 1907 and 1908 he served as president of the village board. In 1910 he was elected county judge of Henry County and his re- election followed in 1914 as a token of high esteem and well-founded trust. Judge Telleen is a Republican and his church home is the Swed- ish Lutheran Church at Cam- bridge. He married Miss Vina A. Elm of Cambridge, Nov. 9, 1908. They have three children. JOSEPH E. WESTERLUND, a prominent physician and surgeon of Cambridge, 111., is known as a leader among the Swedish -Ameri- cans of this state. He came from a sturdy pioneer stock. His par- ents are Jonas Westerlund, a re- tired farmer, and Elna Nelson. He was born in Lynn township, Henry County, Illinois, July 30, 1870. Having completed the public school course, he entered Augustana Col- lege, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1895. He was the his- torian of his class. Later he en- tered the College of Physicians and Surgeons and took his M. D. de- gree with honor in 1900. He lo- cated at once in Cambridge, where his practice has been constantly growing. His willingness and his ability to serve the community in public af- LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 685 fairs has been demonstrated again and again. For ten years he has been a member of the Board of Ed- ucation. He was also mayor of the village for one term. Politically ;a Republican, he has held many a position of trust and honor within his party. He was secretary of the Henry County Republican Central Committee. For over twenty years he has been prominently identified JOSEPH E. WESTERLUND. with the Swedish-American Repub- lican League of Illinois, which, on March 9, 1916, elected him as its president. He served as delegate to the Republican National Con- vention in Chicago, 1916, from the 1 5th Congressional District. Of the Farmers' National Bank he is a director and holds member- ship in Cambridge Commercial Club. His church, the Swedish Lutheran, has elected him a deacon and appointed him a director of the Lutheran Hospital at Moline, 111. Miss Emma C. Wahlberg, of Moline, 111., became his wife, Sept. 10. 1902. They have two children. ULRIK RONNOUIST In Mansbyn, Nederkalix parish, Norbotten, Sweden, the subject of this sketch was born, May 19, 1868. His parents were Lars Olof Ronn- quist, a farmer, and his wife, Ka- tarina Helena, nee Nilsson. In 1891 he came to America, locating at Calumet, Mich., where he worked as a miner. In 1896 he Ui.KIK ROXNQUIST. began his studies at Augustana Business College. He continued in Augustana Academy and Augus- tana College from which he grad- uated with the A. B. degree in 1901. Then followed the complete course in the Augustana Theological Sem- inary, which granted him his B. D. degree in 1904. The same year he was ordained at Lindsborg, Kan. His first pastorate at Pecatonica, 111., he served from 1904 until No- vember, 1908, when he began his second and present pastorate in Swedona, 111. His service? to the community have been of the high- est order. As a village trustee and 686 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS chairman of the Board of Health he has proven true to his civic du- ties.- His denomination has honored him in several ways. The Rock Island District of the Illinois Con- ference has in him a capable presi- dent and the Lutheran Hospital at Moline, 111., a faithful director. In spite of many and varied du- ties the Rev. Ronnquist has found time for some important literary work. In 1909 the Augustana Book Concern published his book, "Evighetsfragor," and in 1913 his book, "The Passion of Our Lord," was published. Miss Sara Wilhelmina Malm- berg, of Gladstone, 111., became his wife, March 9, 1905. Two sons have been born to them. The Rev. Ronnquist is a Republican in poli- tics. PHILIP JOHN STONEBERG a noted scholar and educator, was born in Bishop Hill., 111., April 3, 1875. He completed the course in the village school, 1890. In 1893- 95, he studied at Knox Academy, at Galesburg, and later at Knox College, where he was the recipient of several prizes. While there he was college reporter for the Daily Republican Register, a Galesburg newspaper ; an associate editor of the 'pp Gale, a college annual ; served on the editorial staff of the Coup d' Etat, a college monthly, the same year, and also on that of the Knox Student, a college weekly, 1897-99. 1 his senior year he was president of the Gnothautii Society, treasurer of the senior class, and a charter member of the college glee club. He took part in athlet- ics and was a member of the track team the last three years. In his last year the Roll of Honor for high scholarship was instituted by the college, and he was awarded a place on the same. He was grad- uated in the spring of 1899 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and with the first honors of his class, the subject of his commencement PHILIP JOHN STONEBERG. oration being, "The Scandinavians in America." He was principal of the Bishop Hill public school, 1899-1904. In 1901, he was granted the degree of Master of Arts at Knox. He was a student at Columbia Uni- versity in the year 1904-05, and obtained the A. M. degree from that institution, 1905. The next year he studied at Harvard University, and then remained at Bishop Hill, 1906-09. During this period he wrote a number of valuable articles for well-known publications. In 1909 he was again principal of the Bishop Hill school. LIFE SKETCHES OF MEN OF TODAY 687 He was again at Harvard 1909- 10, pursuing courses in history, government and education, and re- ceiving the A. M. degree from this university. 