Immigrant Artifacts February 25, 2007

This category of artifacts is perhaps the one from which one learns the most immigrant history. When a donor brings an item a relative brought from Sweden, the artifact reveals a whole history of where they came from, when they left Sweden and the difficulties and joys of settling in a new land. The handmade wooden immigrant trunk is the most visible symbol of the physical separation made by Swedish immigrants when they left their homeland. In making the journey to America, a typical trunk would have been packed with clothing, bed linens, coverlets, weaving implements, copper pots, tools, family heirlooms, photographs and the family Bible. On the outside, trunks were finished in a variety of ways from a simple coat of paint to decoration with folk painting. Most were identified on the front with the immigrants' initials and the date, along with the destination in America.