Why did such large numbers of Scandinavians (including my own ancestors) embrace Mormonism, leave their home countries, and eventually arrive in Utah in the mid to late 1800s/early 1900s? To this day, Scandinavian family names (Nelson, Petersen, Christensen...) appear with extremely high frequency in the Mormon church.

There were anti-Mormon movements during that time period in Scandinavia, including a 1911 Danish film, "A Victim of the Mormons" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Victim_of_the_Mormons). In spite of the anti-Mormon sentiments, thousands of Scandinavians joined the Mormon church and moved to Utah.

I'm guessing most people were seeking better lives and used the Perpetual Emigration Fund to pay for their travel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Emigration_Fund).

Any thoughts/family stories?

I've heard some of the Danish were recruited to build the SLC temple. I'm not certain why my Danish ancestor joined the church... Many had no idea about polygamy, or were lied to by missionaries.

Free land. Help fleeing poverty. Freedom from a monarchy. Etc.

The "missionaries" LIED to them (or told them what they believed, and that seemed pretty promising)! They told them of the magnificent beauty and abundance of land, and limitless religious and political freedoms...

They didn't know any better. They were only doing what they were told. They didn't have knowledge, just faith.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2015 03:33AM by moremany.

+1 Empty promises made to people looking for a better life.

My ancestors were scandinavian. Came over in the late 1800's and settled the mountains of Utah. They had a very hard life here--very poor. Still drank coffee and their lives were nothing like the rigid Mormonosity of today. My great grandparents when I was a kid still spoke Norwegian and Danish and gave us sugar cubes for a treat.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2015 10:15AM by blueorchid.

My g-grandmother was forbidden to speak Swedish by her parents. They told her, "We are Americans now. We only speak English." They also changed their last name, before they ever came to the States. My grandfather never even acknowledged that he was half Swedish because of this.

Yeah, I'm having the same issue w/my Swedish ancestors. It wasn't until the mid 1800's that they started using surnames and most of those were misinterpreted and turned into what they thought were English names. Before 1850's it was John Ericson, Eric johannson, ... you were always somebody's son.

the american dream - it was a land of opportunity, after all.

The Mormon awakening in Scandinavia did not last more than a couple of decades from about 1850. The background was the same as Mormon awakenings in other parts of the world, including the Upper New York/Ohio/Illinois in the 1830-40'es: The Scandinavian countries were already in a religious turmoil, and the Mormons came in fishing in troubled waters. The same was the case in Britain in the 1840-50'es and in Latin America today. Mormons don't start awakenings but exploit awakenings started by others - like they exploited the Second Great Awakening and the Restoration Movement in the US. The Mormons were and are a minority in those movements.

The second part of the 19th century was the great age of Northern European emigration to the US. The question of the causes for the emigration is complex, but it was not as simple as poor people escaping monarchy and oppression, as the same period saw economical growth and democratical liberation in the same countries. The Mormons were by far not the leading group in the emigration. The normal thing to do for emigrants was to found their own Lutheran-inspired churches and stay With their own. - That said, it is also true that some members of the very first Norwegian emigrant party, in the 1820'es, helped build the Kirtland temple. It is also true that Norwegian emigrants settling in Norway, Illinois, joined the Mormon Church in the 1840'es, and after Joseph Smith's death, when the Apostles issued a proclamation to the world, they also had a Norwegian translation made. I've been told that one Norwegian from Norway, Illinois, was among those who attacked Smith in Carthage, but I have not had that confirmed.

The Mormons were not highly regarded in Scandinavia in the 1850'es and later. In Norway they were even declared "not Christian" by the Supreme Court in 1853, which by the laws of that time meant that they were not to be allowed in the kingdom. That of course was a powerful incentive to emigrate.

But the main incentive for Scandinavian converts to go to Zion was probably religious. In Mormon preaching of the time the gathering of the Saints was said to be the prelude to the return of Christ and in Zion the Saints would be safe from the tribulations to come over the Earth before they could emerge to reign With Christ. If you believe that, you go!

Great insight!

I believe we don't put enough emphasis on "the times" and the fact that many converts were convinced Christ was coming back ASAP based on the teaching of Smith and his missionaries.

I get the land and America, but I believe the message that Christ was returning and the second coming was about to happen motivated a lot of people to join and immigrate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2015 08:50PM by Doubting Thomas.

A lot of Scandinavians emigrated to the U.S. and Canada in those times, not just for LDS Corp. I imagine that some were drawn by the promise of a set-up community, jobs, etc., that the LDS offered at that time (rather than going it alone and taking their chances).

Some conversions were probably from family connections; once someone had joined, they encouraged others in their immediate and extended families to do the same. My Norwegian mother joined in 1948 on the recommendation of her older brother, who had previously emigrated to Canada and had married a mormon woman who converted him. She then took us to live in SLC.

Also can't forget a few important items affecting Europe back then:

- Many families fled conscription of their sons in the mid-1800's, and looked for a way to do it. Mormons offered a life in the states, land, and a new life. Fleeing conscription of young men was the primary motive for leaving Germany during that period.

- The fact that there was still no artificial fertilizer made it hard to support the increasing mid-1800's European population (artificial ferilizers started in the latter half of the 1800's). Near famine was becoming common stuff in western and central Europe. Lots of Europeans emigrated for this reason alone.

- The Mormons still converted people with the idea to bring them to Utah and "build up Zion." They promised (and often did not deliver) some real grand stuff, again with the land and new opportunities. They were successful at bringing lots of English, Scots, Germans, and especially Danes to Utah. Many were desperately poor and just wanted a new life. Many women were promised wonderful things, but then just put into a polygamous marriage when they got there. And often the church did deliver on land, but it might be a monumentally difficult thing to actually eke out an existence due to bad location, bad land, etc.

the same way Time Shares are marketed today!

