Minnesota became a melting pot of European races. The percentage of the foreign-born to the total population in Minnesota has been consistently
higher than in the United States as a whole. At the time of the
1930 census, those of foreign-born parentage still made up more
than 50 percent, although there had been virtually no
immigration for 10 years.
The first tide of settlers swept over Minnesota during the first
land sale in 1848. The Minnesota Territory took shape in 1849 and the land sale had attracted mostly land-hungry and
adventure-hunting easterners from New York, Pennsylvania, and
New England. In 1850, there were 5,354 settlers in the
region that is now Minnesota.
The Minnesota Territory population grew so amazingly that by 1858 it practically
tripled and the territory was able to gain its statehood.
Indian treaties had opened up more land and a railroad had
reached the Mississippi River, making possible a long lap of
the journey by train and boat. Men were needed for lumbering,
for building the railroad and towns, and to raise food for the
settlers and their animals. The Yankee kings of industry
proceeded to sell the Minnesota idea to northern Europe by
methods of high-pressure salesmanship. Thousands of pamphlets
proclaiming the region's unique opportunities were issued by the
Bureau of Immigration created for that purpose. Agents were
sent across the sea to scatter literature, and to encourage
first Germans, Belgians, Scandinavians, then French and Swiss
to come to Minnesota. Individual counties, through folders and
newspapers, distributed stories of the soil's fertility or of
their respective manufacturing potential, in hotels and
railroad stations throughout the land. It was said the climate was endowed
with extraordinary healing powers for tuberculosis and other
pulmonary diseases. The State legislature took a hand and
sponsored a prize competition for essays on the topic Minnesota
as a Home for Immigrants, some of which they later printed and
circulated. The Germans came in the greatest numbers, then the
Irish, and then Canadians from beyond the border.
By 1868 the railroads had begun to spread their network
over the State. Jim Hill sent his agent to Europe and Colonel
Hans Mattson went over for the State Board of Emigration. Soon
the Scandinavians began to pour into the land, lured by
booklets whose illustrations were probably the first examples
of creative art produced by the State. Immigrant houses were
built by the railroads and by Archbishop Ireland for his
Irish colonists. Some of these transient homes were large
enough to accommodate several hundred persons at one time. By
1880 the census showed a population which had grown to 780,773, of which
71 percent were Europeans of the first and second generations.
All through the eighties the stream continued to flow across
the Atlantic and the eastern States into Minnesota. New cheap
labor crowding on the heels of earlier comers kept the labor
world in a state of motion which shifted hundreds of peasants
to the middle class and, in part at least, explains the rapid
rise of foreign-born men in industry, and of unskilled laborers
into the merchant and professional classes.
In 1890 the immigration tide reached its peak. It was
followed by the so-called newer immigration, that of the Finns
and Slavs. Brought over to work in the mines, they came in such
mounting numbers that by 1930 they constituted 53 percent of the foreign-born population of the region in northeastern Minnesota known as the Arrowhead (exclusive of Duluth), while each of the State's largest cities showed a marked increase in its Slavic element.
By 1900 the packing plants were in need of cheap labor.
Profiting by the mine owners' experience, they sent their
agents recruiting into the Balkan countries and as far north as
Poland and Lithuania. Consequently in South St. Paul today the
national composition embodies Rumanians Serbs, Slovenians,
Croatians, Japanese, Jugo Slavs, Montenegrins, Mexicans, Poles,
and Swedes. The Mesabi Range towns report Finns, Swedes
Norwegians, English, Irish, Germans, Poles, French, Austrians,
Hungarians, Swiss, Syrians, Rumanians, Danes, Serbs, Welsh,
Bulgarians, and Montenegrins. Outside of these two regions and
Duluth, representatives of the Balkan countries are only
occasionally found in the State.
Immigration virtually ceased in 1920, and since that date the
trend has been consistently toward an ever smaller percentage
of foreign-born. But there is still in Minnesota a vast group
of people only little removed from Old World influences.
Nevertheless there are surprisingly few communities in the
State where one can still hope to meet foreign customs or
folkways. Not long ago one might still have found German the
common speech on the streets of New Ulm, Czech in New Prague,
Polish in a section of Winona, the three Scandinavian tongues
in dozens of towns. Many churches then held their services in
foreign languages. But today one finds but few children who are
bilingual, and rare indeed are the communities like Embarrass,
the Finnish village, where the residents still cling to Old
World architecture for their barns and saunas (steam baths),
and where their characteristic pegged, canvas-topped haystacks
give a unique aspect to the countryside. On the Range one may
catch an occasional glimpse of a quaint musical instrument or
may chance upon a family celebration where young and old take
part in a merry old country dance, but the average visitor to
Minnesota may travel the length and breadth of the land and,
aside from the names he glimpses on village stores and mail
boxes, see few evidences of the great European immigrations.
A fondness for the foods of the homeland, however, has been
retained in many quarters and at certain seasons of the year
national culinary arts come strongly to the fore. The famous
smrgĀsbord suppers of the Scandinavians, served often in
Lutheran churches, are experiences not to be forgotten. During
the winter, lutfisk or ludefisk and lefsa is featured in city and village
alike. Lutefisk is a species of cod which, first soaked and boiled,
is served in melted butter. Lefsa is a delicious flat bread made with the potato and flour. The tiny Swedish meat balls when properly prepared have a delicacy no Yankee counterpart can approach, and their hundreds of varieties of Christmas cakes are scarcely equaled even by the Germans. The Czechs still raise poppies in their gardens that they may have seeds for the
Sweet turn-over rolls, filled with citron, which they call kolacky, and the Poles, however Americanized, still make their special cakes and wafers for religious festivals.