1910. He attended the University of Chicago during the spring quarter, 1911, and the sum- mer quarter, 1915. During the year 1911-12 he was again principal of the Bishop Hill school. Since then he has engaged in historical research at various times in the li- brary of the State Historical So- ciety of Wisconsin, at Madison, Wis. He was clerk of the village of Bishop Hill, 1899-1905, and trustee, 1908-10; and has served on the Weller township Republi- can central committee for some years. He is a director and the secretary of the Bishop Hill Mu- tual Telephone Company. He has been secretary of the Bishop Hill Old Settlers' Associa- tion since 1899, and treasurer of the Bishop Hill Memorial Associa- tion since 1907. He is an associate of the American Scandinavian Foundation, and a member of the Illinois State Historical 'Society; the Swedish Historical Society of America ; the Society for the Ad- vancement of Scandinavian Study, and the National Education Asso- ciation. He belongs to the Swedish M. E. Church at Bishop Hill. He has held various important offices in this church. He has been secretary of the Henry County Sunday School Association since 1899. He is a charter member of the Bishop Hill Epworth League, which has the oldest charter of any Swedish Epworth League in the world, and in which he has held various offices. He was at one time secretary of the Galesburg District E p w o r t h League, Central Swedish Confer- ence, and later its president. He was secretary of the Galesburg District Camp Meeting Association in the same conference, 1897-1905; treasurer, 1906-08; and has again been secretary since 1908. He is not married. GENERAL INDEX NOTE. Owing to the completeness of the Table of Contents, this alpha- betical index has been made mainly one of personal reference. PAGE Abrahamson, L. G., pastor, editor, author ....179, 190, 199, 211, 305, 312 Academy of the New Church 140 Affiliation with American Lutherans. 67 Agrelius, Carl Peter 29 Agriculture, the true development of the country 10 Ahgren, Frederick, pastor 133 Ahlm, Gerda, painter .261 Ahlstromer, M. J., painter 263 Akerlind, Arvid, musical director. .223 Akerlind, G. A., civil engineer 329 Alden, John A., banker 303, 317 Allehanda of Stockholm, quoted .... 285 Almberg, P. E 325 Almberg, S. Th 243 Alexis, Joseph 189, 214 Almini, Peter M., decorator and artist 151, 155, 292 Altona Mirror 59 America Illuminata, quoted 87 Americanism denned 9, 1 1 Americanization of Swedes 184 American-Scandinavian K c v i c w, quoted 221. 271 American Union of Swedish Singers. 221 Anderson, A. E 303 Anderson, Andrew G., publisher. 185, 337 Anderson, A. J 333 Anderson, A. L 333 Anderson, C., pastor 145 Anderson, G. Bernhard, lawyer. 337, 345 Anderson, Hans 315 Anderson, I. M., educator 190 Anderson, John 325 Anderson, Nels F., state's attorney. 344 Anderson, Nels L 325 Anderson, Oscar, painter 263 Anderson, Otto 325 Anderson, P. H.., donation 217 Anderson, Palmer E 335 Anderson, Samuel 312 Andover Settlement. 27 ; first Lu- therans at 63 PAGE Andreen, A., pastor 68, 72 Andreen, Gustav, educator 123, 199- 211, 212, 337 Andren, Fritz N 212 Andren, O. C. T., pastor 68, 121 Anker, Algert, professor of music.. 229 "Annals of the Swedes on the Dela- ware" 212 Anniversary of the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac 335 Ansgarius College 145 Ansgarius Synod 143 Apollo Glee Club 237 Architecture 293 Arion Quartette 233 Arnoldson, Torild, educator 203 Arosenius, Carl, military officer.. 99, 113 Arrhenius, Svante, scientist 246 Art Association 261 Art education 261 Art exhibitions 261, 292 Arvidson, John A 1 16 Asplund, John. Swedish Baptist his- torian 81 Augustana,. religious organ 189 Augustana Book Concern 185 Augustana College Orchestra 158 Augustana College and Theological Seminary 73, 120 Augustana Central Home 358 Augustana College Endowment Fund. 127 Augustana Conservatory of Music.. 225 Augustana Home for the Aged 358 Augustana Hospital 309 Augustana Library 125 Augustana Silver Cornet Band 229 Augustana Synod, founded, 118; total membership 357 Automatic transfer of Lutherans to American Episcopal Church 91 Banking houses 296 Bank of Galesburg 301 Bankson, Andrew, colonel 16 Bargren, A. E 117 689 690 GENERAL INDEX Barncns Tidning 189 Battery H., First Artillery 109 Behrens, Conrad 221, 235, 243 Bengston, Carl J., pastor, editor .... 190 Benson, Christian, pioneer farmer, 21, 22 Benson, Olof, 117, 140; donation by. .142 Berg, Ernest J., civil engineer 331 Berggren, A. W 115 Bergquist, J. G 341 Bergquist, J. Victor, professor of music, composer. ... 189, 229, 234, 248 Bergland, Eric, major U. S. army.. 56, 60, 94, 10 r Berglund, Andrew 50, 51 Bethany Home 359 Bethel Theological Seminary 362 Bihl, Ernest, alderman 344 Bird, Gustavus J 325 Bishop Hill Colony 37 Bjork, C. A., pastor 145, 349, 352 Blombergson, Fredrik B., painter. .. 157 Blombergson, Lars Axel, painter. ... 