My Danish ancestors bought in but couldn't get rid of it once they figured out the cost.

One factor to consider is that the Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Sweden and Norway - do not have a lot of arable land. As populations increased this was indeed a problem.

I agree about the lack of land part as a huge factor.

My Norwegian ancestors came to America due to lack of land in Norway to make a living on in the 1880s. Just too many people and not enough land/life/work opportunities. My two Norwegian branches were Lutherans and settled in Minnesota and Washington State.

Pay less taxes in the USA.

Poverty. Overpopulation. The LDS church offered an organized system of immigration to areas with available land. Just imagine how many people in Latin America would have joined the church and moved to Utah if the church could offer help with visas.

Thank you so much for your insights and commentary!

My family has the journals kept by my convert relatives, in which my female relatives write about giving priesthood/healing blessings to their children as though it is a natural and common thing.

Also, my relatives write about the discrimination Scandinavian immigrants faced in their area (southern Utah) for being different -- native English speakers made fun of their accents and foreign names, and would only hire Scandinavians to do menial jobs in the community. I realize this discrimination isn't unique to Utah, but it is interesting to read about the Mormon small town hierarchy.

My ancestors "Americanized" as quickly as they could, including changing their names to English sounding versions and refusing to speak their native languages with their children as they didn't want their children to face the same discrimination that they had.

The following generations moved up to Salt Lake City to find better work opportunitities and less discrimination, and some family members moved out of state, eventually leaving the Mormon church -- they are the mysterious vanished ones who didn't keep contact with my TBM side of the family.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

If it hasn't been done already, PLEASE scan and make copies of those journals. They contain precious history AND the LDS church has been rounding up Mormon family journals. They claim that they want to "preserve" LDS family so they get gullible families to donate their family journals to the church. What happens is that they get locked up where no one can see them so that any damning information against the church might forever be kept in the dark.

Yes, these journals are fascinating.

One of my female relatives is the daughter of a polygamist's second or third wife, and she writes about having to hide and lie about her parentage when the federal authorities would come through the area looking for polygamist families. "Lying for the Lord" has a long tradition!

Her mother died when she was young, and her growing up years were very difficult as she lived with the first wife's family and had to earn her keep working as a servant for them, receiving only ragtag hand-me-downs to wear.

She was a very strong person and made the best of her circumstances, but I think polygamy is shown to be a less than beneficial institution through her journal entries.

One thing I can say about my Scandinavian relatives is that they valued education, so all my relatives received some schooling, which enabled them to document their experiences.

Just looked at the Quorum of the Twelve and saw several Scandinavian names: Nelson, Christofferson, and Andersen. Of course there are the church presidents Monson and Benson. And from the Presidency of the Seventy, there are Christensen and Hallstrom.

The Germans and the Danes kept having conflicts over Schleswig (southern Denmark). The young men in Denmark were impressed into the military. My wife's ancestors came in two waves associated with each of those wars. We also found a family history where two brothers who came to Utah admitted they just wanted to get out of military service.

Times in the 1850s were harsh in Denmark and Norway, people were poor, and the promise of free land and a new start in a utopian society appealed to a lot of Norwegians and Danes.

Blame it on Ole & Lena...


just sayin'

THe CULT wanted good stone masons and the best came from Scandinavia. My grandfather was one of them.

I agree that the lure of free land was one thing that attracted many Scandinavians to join Mormonism. That, and being able to avoid military service, which was done again during the Vietnam war when Mormon men served a mission just to dodge the draft. As with other immigrant groups, they changed their last names to sound more English, and quit speaking their native language at home.

Conversion to the BOM had nothing to do with immigration. In Denmark it was the custom to pass the entire estate/farm to the eldest son. The second son got nothing. My ancestor was the 2nd son so of course he wanted to come to America. Bear River Massacre had just been accomplished so he was politely given a large river front piece of land that had been used by the murdered Indians. No one protested and he became one of the richest men in Box Elder.

Don't we luv our pioneer heritage!

Having visited the small Danish coastal town where my great-grandfather lived, it wouldn't have taken much to convince me to leave it for America.

Since only a small percentage of Scandinavians converted to Mormonism, the question should actually be, "Why were a large percentage of Mormon converts from Scandinavian countries?"

The answer is that it's one of the places the church sent missionaries. Scandinavia, along with England, wasn't primarily Catholic, like the rest of Europe, so they were a more natural fit for JS's strain of Protestantism. Also, Scandinavians are the whitest people and therefore the most favored of God.

Weren't most of the Danes smart enough to wait until the train could take them-- Yet us Swedes and Nordic did the handcart journey?

"three particularly cold intervals, one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last about 1850, each separated by slight intervals of warming" According to Wikepedia regarding
the little ice age in Europe and North America.

according to Scott A. Mandia, profesor of physical sciences, Writes /" Influence of Dramatic Climate Shifts on European Civilizations; The Rise and Fall of the Vikings and the Little Ice Age" : increased glaciation and storms had a devastating effect on those that lived near tbe sea"
Dr. Mania mentions emigration (in country population movement from glaciers to warmer sites,)
And Dr. Mania there was 15-20 percent loss of agricultural production

These situations provide some reasons for our ancescors leaving their beloved Scandanavia to come to Utah and join the Saints.
The warm summers might have sounded like Hollywood. In face when my great great grandfather went to be mission president in Swedent, he may have been selling land and survival not the gospel. it's a survival package. And besides, he always thought Sedes could drink coffe according to grandma/ he said the prophet did not mean the Swedish should t drink it whe he did that revelation. Lol