Swedish Emigrant Institute ist empoyees are given notice

All staff at the Emigrant Institute in Växjö, which has been on notice and the property is being sold, writes Smålandsposten. (the local newspaper)

The Institute's financial crisis is a result of loss of funds and disagreements with the former co-financiers the Municipality of Växjö and Kronoberg County Council.

The Board is opposed to their proposal that the Institute will be part of the same organization as the Småland Museum and Archives Kronoberg. It is feared that it would damage the institution's status to be included in such a local context.

Here is a rough translation fo the article in Smålandsposten
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The staff at the Emigrant Institute has its notification of termination and the whole property in The Museum Park is being offered for sale .The reason is that the board of the Emigrant Institute and the board of the The Culture Park has failed to reach an agrement about a merger.

- I never thought it would go so far. We all agree that this is regrettable and serious, "said Lars Hansson, director of The Emigrant Institute.
Altogether, it is about a dozen employees. The decision to give notice of termination to those is taken by the Emigrant Institutes Board. None of the staff Smålandsposten was in contact with yesterday wanted to make any comments.
- We do not know what this will mean, says one of them.

Although the property, with the House of Emigrants,the exhibition hall and office space and land in The Museum Park will be up for sale,according to the Board of the Emigrant Institutes's decision.
The property was recently valued at around 14 million Swedish kronor by the Valuation Office in Växjö.

- We have to take responsibility for the economic situation. Here is a mortage on the property also. It must be resolved in any way, "said Lars Hansson.

The background to the notices and the possible sale of the real estate is the Emigrant Institute's board of directors and the The Culture Park, which is owned by the municipality of Växjö and Kronoberg County Council, has been unable to agree on a solution for a merger.
The reason is that the Emigrant Institute did not buy the politicians' approach to transfer the Emigrant Institute's staff and activities to The Culture Company with the Småland Museum (the county museum)and The Kronoberg Archives. It would risk Emigrant Institute's national and international status in the scientific community to the risk of such a local context, the Board (of the Emigrant Institute )believes.

- Our policy has been that the Emigrant Institute will maintain its core business, archives and research, and that we share the public areas with the Culture Park. But it has not been possible to reach an agreement on this, "said Lars Hansson.
Chairman of the Board, history professor Harold Round Flowers says:
- The Culture Park will get a larger organization and momentum and we will guarantee what we will do that foundation. There is actually a collision of interests .

The Institute's economy has been strangled by withdraval of economic support from the local government of Växjö and the Kronoberg County Council this money is now given now to The Culture Park. Altogether, it is about a couple million a year. The money will not be at the Institute until there is a settlement.

The Culture Park s director , Erica Månsson, believes that the offer is generous and that includes opportunities for the Emigrant Institute s goals , such as in research.
- My opinion is that we have given a very good offer which we took into account the Foundation's various comments. We are appalled by the staff situation. It is unfortunate, "she says.
Today sit representatives of the Emigrant Institute and Cultural Park in the new negotiations. Both sides say they hope for a solution, even if the lengthy discussions have not led to the conclusion that they failed to agree.
- I have high hopes, "said Culture Park chairman Peter Norrman.

Lennart Ernstsson

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there were several comments on the article in the newspaper some taking the side of the Swedish emigrant Institute and some the side of The culture Park among the comments were this from Bo Frank (the mayor of Växjö)
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All the politicans in the municipality and county council is behind The culture Park and the offer toThe Emigrant institute to be developed as part of The Culture Park. If theSwedish emigrant Institute would rather close down its operations it may do so !
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My personal comment on this is that it will surely be a sad Day if the Swedish Emigrant Institute is forced out of its building and forced to leave Växjö. For years it has drawn tourists from USA, Canada and other countries to Växjö. People has been able to look at the exibitions and in the research department they also have been able to do research on their familiys origin in sweden and swedes has also been able to do research on their relatives fates in USA and Canada . The Emigrant Institutes archive and library conatins a unique collection of books ,swedish-american newspapers microfilmed swedish-american church records and also unique interwiews with old emigrants and a unique collection of pictures. This unity of library, research department ,archive and exibitions is now risking to be lost as well as the competence that goes with the employees.
I am aware that times have changed and that the Emigrant Institutes way of working has to change too.
as well as to the fact that The Institute has economical problems.

The bottom line is perhaps that the Swedish Emigrant Institute is a national institution anf that the Smålands Museum and the Kronoberg Archive are local Institutions and that their Interest may collide.
As a national Institution the Institute should have recevied some state support but that has never been given. Instead it has been dependent on economical support from the Municipality of Växjö and The county Council. The Municipality of Växjö and especially Bo Frank have pressed hard for a merger with the Smålands Museum and the Kronoberg Arhive to cut costs and to put pressure on The Emigrant Institute they have more or less slowly strangled them by cutting the economic support and forcing them to more or less close the research deparment to visitors (they are still answering research questions by e-mail).
it is sad that there have been no agrement.
I have spend much of my time at the Swedish emigrant institute since the late eighties that time may soon be gone.