157 Blomf eldt. Axel 318 Blomgren Bros, and Co., electrotypers 193 Blomgren, Carl, manufacturing tailor 193 Blomgren, Claus 194 Blomgren, Oscar 194 "Blue and Gray" Legion 346 Bodfors, A. D., music teacher 228 Bohman, G. A., publisher 147, 227 Boman, C. B. L., pastor 309 Boman, Charles H 179, 305, 306 Bonggren, Jakob, poet and journalist 188, 207 293 Bostrom, Charles, building commis- sioner 295, 344 Bremer, Fredrika, quoted 9, 20 Brinton, Christian, quoted 285 Broadview Swedish Seminary 218 Brodrahemmet, Chicago 359 Brown, John, preacher 29 Brunner, John, civil engineer 329 Brusewitz, H. P 292 Burnquist, Gov. J. A. A., quoted... n Cable, P. L., donation 123 Capper, Gov. Arthur, quoted n Carlson, Alfred 325 Carlson, Andrew A 325 Carlson, Anton J., physiologist, edu- cator 205, 331 Carlson, C. Edward, banker 301 Carlson, C. G 333 Carlson, C. J 322 Carlson, Eddy, painter 263, 265 Carlson, Mrs. Ella, singer and teach- er 158 Carlson, G 325 Carlson, G. A 322 Carlson, Gustaf A 327 Carlson, Herman 326 Carlson, John, painter 263 Carlson, Martin, R., mayor 344 Carlsson, Erland, pastor 67, 146, 149, 309, 311 Carlstedt, Charles M 233, 234 Carson, C. E., builder 295 Cedargreen-Jernberg, Minnie 257 Central Republican Club 333 Cervin, Anders Richard, editor and educator 93, 146, 147 Cervin, Lillie, music teacher 228 Chaiser, Andrew, publisher 59, 94, 292, 293 Challman, Peter, preacher 30 Character of Swedish music ?20 Charles XV., donation from 121 Chicago Daily Press 246 Chicago Illustrated 155 Chicago Society of the New Jeru- salem 140 Chindblom, Carl R., lawyer. .. .335, 345 Church and devotional literature 187 Church leadership in cultural activi- ties 183 Church of the New Jerusalem. . 139, 142 Chytraus, Axel, superior court justice 211, 263, 297, 342 Civil War, a test of loyalty II Civil War, Swedes in 97 Number engaged in service 97 Percentage of enlistment 97 Fighting qualities 98 Ability as officers 98 Claussen, Julia, opera singer.225, 246, 259 Clergymen as pioneers 183 Clergymen first historians 183 Colseth, Peter 309 Commercial institutions 296 Company C, 43d 111. Volunteers.... 99 Company D, 57th 111. Volunteers... 56, 99, ioi Congress of Swedish Engineers 331 Connody, P. G., quoted 283 Consular service 345 Consulate of Sweden established. . .345 Co-operative Furniture Company 168 Covenant Hospital and Home of Mercy 359 GENERAL INDEX 691 Creutz, Stephan, civil engineer 331 Cronsioe, S 60, 94 Cultural development of Swedish- Americans 12, 183 Dahlberg, Andrew 317 Dahlberg, Gotthard A., member of legislature 344 Dahlen, William, singer 243, 246 Dahlgren, Amelia 315 Dahlgren, Charles J., county commis- sioner 345 Daily Press. 210 Deneen, Charles S 339 Denkmann Memorial Library 125 Earliest known Swedes in Illinois.. 15 Earliest Swedes in Galesburg 65 Earliest Swedish-American books... 93 Early educational work 70, 73 Early fraternal societies 174 Early Lutheran pastors and churches 61, 69 Early Methodist communions 33 Early Methodist preachers 29, 33 Early Swedes in Rockf ord 162 Ebbesen, Carl 333 Eberhart, Adolph Olson, governor of Minnesota 339 Eckman, David 16 Edgren, Hjalmar, military officer, ed- ucator 139 Edgren, Johan Alexis, educator, 135, 137 Edlen, E. A 327 Edstrom, David, sculptor 281, 292 Edwards, C. A 333 Educational fund raised by Esbjorn. 71 Educational books published 189 Educational standard of foreigners. 11 Edvall, Olof S., army officer 99 Ekengren, W. A. F 339 Eklund, August 303 Eklund, Charles 292 Ekman, Oscar, donation 125 Ekstrand, Eric Einar, Consul for Sweden 345 Enander, John A., editor, orator, author 116, 146, 152, 188, 211, 212, 227, 292, 293 Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Co. ..190 Engberg, Jonas, editor and publisher 93, 146, 147, IQI Engberg, Martin 191, 213 Englewood Hospital 315 Enlistments for Civil War service... 97 Electrotypers 193 Elfaker, August, musician 238 Elmblad, Johannes, operatic singer 225, 235 Elmquist, A. Louis, educator. . .189, 214 Episcopal, overtures to Church of Sweden 91 Epworth-Klockan 359 Erickson, John M 302 Ericson, Albert, pastor and educator. 133 Ericson, Andrew 30 Ericson, C. J. A., donation 125 Ericsson (see John Ericsson) ... -335ff. Ericson, John E., civil engineer. 331, 344 Ericsson, Henry, builder. . .295, 329, 344 Ericsson, John E., builder 238, 263, 295, 341 Erikson, C. F., member of Board of Education 344 Erlander, John, Rockford pioneer 162, 309 Esbjorn, C. L. E., educator 227 Esbjorn, C. M., quoted 119 Esbjorn, Lars Paul, pioneer pastor and educator 28, 61, 73 Evald, C. A., pastor 309, 312 Evangelisk Tidskrift 139 Fairbanks, Charles Warren, quoted. 9 Faust, Levin 317 Fine Arts 220 First Lutherans at Andover 63 First Lutherans at Moline 63 First Swedish Baptist Church in America founded 81 First Swedish Lodge, I. O. O. F 174 First Swedish Methodist Church or- ganized 28 Fjellstedt, Peter, quoted on apostolic succession 89 Flack, Gustaf, pioneer 20 Flom, George T., educator 213, 214 Florine, J. W 28 Forbundcts Vcckotidniny 359 Forefathers' Day 19 Foreign element loyal, well schooled n Foreign problem, recent IO Forest City Bit and Tool Company. 169 Forest City Furniture Company 168 Forest City Knitting Company 167 Fors, A. P., pastor 315 Forsander, Nils, theologian and author 189, 200 Forsell, John, operatic singer. . .225, 246 Forsse, Eric, army officer 56, 99, 101, 112 Forsberg, Charles J., city collector. .344 692 GENERAL INDEX Foss, Claude W., educator and writer 123, 188, 190, 201, 211, 227 Foss, George E 339 Franson, Fred R 221 Franson, Sigfrid 319 Franzen, August, painter 261 Fredrickson, A. W., educator 217 Freburg, A. E 303 Freeman, Theodore 297, 301, 312 Fridhem Old People's Home 361 Friedlund, John P., park commis- sioner 344 "Friendly relations with Church of Sweden" 50 Freja Society of Chicago 161, 239 Freja Society of Moline 174 Fremstad, Olive, operatic singer .... 259 Fromen, Agnes, sculptress 265, 287 Fuller, Margaret, quoted 20 Furniture industry of Rockford. . . . 167 Galesburg, first Swedes in 65 Galva Republican 59 Galva Union 59 Gelhaar. E., painter 261, 263 Gift of books by Charles XV 19 Graf strom, Olof, painter .. .229, 263, 275 Granville, Philip N., banker ^01 Green, Charles T., builder 296 Growth of early churches 68 Gustaf son, C. O 333 Gustafson, Frank, sculptor, builder 292, 296, 341 Gyllenhaal, Leonard, editor 141 Haag, Charles, sculptor 263, 277 Haddorf. C. A., piano maker... 