"In the spring of 1841, six young Swedes and one hunting dog sailed from Gavle, Sweden, as extraordinary passengers aboard a merchant ship bound for New York. By fall of that year, members of the group, led by Gustaf Unonius, had established New Uppsala, Wisconsin's first Swedish settlement, along Pine Lake in Waukesha County.".

"During the subsequent surge of emigration from Sweden, from 1850 through the late 1880s, nearly eight thousand Swedes settled in the Badger State. Within a generation they became an inseparable part of the ethnic landscape of rural Wisconsin. In this concise introduction to the state's Swedish settlers, Frederick Hale relates the reasons they left their homes for the New World, their arduous journeys, and their adjustments to life on Wisconsin soil.

Updates for this edition include new photos and the selected letters of Swedish novelist and feminist Fredrika Bremer, who chronicled her observations and experiences during a tour of Wisconsin in 1850."--BOOK JACKET.