The Archival Day November 14th.

On november 14th the Archival Day was held all over Sweden giving the public the opportunity to look behind the scene in different Archives and similar Institutions.
Here in Växjö the event was held at the Swedish Emigrant Institute.were the public could get help finding their emigrant relatives or listening to intresting lectures.

Here to the left Archivist Kristina Persson helps a visitor finding his relatives.


Gunilla Lundh-Tobiasson sang songs on record
at Smålands Musikarkiv( Musical Archive of Småland).












Lastly Titanic historian Claes-Göran Wetterholm spoke about the people especially the Swedes that sailed on the Titanic and the myths surrounding the ship. The Swedish Emigrant Institute also houses a small exibition about Titanic.

Genealogy Days in Falköping Aug 21-23 2009

This years Genealogy Days were held in Falköping a small town in the province of Västergötland.
The Genealogy Days consist of the yearly confernce of The Swedish Federation of Genealogical Societies as well as exibiotions and seminars about genealogy open to all intrested in Genealogy.

Day 1 Aug 21

This the first Day of the Genealogy Days consisted among other thing of bus tours for all intrested to the historical surroundings of Falköping an area rich in historical landmarks.
I took a tour to the mediaval historic sites .
Here the "Genealogy Day's General" Ted Rosvall (former chair man of the Swedih Federation of Genealogical societies)
is counting all the participants in the bus tour.
In the background our mediavally dressed guide.

there are many mediaval landmarks of intrest in Västergötland the area along with the province of Östergötland were in the center of what was the mediaval kingdom of Sweden.

Among the intresting stops we made on our tour was at the mediaval church in Varhem. Wich was the site of an important monastery as wich church houses the graves of some mediaval kings and other important people.

To the lesf is the mediaval church of the monastery of Varnhem.the church is still in use but the monasterys buildings only ruins are left.
In the 12th and 13th century two Dynasties were fighting over the kingship the Sverker Families (or clans) (most of their kings were named Sverker) and the Erik Family (most of their kings were named Erik. The Varhem monastery was a stronghold for the Erik Dynasty.and several of their kings are buried in Varnhem.





Day2-3 Aug 22-23rd

In the vendor hall of the conference there was a lot of discussions and sellings of books and other materials from the different Genealogical Societies. To the left is visitors taking a look at
the materials from the Swedish Federation of Genealogical Societies.The local Genealogical Society, Falbygdens släktforskarförening(The Falköping area Genealogical society) hosted the event.













One of the sponsors of the Genealogy Days was ArkivDigital A relatively new company who puts digitalised images of swedish churchrecords online. Arkivdigitals speciality is that they photograph the records in color with makes them more easy to read.





Here my friend Ingrid Nilsson from Trelleborg gets help to find her relatives in ArkivDigitals digitalisedimages







.







Some of the vendors and lectures was also of interest for those intrested in Emigrant research.
Erik Gustafsson from The Swedish American Center in Karlstad came as a representative for EMIWEB. EmiWeb is a webbased archive with databases covering with migration to and from Scandinavia.






Anna Lena Hultman (tot the left) and Ted Rosvall launched their joint project "Emigrant Forskning" (Emigrant research"
It is a handbook in for swedes researching the fate of their relatives who immigrated to USA and other parts of the world.
The book is the first in a series of Handbooks published by the Swedish Federation of Genealogical Societies.
The book is very welcome and I was sure to get my own copy
immideatly ;)

New episode of Anna-Karins Genealogical podcast

I have posted a new episode of the podcast it features 4 interviews I made last year at the Genealogy Days in Malmö aug 30-sept 1th
At the yearly conference of Swedish Federation of Genealogical Societies in Malmö.

1.Interview with Erik Gustafsson from Swedish American Center (former Kinship center) in
Karlstad. He speaks about EMIWEB The website with indexes of Swedish Emigrants .

2.Interview with genealogist Anna-LenaHultman about The DVD

The Swedish Death Index 1947-2006
and her own research center Konkordiahuset (The Konkordia house)

3.Interview with Claes Westling from the regional archive in Vadstena and the system of regional archives

4.Interview with Anders Nordström at SVAR .About their digitization of and putting archival records online.