170, 303 Haddorf Piano Company 170 Hall, Eric E., county architect 344 Hall, Thomas, painter 263 Hallberg, Ben, painter 263 Hallberg, Carl S. N., scientist and editor 202 Hallberg, Charles E., painter 263, 265, 269 Hallberg, Lars Gustaf, architect 296 Hallberg, Simon 318 Hallbom, Gustaf, banker 221, 239. 241, 243, 302 Handel Oratorio Society 229 Hallin, John and Andrew 16 Hanson, H. E 319 Haralson, Paul 16 Hartmann, Georg, quoted 281 Hasselquist, Tuve Nilsson, church- man, publisher, educator 67, 91, 127, 188, 21 1, 225 Haugan, H. A., banker 296 Haugan, H. G 296 Haugan & Lundgren, bankers 296 Hawkinson, P. L 116, 151, 345 Headsten, John, clergyman 141 Hedeen, Olof, pastor and educator. . 137 Hedstrom, Jonas, Methodist pioneer 16 Hedstrom, Olof Gustaf 18 Hegstrom, Eos, banker 302 Hegstrom, V., pastor 317 Hellstrom-Oscar, Anna.... 223, 235, 246 Hcmlandct, first Swedish-American newspaper 93, 146 Henschen, Henry S., banker, Swedish consul 57, 201, 341, 345 Henschen, William, pastor, teacher, editor 133 Hertz, John, quoted 281 Hesselius, "father of American art". .259 Hessell, Theodore, journalist and author 209 Hesselroth, Lawrence ....245, 246, 292 Hillberg, J. E., pastor, educator. editor 135 Hillbom, Henrik, painter 263 Hjerpe, E. G., quoted 353 Hjertstedt, Ebba, artist 257 Hofsten, Hugo von, painter. 261, 263, 275 Hogland, F. G 117, 317 Hoglund, Charles 333 Holm, Axel 325 Holmberg, C. P., publisher. 1^7, 191. 309 Holmberg, S., painter 263 Holmes, A. A 1 f r e d, professor of music 227 Holmes, C. J., member of Board of Education 344 Holmes, Ludvig, poet and pastor 188, 209 Holmgrain, Oscar V., pastor, editor. 190 Holmquist, Gustaf, singer .. 225, 239, 253 Hyllested, August, professor of music 250, 258 Hult, Adolf, 232; quoted 233 Hultberg, Grant 190 Hultin, N. H 341 Hurburgh, Charles F 335, 339 Hussander, Arthur F., architect. 293, 344 Hussander, Will S 333 Illinois Cabinet Company i/o Illinois Conference of Augustan a Synod 355 Illinois Conference of the Swedish Baptist Church 361 Illinois Sewing Alachine Compam-. . 169 GENERAL INDEX Illinois Szvcdc 59, 155 Immanuel Lutheran Church of Chi- cago 67, 309 Immigrants Americanized in advance 10 Independent Order of Svithiod 318 Independent Order of Vikings 322 Independent Order of Vikings' Band 327 Industrial art exhibition 245 Jansson, Alfred, painter. . .263, 265, 267 Jansson, Erik (Eric Janson), reli- gious leader and pioneer 25, 37, 39, 41, 43, 50 Jansson, Mrs. Pollock-Gabrielson. . . 50 Jocknick, Axel af 346 Jocknick, F. E 1 16 Johansen, Charles K 221, 223 John Ericsson Day 335 John Ericsson Monument Assn 337 John Ericsson Monument in Wash- ington 337 Johnson, A. C., furniture manufac- turer 168, 173 Johnson, Alex. J., publisher 152 Johnson, A. W 326 Johnson, C. W 302, 315 Johnson. Eric, army officer, publisher, politician 56, 57, 59, 101, 114, 210 Johnson, Frank A 333 Johnson, F. M 349 Johnson, G. E 322 Johnson, George E. Q 317 Johnson, George W., legislator 328, 333, 335. 339, 344 Johnson, John E 335 Johnson, John P 318 Johnson, Julius 335 Johnson, Justus L 335 Johnson, Olof 53, 54, 151 Johnson, O. Theodore 317 Johnson, Peter 229 Johnson, S. A., Rockford pioneer 116, 162 Johnson, William 503, 317 Johnsson, Frank A., pastor 190 Josephson, A. G. S 211, 212, 213 Kassel, Peter 25 Kjellander, John, alderman. 335, 344, 345 Knitting Industry of Rockford 163 Knitting machine invented 163 Knox Svea Bildningsforening 174 Kraft, Carl, pastor, editor 190 Ladies' Independent Order of Vik- ings 327 Lagercrantz, Ava, painter 263 Lagergren, Alfred, musical director. 161 Lagergren, Dr. C. G 137, 212 Landee, F. A., legislator 328, 333, 335, 344 Landstrom, C. E., army officer 113 Lange, Olof Gottfrid, pioneer 19, 151, 292 Language a problem 184 Lanquist, Andrew, builder. .263, 293, 301 Larson, Emil, music teacher 228 Larson, Francis A., publisher 210 Larson, Gerhard, vice-consul 345 Larson, John, alderman 344 Larson, Nels A., county judge 344 Laurin, Sigfrid, professor of music 228, 251 Learned Societies 211 Letter from King Gustaf of Sweden. 341 Library proposed 94 Literary works published 188 Liljencrantz, G. A. M., civil engineer. 331 Liljenstolpe, Carl A. W 346 Lincoln, Julius, quoted 355 Lincoln Park, the work of Swedes.. 117 Lind, Jenny, contributions to church building funds 65, 77 Lind, Robert C 317 Lindahl, C. J., preacher 143 Lindahl, Josua, scientist and educator 203, 227 Lindahl, S. P. A., pastor, publisher, editor 177, 185, 191, 200 Lindberg, Conrad Emil, theologian and author 200 Lindberg, Lars E., choirmaster 158 Lindblom, Robert, financier patron of music. . . .210, 243, 246, 292, 293, 344 Linden, John A 326 Linder, Oliver A., journalist and au- thor 207 Linderborg, C. G., publisher 116 Lindgren, C. M., captain and ship owner 35, 301 Lindgren, John R., banker, consul.. 133. 292, 296, 301, 337, 345 Lindin, Carl, painter 263 Lindquest, Albert, singer. . .225, 239, 255 Lindquist, Frank 319 Lindskog, Herman, pastor 211, 362 Lindskoog, Nils J 327 Lindsten, Edward J 3-1 1 Lindstrand, Frans Albin, publisher and writer 152, 207, 302, 344 Linn, Edward, park commissioner. .345 Linne Monument 292 Linne Monument Association 292 694 GENERAL INDEX Linne, Ragna, singer 258 Literature, education and science. .. 197 Ljung, Vilhelm, musician 233 Lobeck, C. O., congressman 343 Lobeck, Otto 343 Location of Swedish settlements. .. 26 London Observer, quoted 283 Loyalty of foreign element n Lund, Edla, singer and teacher. 