Talk:Swedish emigration to the United States/Archive 1

message: I have moved an expanded, sourced, and cited version that I have been working on in userspace over the original stub, and am boldly removing the WikiProject Sweden rating template as not relevant to this version. I hope you'll like it and edit it to add improvements. Please try to keep all additions properly sourced. Regards, Bishonen | talk 18:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, that's one major expansion you've made. Really nice work. But you didn't have to remove the template, you could've changed the rating or request that someone else did it for you. --Krm500 17:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Major expansion

message: Here are some small suggestions for improvement in the prose:
*By contrast, reports from early Swedish emigrants painted the American Midwest as an earthly paradise, and praised American religious and political freedom and undreamed-of opportunities to better one's condition. - too many "and's" in a row
*Most immigrants became classic pioneers, clearing and cultivating the prairie, but some forces pushed the new immigrants towards the cities, particularly Chicago. - the change in subject is awkward - people to abstract forces; "most immigrants...while others" perhaps?
**Yes. It wasn't good, and isn't so hot now, either... maybe somebody will improve it.
*'Their admiration for America was combined with the notion of a past Swedish Golden Age, whose ancient Nordic ideals had supposedly been corrupted by foreign influences. Recovering the purity of these timeless values in the New World was a fundamental theme of Swedish, and later Swedish American, discussion of America. - What about combining the the "corrupted by foreign influences" bit with the next sentence? I think it would fit better there.
**I totally agree. I've given the paragraph a bit of a rewrite.
*many citizens of the hierarchic Swedish class society looked with admiration to the American republican government and to the American respect for honest toil - which members? is "honest toil" perhaps a bit too poetic?
**Fixed.
*By contrast, the United States became later in the 20th century the symbol and dream of unfettered individualism. - I'm pretty sure that the US was the symbol of "unfettered individualism" well before the end of the 20th century.
**Yeah, I guess so. Fixed.
*Sweden got underway in the early 1840s, and had the third-highest rate in all of Europe - "got" is an imprecise verb.
**[ /me demurs. ] I like it.. If you take the verb as not "get" but "get underway", it's pretty precise, isn't it?
*The first European emigrants travelled in the holds of sailing cargo ships. With the age of steam, an efficient transatlantic passenger transport mechanism was built up at the end of the 1860s. - A bit awkward - how about something like "With the advent of the age of steam, however, an efficient transatlantic passenger transport mechanism was established at the end of the 1860s."
**"However"..? Hmm. I don't see a contradiction, just the march of history. I'll see what I can do.
*It was based on huge, dedicated emigrant ocean liners - Do you mean "huge ocean liners dedicated to the ferrying of emigrants"?
**I do. It may be a little exaggerated. All these ships carried first-class passengers as well, i. e. non-emigrants. (The Titanic was one of them.) Ferrying emigrants was the financial basis of agencies like the White Star Line, but I guess it's not proportionate to go into details like that. I think I'll just lose the "dedicated emigrant" part.
*Brattne and Åkerman have examined the advertising campaigns and the ticket prices as a possible third force between "push" and "pull". They conclude that neither of these had any decisive influence on Swedish emigration. - I think that this is the first time you mention these scholars - could you give their full names and identify them?; it is not entirely clear to me what "neither" is referring to.
**It's not? I was afraid it might not be.. I just wrote that sentence. OK, fixing. So you don't think it's enough that Brattne and Åkerman are set out in the References section? I don't really have any more to say about them than what's there. 
*the leaflets sent out to prospective emigrants would not so much celebrate conditions in the New World, as simply emphasize the comforts and advantages of the particular shipping line paying for the material. - does "material" refer to the "leaflets"? this was not clear to me.
**That passage is so difficult to wrest into shape! (plaintively). I'll have a go at clarifying.
*Göteborgs Handels-och Sjöfartstidning - is the dash supposed to be there?
**Yes. Well, it's a hyphen. Swedish is like that. (There's a space after the hyphen. You don't believe me? I'll explain it if you're not careful! ;-P )
*Large numbers even of those who had been farmers in the old country made straight for American cities and towns - "made straight" is a little informal.
**Hmm. I take the point. Thinking about alternatives.
*Their style was more familiar: "They are not peddlers, nor organ grinders, nor beggars; they do not sell ready-made clothing nor keep pawn shops … they do not seek the shelter of the American flag merely to introduce and foster among us … socialism, nihilism, communism … they are more like Americans than are any other foreign peoples." - I would make it absolutely clear that this is a nineteenth-century quotation.
**Ah, ok, good thought. (Cool quote, isn't it? :-)) 
*# Languages of the United States#Swedish - Can we be more elegant with this link name?
**Well, I hope so. I don't know who added it. It's a delicate business to revert people's copy-edits and additions, especially while an article is on FAC. Last time I tried anything like that, I got yelled at for being "territorial". See, you can remove the link (HINT HINT), but I'm not supposed to. (It's the same with some prose points at the top of your post—it would really help if you fixed them yourself.) 
This was really a very enjoyable article to read - please don't be offended by my quibbles. That I am peering so closely means that the article is excellent. Awadewit | talk 08:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Small points