Crafting an urban piety: New England's Swedish immigrants and their religious culture from 1880 to 1915

This dissertation interprets religious life among New England's Swedish immigrants. Swedes came to the industrial Northeast in sufficient numbers to create durable communities, but there has been no sustained examination of these settlements. Studies that have addressed the particular experience of New England's Swedes have not examined their religious life, which differed from that of their Midwestern counterparts. Contributing to the unique religious development of New England's community was the proximity of American Protestants, with whom Swedish immigrants could form partnerships.;New England's Swedish community, with the exception of a rural colony in Northern Maine, was entirely urban. The factory neighborhood setting for immigrant settlements was not conducive to the transplantation or conservation of traditional Swedish economic, social, or religious patterns. Instead of finding an open and malleable landscape, these immigrants crafted a piety that reflected their more complex urban social surroundings. No longer contained within the confessional or parish boundaries of the Church of Sweden, immigrant religion, energized by revival currents and 'free church' impulses, proved to be a divisive force within the Swedish-American community.;Although immigrants gathered cohesive congregations, these congregations exhibited oppositional qualities. American Protestants supported immigrant religious factions that might otherwise have had a subordinate, dissenting role vis a vis a Lutheran establishment. Revival pietists, thus strengthened, used their status to define religious life as hostile to immigrant social life. Emboldened preachers condemned the social life of fraternal clubs, singing societies, and secret lodges. Workers were able to divide their loyalties, but had to endure the opprobrium of their ministers.;Swedish immigrants, through their congregations, positioned themselves to present a favorable impression and court a partnership with Americans. A communal ethnic identity was formed in a dialogical fashion when immigrants allied themselves with American institutions and movements. The construction of their ethnic identity did not rest on a common memory, or involve the recovery of essential national features, but was crafted to advance a partnership with Americans.