This years Genealogy Days will be in Falköping in the province of Västergötland this weekend Aug 21-23rd I will be there too ;)

The Minnesota Day and the Karl Oskar Days 7-9 Aug

This years Karl- Oskar Days were held 7-8 August. Not that the celebration to the original intent to celebrate the memory of the emigration of the many Swedes to USA 1850-1930 wich author Vilhelm Moberg captured in his Immigrant novels about the Fictional couple Karl-Oskar and Kristina.
Today the Karl -Oskar Days seems more to be an ordinary city-festival with street-vendors ,music and entertainment.




The churches in Växjö had their own activity together consisting of handing out small Bibles (over 1000)and serving waffles with cream and Rasberry jam .








The Friends of the Swedish Emigrant Institute
held their yearly meeting on Aug 8 th at the Swedish Emigrant Institute. Among the speakers were chairman Ulf Beijbom and a lecture about the Swedish Emigrant Institutes place in contemporary migration research wa held by the chairman of the Swedish Emigrant Institute Harald Runblom.




The Minnesota Day celebration was held as usual
the Second Sunday in August.This Year on Aug 9th. at the Swedish Emigrant Institute Among other entertainment, The Växjö Male choir sang traditional Swedish songs.








This Years Honorary Speaker was the former Speaker of the Swedish Parlament Tage G Petersson. The Award The Swedish-American of the Year was given as usual by The Vasa order of America's Swedish branch to Anne- Charlotte Harvey for her work documenting Swedish-American entainment history.













This Years Charlotta medal was given to Willy Läth for his work in helping the Swedish Emigrant institute to produce its exibitions.

"The New Country" New Exibition about Swedish Emigration opens in Eksjö

On June 5th The Swedish Emigrant Institute opened a new Exhibition called "Det nya landet (The New Country) in its new temporary branch in the city of Eksjö.
The new exhibitions theme is the Swedes life in USA .Their life in the cities and their social situation both in comparison to the majority culture and in comparison to other immigrant groups. The exibition is to bee seen as a complement to the Exibitions in The Swedish Emigrant Institutes main exibitions in Växjö wich focuses on the Emigrants life in Sweden and on their experiences in rural USA.




The Mayor of Eksjö Lennart Bogren declared the
exhibition open and also held a short speech about
the Exhibition and the fact that many immigrants
had left the Eksjö area and settled in different
places in USA.














Willy Läth checks the exhibition a last time before the ribbon is cut !

A brass band wearing the old uniforms of the old
Småland Hussar regiment.entertained by playing old military music.











Several people came to take a first view of the exibition. The exhibitions main theme is the swedish emigrants experiences in the new country. Both with the majority American society as well as with and in comparison to other immigrant groups.










The United States sometimes saw its immigrants and and diverse ethnic make up as a strength.
And Sometimes as a weakness.
Swedes were sometimes looked
down up on. But in general they
had the advantage of being "White" and "Protestant"and so ended up on the upper part of the pecking order.
The Swedes were often pitted against the Irish which they also looked down on (and vice versa).









Many Swedes home in USA came to be in the expanding cities such as Chicago,Denver and Jamestown(on the left). sometimes the part of town they ended up in were among the simple neighborhoods as in "Swede Hollow" in St. Paul (to the right).


































Carl Werner Pettersson and Yngve Turesson and Bertil Fransson seem
very happy with the exhibition.











Tore Sandh gives Lars Hansson and the Swedish Emigrant Institute a picture ofJohan (John) Vifvat (a civil war veteran) and his son Sam Vifvat( a soldier in WW1). Johan Vifvat came from the area of Eksjö and immigrated to USA in the 1850thies.

Swedish National Day celebrated on June 6th in Växjö

The Swedish National Day is celebrated June 6th. The National Day has only been a Holiday since 1983.
Before that it was called "Svenska Flaggans Dag"(The Day of the Swedish Flag).
This year here in Växjö it was celebrated in the Park outside "Smålands Museum"(The county Museum). The celebrations contained both ceremonial and more relaxed elements.

Firstly members of the folkdance group Värendsgillet danced tradtional swedish Folkdances.

The Lord Mayor of Växjö Nils Posse gave stipends and rewards to people and organisations who have done beneficial work for the local community. Among the persons who recieved awards were.Ingemar Nordström wellknown saxophone player for his work with his dance orchestra and his his other support for local culture.














And Dalala Abdel Gani for helping young women and girls integrating in swedish society and for her work against honour related violence.















Coffe and cake were also served at the Swedish Emigrant Institute. I sat down there to eat a typical Swedish dessert (or perhaps typical for the province of Småland) "Ostkaka med hallonsylt (Swedish cheesecake with Raspberry jam).















As a closing of the National Day celebrations. The Swedish National Anthem "Du Gamla du Fria" (You old you free) and some other patriotic songs were sung by the Växjö Male choir.