234, 252 Lundberg, Carl, legislator 315, 317, 343, 344 Lundberg, F. A., educator 135 Lundin, Fredrik, congressman 343 Lundquist, Carl Fredrik, opera singer 221, 243 Lundquist, Gustaf, park commission- er 345 Lundquist, J. E 27, 140 Lundquist, Johanna S. (Mrs. M. B. Ogden), 27; donations to new church 140 Lundquist, Mathilda Gustava (Mrs. J. W. Florine) 27 Lund University Students' Chorus. 235 Lutheran Companion 189 Lutheran Hospital, Moline 358 Lutheran Mission Church of Chicago.143 Liitteman Sextette 235 Lyran Singing Society 235 Magnusson Jewett, Anna Frederika, singer 141, 159 Magnusson Lancaster, Rosalie, singer 161 Magnusson, Lewis J 159 Malm, G. N., painter 261 Malmborg, Oscar, military command- er 101, 345 Malmquist, Frithiof, editor 209, 326 Marsh, Mary E., quoted 271 Mattson, Hans, pioneer and military officer 83, 115, 151 Mauritzson, Jules, educator ...213, 214 McFall, Haldane, quoted 285 Mechanics Furniture Company 169 Melin, Carl August, state's atty 344 Mellander, Axel, educator and author 217, 352 Methodist churches founded 33 Meurling, Ed. J. and C. W 322 Mission Covenant 142, 347 Mission Friends 142 Missions-Vdnnen 145, 359 Mission Synod 143 Moline Citizen, The 59 Moline, first Lutherans in 63 Monitor News 337 Montelius, Oscar, visit by 246 Morten, N. N., pastor 137 Mossberg, Joel, singer and director 223, 237, 255 Mountain, John 297 Music 220 National Lock Company 170 National Mirror Works 170 National-Tidningcn 155 Nelson, Alfred, inventor 165 Nelson, Alvin, builder 296 Nelson, Carl E., editor 190 Nelson, C. G 135 Nelson, Edgar, professor of music .- 238, 255 Nelson, Gustaf L 333 Nelson, John, Rockford pioneer and inventor 163 Nelson, John A 1 16, 151 Nelson, John Franklin, inventor. ... 166 Nelson, J. O., pastor 133 Nelson Knitting Company 164 Nelson, N. A., business man 179, 305, 306, 309, 317, 341 Nelson, Nels 178, 185, 306 Nelson, Olof F 195, 223, 238 Nelson, Oscar F., state factory in- spector 344 Nelson, Swain (Sven) 117, 140 New Church Evangelist 141 New Era, The 60 Newberg, Peter, preacher 31 New Jerusalem, Church of the 139 Newman, Sven Bernhard, preacher. . 31 New Sweden settlement 25 Nilson, Fredrik Olaus, preacher 83 Nilsson, Carl J., sculptor. .261, 263, 291 Nilsson, Christina, visit by 176 Nilsson, Hjalmar 237 Nilsson, Per W 292 Nilsson, Sven, pioneer 27 Nilsson, Victor 221 Noling, Lars M., manufacturer. 173, 333 Nord, G. E., educator 219 Nordenfeldt, B. G. O., painter 263 Nordenskiold, A. E., letter to Svea Society 177 Nordgren, C. A 335 Nordin, Harry Wilhelm, singer and teacher 258 Nordquist, Conrad 233 Norelius, Anders 81, 84 Norelius, Eric, pastor and historian 146, 188, 191 GENERAL INDEX 695 Noren, P. A 325 Norlin, F 329 Norman, Andrew E., builder 296 Norman, Carl, Gustaf, journalist. . . .209 Norman, Ludvig 233 Northland, Louis G 211 North Park College 214 North Star Benefit Association 327 Norton, Alfred A 341 Nya Verlden 59, 152 Nya Wecko-Posten 362 Nyberg, Henry 329 Nybladh, C. A., pastor 362 Nyden, John A., painter 263 Nyholm, Arvid, painter .261, 263, 265, 341 Nylen, John 315 Nyvall, David, educator 212, 218 Oak Hill Cemetery 307 Oberg, C. H. E., musician 234 Oberg-Benninghoven, Elsie, violinist 258 Ochsner, A. J., surgeon 313 Ohlson, Charles 237 Ohlson, Gust 237 Old People's Home, Evanston 315 Oldberg, Arne, professor of music, composer 250 Oldberg, Oscar, scientist 141, 201 Olive Leaf 189 Olive Male Chorus 237 Olson, Andrew, mayor 344 Olson, Edward H 31? Olson, Edwin A., lawyer 57, 306, 335, 337, 339 Olson, Ernest W., editor and author i8gff., 2iiff. Olson, Harry, chief justice 342 Olson, Jonas, pioneer 39, 54 Olson, Jonas W., lawyer 58, 115 Olson, Julius E 213, 214 Olson, M. A. L 335 Olson, Magnus 221, 243, 246 Olson, Olof, pioneer 39 Olson, Oscar Dell 335 Olsson, Axel Elias, sculptor .... 263, 289 Olsson, Olof, pastor, educator, author 123, 188, 191, 196, 199, 225, 229, 309 Oman, Gust 3^9 Ongman, John, pastor 137 Orphans' Home, Andover 358 Orphans' Home, Joliet 35^ Orpheus Male Chorus . 237 Ortengren, John R., professor o f music and director 223, 235, 238, 243, 251 Osborn, Joseph, musical director. 59, 158 Oscar, Martin 225 Ostberg, Caroline, operatic singer 221, 243 Owen, Benjamin, organist 162 Painting and sculpture 259 Paintings presented to National Gal- lery 341 Palmquist, Gustaf, preacher 81, 83 Patriotism of Swedish-Americans... 97 Pedagogical works 189 Person, Johan, journalist and author 188, 210 Peters, G., pastor 309 Peters, J. T 303 Peterson, Bernhard 318 Peterson, Carl Fredrik, editor and author 59, 141, 154, 191, 293 Peterson, C. S., commercial publisher 193, 237, 246, 263, 265, 341, 344 Peterson, F. E., professor of music. 228 Peterson, G. A 303, 317 Peterson, G. L 328, 333 Peterson, Henry E. C., portrait paint- er 157 Peterson, John, pastor 143 Peterson Linotyping Company 193 Peterson, Pehr August, manufactur- er 171, 335, 337 Peterson, Pehr S., horticulturist.... 1 18, 292, 297, 306 Peterson, V. O 328 Peterson, W. A., educator 137 Peterson, William A., nurseryman. 301, 306 Peterson, William A., physician. .. .306 Pine Lake settlement 25 Pioneer period 15 Political activities 113, 333 Princell, J. G., preacher and educator 146, 349 Printing plants 196 Progress of churches Lutheran 355 Mission Covenant 358 Methodist Episcopal 359 Baptist 361 Protestant Episcopal 362 Proselyting movement by Episcopal Church 89 "Prarieblomman" 189 "Publications of the Society for the Advancement o f Scandinavian Study" 213 696 GENERAL INDEX Publishing and printing 91, 185 Publishing business founded 91 Ranseen, M. C, pastor 185, 309, 312 Rappe, Signe, singer 225 Relations with American Lutherans. 