Swedish Roots in oregon

An Immigration Research Project

SRIO

An Immigration Research Project

"Bort till det stora landet i vester"

Immigrant ship drawing

Immigrant ship ink drawing by Swedish artist Olof Grafström, ca 1885

Upcoming Events

  • Portland Scandinavian Midsummer Festival
    A summer solstice celebration for the entire community! Here in Portland that tradition is being celebrated for the 84th continuous year at the Portland Scandinavian Midsummer Festival,
    June 16, 11 am to 9 pm at Oaks Park.

A Brief History

Swedish Roots in Oregon (SRIO) was formed in 1999 when Ross Fogelquist of Oregon’s New Sweden Cultural Heritage Society suggested that a project be initiated to research, document, and preserve the rich history of Oregon’s Swedish immigrants. Due to the extensive effort that would be required for such a project it was decided that a separate organization be formed to carry out the project. It was also recommended that this new group was to be a small, tightly focused research organization unencumbered by the responsibilities of maintaining a general membership.  Read more...


Selma Lagerlöf

Selma Lagerlöf A hundred years ago, Selma Lagerlöf had an admiring reader in the United States named Samuel Magnus Hill. He was a Professor of Swedish literature and served as one of the editors of Ungdomsvännen [Youth‘s Friend], an illustrated Swedish-American ―Magazine for the Home.   Read more from links on the Hill page...


Samuel Magnus Hill

Samuel Magnus Hill OrdainedTheses biographical portraits of Samuel Magnus Hill have been written by James Iverne Dowie and Lars Nordström. Dowie’s chapters were originally included as two separate chapters in his doctoral thesis  and they describes Hill’s life from his arrival in the United States in 1868 to his move to Oregon in 1915.   Read more...


Ernst Skarstedt's Biografies

SkarstedtIn 1911, the well-known Swedish-American journalist Ernst Skarstedt finished the third volume in his trilogy of Swedes in the Far West, Oregon och dess svenska befolkning [Oregon and its Swedish population]. The book covered the period 1880 to 1910, and it was organized in the same way as its two predecessors – it began with a general history of the state, moved on to the various activities of the Swedes, and concluded with a substantial biographical section of prominent Swedish immigrants.
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