Swedish American Newspapers is an online portal which allows users to explore more than 300,000 pages from 28 different Swedish American newspaper titles published across the United States between 1859 and 2007. The portal is a result of a trans-Atlantic project involving libraries, archives, and funding agencies in both Sweden and the United States and will be of great interest to academic researchers, genealogists, students or anyone interested in the history of Swedish immigration to North America.

“The Swedish-American press was a significant part of a vibrant Swedish-American cultural community and is an amazing resource for anyone interested in Swedish-American history,” said Dr. Dag Blanck, director of the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center at Augustana College, one of the partners in the project. “The fact that the newspapers are key word searchable truly transforms the ways in which the papers can be used.”

The bilingual web portal also includes text correction features and annotation tools to help researchers dig deep into the Swedish-language newspapers. Users can learn more about Swedish America through essays, photographs and recommendations for further reading. Go to http://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/swedishamerican to access the database.

The partners in the project include the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga biblioteket), Stockholm, Sweden; the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center (SSIRC), Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois; the American Swedish Institute (ASI), Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Funding for digitization was provided by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, and Konung Gustaf VI Adolfs fond för svensk kultur. Funding for online access was provided by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.