70 Religious activities, recent 347 Religious controversy, Episcopals vs. Lutherans 85 Religious denominations founded in Illinois 26 Reuterdahl, Henry, painter. 263, 265, 341 Ring, J. F., musician 158, 225 Ringius, Carl, painter 263 Risberg, Fridolf, pastor and educator 214, 351 Rissler, Albin, civil engineer 329 Rockford Book Case Company 170 Rockford Cabinet Company 169 Rockford Mantel and Furniture Co. 169 Rockford Manufacturing Company. 169 Rockford National Furniture Co... .170 Rockford Varnish Company 170 Rohlen, C. A 303 Romdahl, Axel, quoted 281 Roos, Herman, editor 151 Roos, Peter, artist and teacher 157 Root, John, the elder 49 Root, John 56ff. Rose Hill Nursery (Peterson Nur- sery) 306 Royal Mantel Furniture Co 169 "Runristningar" 327 Rydell, John S 302 Rydholm, C. P., pastor 309 Salem Home for the Aged, Joliet...358 Salute in honor of John Ericsson at Rock Island Arsenal 337 Samuelson, Arvid, professor of music 229 Samuelson, Charles 235 Sandcbudct 359 Sandegren, Andrew, architect 293 Sandel. Andreas, quoted 87 Sandell, Eric, preacher 137 Sandgren, John A 322 Sandzen, Birger, artist and writer.. 188, 261. 263, 265, 271 Sanngren, J. M., preacher 143, 353 Scandia Academy 219 Scandia Furniture Company 169 Scandia Life Insurance Company. . .303 Scandia Mutual Life Insurance Co.. 179 Scandinavia, a new 9, 12 Scandinavian agricultural colonies.. 9 Scandinavian Benevolent Society of Moline 174 Scandinavian chair at Springfield.. 70 Scandinavian Mutual Aid Associa- tion 177, 303 Scandinavian National Quartette. . . . 161 Scandinavian students at Springfield 72 Schlytern, Charles E., banker ... 239, 302 Schneidau, Polycarpus von, pioneer 20, 77, 345 Schoultz, Fritz 246 Schon, Anders, editor 21 iff. Schultze, William 263 Secular journals 151 Settlement and foundation 25 Seventh Day Adventists 218 Shelain, Frank 237 Sheldon, Joseph G 212 Shogren, Erik, preacher 30 Sidenius-Zendt, Marie, singer 258 Silfversparre, Axel, military com- mander io9ff.,ii6 Singing tours in Sweden 223, 245 Sions Bancr 145 Sjostrom, Gustaf, author 191 Skarstedt, Ernst, author 209 Skogsbergh, E. A., preacher and ed- ucator 214, 215 Smith, John S 333 Society for the Advancement of Scan- dinavian Study 213 Soderberg, John 195 Soderlin, Andrew 325 Sodervall, E. F., painter 263 South Shore Hospital 317 Sparreotrom, Frederick, army officer.! n Sporadic settlements 25 St. Ansgarius Church 362 State Bank of Chicago 296 Stenbeck, Andrew, army officer .... 112 Stenquist, Charles J., publisher 152 Stibb, Frank G 335 Stockenstrom, Herman, editor 211 Stolbrand. Charles John, military commander iO5ff., 175 Stolpe, Gustave. professor of music, composer, virtuoso 225, 227, 231 Stolpe. Johan 233 Stolpe, Per 233 Stolpe, Maur itz 227 Steinberg, A. A., educator 189 Stone, Claude Ulysses, congressman. 343 Stoneberg, Olof, pioneer 39 Stoneberg, Philip J 37 GENERAL INDEX 69" Strandberg, E. P., builder 307,317 Stredain, B. A 177, 178 Stromberg, Allen and Company 195 Stromberg, Charles J 151, 195 Sundelius, Marie, singer 225, 239 Sundelius, Peter A., editor. . 116, 146, 151 Sundell, Charles J 116, 151, 175, 292. 345 Sundin, Martin 143 Susan Wesley Home, Chicago 359 Svanoe, Peter 297, 345 Svea Bildnings-och Laseforening. . . . 174 Svea Male Chorus 233 Svea Music Hall 235 Svea Society 175 Svea Soner 234 Svenska Amcrikanaren (I) 146, 151 Svcnska Amcrikanaren (II)... 152', 210 "Svenska Gleeklubben" 243 Svenska Kuriren 152, 210 Svenska Republikancn 60, 94 Svenska Sangforeningen 161 Svenska Sangsiillskapet 241 Svenska Standard 362 Svenska Tribunen 59, 152, 155 Svenska Tribuncn-Nyheter 210 Svithiod clubhouse 238 Svithiod prize banner 238 Svithiod Singing Club 237 Swanson, A. M 344 Swedberg, Anders Gustaf, preacher. . 30 Swedberg, Jesper, "bishop of Amer- ica" 88 Swedenborgians 139 Sweden tour project 239 Swedes in political and civic life.. 113 Swedes in Spanish- American War.. 346 Swedes in the Civil War 97 Swedish-American composers 248 Swedish-American Hospital, Rock- ford 317 Swedish-American National Bank of Rockf ord 33 Swedish-American Publishing Co. ...151 Swedish-American Republican League of Illinois 333 Swedish-Americans in public life H3, 341 Swedish attitude to abolition 115 Swedish Baptist Mutual Aid Assn...36i Swedish Baptist Seminary 135 Swedith Choral Club 238 Swedish Club, The 239 Swedish Club, concert hall and club- house 245 Swedish consuls in Chicago 345 Swedish contributions to American culture 184 Swedish Engineers' Society 329 Swedish Evangelical Free Church.. 142 Swedish Evangelical Mission Cove- nant 351 Swedish Historical Society of Amer- ica 211 Swedish immigration directed to Il- linois 18, 25 Swedish industrial plants of Rock- ford 167 Swedish landscape gardeners 117 Swedish-language newspapers suc- cessful 210 Swedish Lutheran Publication Soci- ety 93, 145 Swedish M. E. Book Concern. . . 133, 359 Swedish, M. E. Theological Semi- nary 131 Swedish Methodists' Aid Assn 359 Swedish National Chorus 237 Swedish pioneers in Chicago 19 Swedish Protestant Episcopal Church of Chicago 77 Swedish Singers at Olympic Games, Chicago 237 Swedish Societies' Central Assn. ...315 Swedish Societies' Old People's Home 315 Swedish Societies' Old People's Home Association 315 Swedish vice consuls in Chicago.. 345 Swedish vote for Lincoln 114 Swenson, Frithiof 237 Swenson, L. J 237 Swenson, John L., musical director 161, 238, 239 Swensson, Carl, pastor, educator and author 200 Swensson, Gustaf, mayor 344 Swensson, Jonas, pastor 68 Sward, A. A., poet and pastor. .188, 209 Soderman, August 233 Taft, William H 339 Telleen, Leonard S., county judge.. 344 Tidskrift 189 Thompson, Axel E 335 Thorstenson, John A 341 Thulstrup, Thure de, painter 263 Toffteen, Olof A., author and edu- cator 203, 219 Torgerson, Axel William, marine painter 1 57 698 GENERAL INDEX Transition from Swedish to English. 184 Truedson, A. W 333, 335 Tyden, John, alderman 344 Udden, John A., scientist, educator, author 202 Ungdomsvdnnen 189 Union Bank of Chicago 301 Union Furniture Company 168 Unonius, Gustaf, pioneer, pastor, au- thor 19, 25, 77, 79, 81, 87, 88, 345 University Land Association 215 Urbom, C. V 141 Vdktaren, Methodist Weekly 133 Valhalla Association 326 Vendes Artillery Regiment Band... 235 Victoria, cradle of Swedish Method- ism 28 Victoria Settlement 33 Viking, The 60 "Vikingarne" 322 Vikingen 325 Vikings' Valhalla 326 Viking Society 322 Viktorin, Charles H 322 Wahlgren, A. G., painter 263 Wahlstrom, Matthias, pastor 312 Wallden, A. J 322 Wallden, R 322 Wallenius, C. G., pastor, educator, author 133, 209, 212 Warner, Andrew G., army officer. ... 112 Washington Park Hospital 317 Watson, Dudley Crafts, quoted 277 Wennerberg Male Chorus '. .229 Wennerberg music predominant 221 Wennerberg monument 221 Werelius, Axel, surgeon 205, 317 West, August, builder 296 Westberg, Fred 315 West End Furniture Company 169 Wester, Bengt A 325 Westerberg, John, painter 263 Westergren, N. O., preacher 35, 133 Westerlund, Joseph E 335 Westman, Edward C. . . . 195, 333ff., 345 Whipple, Bishop, quoted 90 Wickstrum, Peter M., army officer.. 56, ioi Widen, Raphael, senator 15 Widestrand, C 292 Wieselgren, P., quoted 89 Wihlborg, Albert 225 Williamson, A. W., donation 125 Williamson, Moses O., politician, banker 303, 328, 333ff ., 342 Wilson, C. J., educator 217 Wilson, Woodrow, quoted 9 Wimmerstedt, Edward A., musician and teacher 158 Wingren, Eric, pastor, publisher. 137, 362 Wiren, C. A., pastor 133 Wirstrom, P. W 27 Witting, Victor, pastor, publisher, ed- ucator 33, 131 Young, C. O 317 Youngert, Sven Gustaf, educator, pas- tor, author 190, 200 Zedeler, Franz, musician 228 Zedeler, Nicoline, violiniste 256 Zions Vakt 139 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. CHICAGO. PAGE Ackerberg, Robert E 417 Ahlgren, Olof H 503 Akerlind, Gustaf Alfred 529 Akers, Axel August 478 Algoth, Ernst A 387 Alstrin, John L 488 Alzen, Carl A 432 Anderson, A. B 494 Anderson, A. Gustave 492 Anderson, Adolf F 396 Anderson, Albert 495 Anderson, Alfred 376 Anderson, Andrew 367 Anderson, Axel W 553 Anderson, Carl J. E 534 Anderson, Frank Everett 480 Anderson, G. Bernhard 476 Anderson, George F 512 Anderson, Gustavus .491 Anderson, John E 447 Anderson, Martin 542 Anderson, Robert 413 Anderson, William R 484 Andreen, Philip 567 Andren, Fritz N 537 Appell, Carl J 501 Appleton, Albert Ivar 391 Axell, Charles George 373 Beckstrom, J. Warner 441 Behmer, Ernst Hugo 378 Berg, Gordon 417 Bernhard, Axel 474 Bjurstrom, Karl Gustaf Adolf 444 Bengtson, John 493 Benson, Edward 479 Benson, Magnus O 369 Blomf eldt, Axel 475 Bloomberg, Carl 453 Boman, Charles H 498 Brunell, Charles Gustaf 434 Brunner, John 526 Burklund, Oscar 482 Burman, Abel 49 1 Carlson, Anton Julius : 507 Carlson, Carl Oscar 461 PAGE Carlson, Charles Edward 495 Carlson, Edward Theodore 380 Carlson, Joel C 453 Carlson, John A 577 Carson, C. E 564 Carson, Louis 379 Chaiser, Frank John 394 Chindblom, Carl R 506 Christenson, John A 471 Chytraus, Axel 517 Croonborg, Frederick J 579 Dahlberg, Gotthard Alexius 573 Danielson, Sven A 446 De Lang, Frederick Cornelius 430 Delang, Theodore 486 Ek, Knut Bernhard 422 Elliot, Gustav Alfred 400 Elof son, Carl 1 505 Engberg, Martin J 562 Engberg, Rudolph 459 Englund, Simon Petrus 424 Engstrom, Emil O 422 Erickson, C. A 528 Erickson, Hjalmar E 574 Erickson, John Edward 445 Erickson, Samuel E 383 Erikson, Carl Erik 500 Ericksson, Emil 369 Ericson, John Ernst 459 Ericsson, Henry 552 Ericsson, John E 503 Fogelberg, Peter 502 Fors, Andrew Peter 384 Forsberg, Charles J 490 Foster, Walter Carl 485 Friedlund, John P 452 Green, Charles T 427 Grosstephan, A. R 381 Gullborg, John S 527 Gustaf son, Frank G 509 Hakanson, Alfred 397 Hallberg, Charles Edward 457 Headsten, John 372 Hedman, Carl Maximus 496 Hegberg, Charles Edward .561 GOO 700 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX Hegstrom, Eos 451 Helander, William Eugene 411 Hemwall, John 515 Henschen, Henry Samuel 382 Henschen, William 365 Hermanson, Olof Larson 449 Hillberg, John E 418 Hillstrom, George R 535 Hjerpe, Erik Gustaf 562 Hjertquist, Gabriel 465 Hpffsten, Conrad Emanuel 410 Hoffstrom, Otto Leonard 499 Hogfeldt, Otto 488 Holmes, A. Alfred 423 Holmquist, Gustaf 513 Holmstrom, Ivar 392 HultgreH, Erny 412 Hultin, N. Hjalmar 424 Hvitfeldt, Carl Robert 542 Isaacson, Edward A 474 Jacobson, Ernfrid 402 Jacobson, Gustave 469 Jesperson, Johannes 523 Johanson, Thure A 463 Johnson, Alex. J 518 Johnson, August J. . . . 455 Johnson, Axel Fritiof 473 Johnson, Carl 477 Johnson, Carl J 404 Johnson, Emil A. W 573 Johnson, Frank Albert 466 Johnson, George E. Q . .421 Johnson, John A 449 Johnson, John Hilding 533 Johnson, Nels A 519 Johnson, Oscar F 434 Jonson, Elof Kardell 448 Karlsteen, Axel 522 Kjellander, John 565 Korling, Bert L 508 Lagerquist, Charles 398 Landin, John A. S 504 Landon, Robert Emanuel 499 Larson, Bror Oscar 436 Larson, F. A 401 Lindau, Alfred E 407 Lindberg, Peter August 375 Lindell, Gustaf 479 Linden, John Alfred 371 Lindgren, Oscar Edward 555 Lindquist, Frederick " 544 Lindskog, Thomas 400 Lindsten, Edward J 477 Lindvall, Carl Axel 428 Lindvall, Karl Gustaf 462 Lindwall, Oscar Gottf rid 557 Lund, Abraham 432 Lundberg, B 521 Lundgren, Adolph 408 Lundgren, Albert Theodore 388 Lundquist, Carl Hjalmar 533 Malmstrom, Charles E 457 Maurd, Martin 515 Melander, Silas Peter 509 Mellander, Axel 524 Mossberg, Joel 393 Myhrman, Othelia 571 Nelson, Axel 487 Nelson, Carl-Johan 390 Nelson, Edgar Andrew 396 Nelson, Gottf red 406 Nelson, Lars Oscar 511 Nelson, Louis M 548 Nelson, Nels A 516 Nelson, Oscar F 366 Nelson, William C 578 Newborg, Pehr W 427 Nordeen, Victor 501 Norlin, Fred 409 Norling, John E 389 Norman, Andrew E 530 Norman, Swan P 545 Norton. Alfred A 416 Nyden, John A 395 Nyholm, Arvid F 370 Nylund, Oscar Caleb 576 Nyvall, Carl David R 414 Nyvall, David 367 Oden, Joshua 532 Ohslund, Gideon Shem 415 Oldenborg, Hugo Adalvard 450 Olin, Samuel Olof 469 Olson, Albert John .440 Olson, Albert Oscar 575 Olson, Edwin A 543 Olson, Eric Gustaf L 520 Olson, Harry E. A 468 Olson, Herman Olof 575 Olson, John 456 Olson, Klas Olof 438 Olson, Mathias 451 Olson, Nels H 374 Olson, Oscar D 472 Olson, Robert 437 Olsson, Olof 546 Ostling, Carl August 486 Pearson, Peter C 394 Peterson, C. S 558 Peterson. Frank A 574 Peterson, Ivar 537 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 701 Peterson, Oscar C 512 Peterson, Peter 556 Peterson, William A 377 Peterson, William A 446 Petterson, Charles G 482 Pohl, Carl Matthias 576 Quist, Adolph 461 Rambo, Edwin Stockton 506 Rang, Constantin Emil 444 Ranseen, Mattis C 554 Regnell, Bengt J 484 Ringman, Andrew 437 Risberg, Fridolf 439 Roberg, O. Theodore 531 Ryden, Otto Gustaf 522 Rylander, Edwin 476 Sanberg, Frank Ebert 405 Sandahl, Joseph 425 Sandegren, Andrew 467 Schlytern, Charles Eric 455 Schoultz, Fritz 549 Seaberg, Frithof 551 Seaborg, Olof S 538 Seaborg, Otto L 539 Seeburg, J. P 569 Setterberg, Axel Hjalmar 563 Settergren-Hall, Martha 526 Skoglund, August H 493 Skoglund, Eric E 570 Smedberg, Frank 470 Soderberg, John 405 Soderquist, David A 443 Sodervall, John Einar Fabian 402 Sorlin, Arvid N 420 Spann, John Emanuel 464 Stenfelt, Carl J 402 Strandel, Charles A 546 Stromberg, Charles J 447 Sundberg, Jacob A 433 Svensson, Sven 429 Swanson, Albert 489 Swanson, Carl G 544 Swanson, John A 481 Swanstrom, Luther David 467 Swenson, Gustaf Lorentz 411 Tessing, Victor 510 Thompson, Axel E 550 Thorsson, Nils M 536 Tofft, Andrew 442 Toffteen, Olof Alfred 572 Toll, Edward Von 435 Torell, Emil Ernest 497 Turnquist, Carl Martin 483 Tuveson, Nils 399 Wahlstrom, Matthias 547 Westerlind, Aksel Daniel 472 Westman, Alfred Edwin 568 Westman, Edward C 540 Westman, Erik Gustaf 426 Williamson, Wahlfrid 386 Wilson, Charles J 408 Wingren, Erik 560 Youngstrom, Gustav Albin 419 Zendt, Marie Sidenius 519 EVANSTON. Anderson, Isaak 586 Aspegren, Oliver Richard 584 Elmquist, Axel Louis 581 Hultin, S. Henry 585 Lindahl, Gustav 586 Nelson, August 587 Nelson, Eric 589 Nelson, Gustaf 587 Otterstrom, Otto 585 Rodelius, August 588 Rosendahl, Martin P 582 Sorenson, Axel 588 Wallenius. Carl G.... 583 ROCKFORD. Anderson, Alfred 599 Anderson, Carl Fredrik 611 Anderson, Gustaf 604 Bargren, August E 607 Beckstrom, Ross P 621 Benander, John Alfred 597 Bodfors, Andrew Daniel 599 Bowman, John A 603 Brolin, Willard A 613 Carlstrom, J. August 615 Erlancler, John 610 Faust, Levin 619 Floberg, August P 596 Flodell, Gustaf.. . .618 702 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX Freburg, A. E '. .,, 620 Fredriksen, Oscar Ludvig 614 Grantz, Otto 592 Helm, Herman E 624 Hemdahl, Gustaf Emil 591 Hultquist, A. L 602 Johnson, Gustaf E 625 Johnson, Olo/f 605 Johnson, Sven August 601 Johnson, Victor M 606 Johnson, Will J 618 Johnson, William 623 Kjellgren, Anders 619 Kjellquist, Charles H 600 Larson, Alfred 609 ' Lindgren, Alfred T 608 Nelson, Frithiof 622 Nelson, J. Franklin 620 Nelson, William 625 Newman, Conrad August 593 Peterson, August P .595 Peters, Gustavus 594 Roseland, Carl A , 617 Sandberg, Charles Emil 604 Sandehn, C. G. W. 598 Sandstedt, Carl Gustaf E 616 Seedoff, Johan Fredrik 612 Wester, Carl Oscar 615 Wester, John Ferdinand. 624 Wettergren, Edward A 622 ROCK ISLAND. Abrahamson, L. G 628 Anderson, Andrew G 631 Andreen. Gustav Albert 642 Bengston, Carl Johan 644 Bergquist, John Victor 633 Blomgren, Carl August 632 Cervin, Olof Z 641 Forsander, Nils 645 Forsberg, Nils Johan 639 Foss, Claude W 647 Holmgrain, Oscar V 637 Hultberg, Grant 630 Kempe, Andrew 636 Kraft, Carl 635 Larson, Nels A 638 Nelson, Carl Edward 634 Ostrom, Louis 640 Rudgren, Martin T 627 Samuleson, Arvid Theodore. 629 MOLINE. Bergstrom, Amandus Fridolf 651 Carlson, Martin Robert 650 Dahlgren, Johanna Emelia T 652 Eckland, Henry 653 Freeman, J. F 654 Johnson, George W 652 Kohler, Axel Hjalmar 656 Lindberg, Alfred E 649 Londberg, Carl G 655 Magnuson, John M 651 Peterson, G. Leander 660 Seth, John E 655 Shallberg, Robert Cornelius 659 Sundine, John 658 Swanson, John A 659 GALESBURG. Alsen, Arthur W 664 Anderson, Sander 664 Friedlund, Otto E 668 Granville, Philip N 672 Hurburgh, Charles F 669 Johnson, Carl Gottf rid 670 Johnson, Oscar Wilhelm 665 Linderoth, Carl 667 Nelson, Sig. B 663 Peterson, Harry W 666 Peterson, John F 666 Walberg, Robert J 673 Westerberg, Charles Henry 668 Williamson, M. O 671 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 703 STATE-AT-LARGE. Anderson, Chas. F 676 Ronnquist, Ulrik 685 Anderson, Palmer E 683 Samuelson, Charles A 678 Benson, Leonard Berger 675 Stark, August Wilhelm 679 Carlstrom, Oscar E 677 Stohl, Frank Gustav 681 Conrad, Titus A 676 Stoneberg, Philip John 686 Johnson, Julius 682 Telleen, Leonard S 684 Laure, Martin John ...... .680 Westerlund, Joseph E 684 Nelson, Alfred , 682 .0- ,o* SVRVEY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 325.24850L8S C001 THE SWEDISH ELEMENT IN ILLINOIS CHGO 30112025284909