Ernst Teofil Skarstedt (April 14, 1857 – March 13, 1929) was a

Swedish-American Swedish Americans ( sv, svenskamerikaner) are Americans of Swedish ancestry. They include the 1.2 million Swedish immigrants during 1865–1915, who formed tight-knit communities, as well as their descendants and more recent immigrants. Today, ...

author, journalist and editor of

Swedish-language Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countr ...

books and newspapers. He is most noted as the author of a three-volume trilogy covering the Swedish immigrant experience in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

Background

Ernst Teofil Skarstedt was born in Solberga parish, municipality of

Kungälv Kungälv () (old no, Konghelle) is a city and the seat of Kungälv Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 22,768 inhabitants in 2010. In 2021, the main Kungälv - Ytterby - Kareby conurbation had a combined population approachin ...

, in

Västra Götaland County Västra Götaland County ( sv, Västra Götalands län) is a county or '' län'' on the western coast of Sweden. The county is the second most populous of Sweden's counties and it comprises 49 municipalities (''kommuner''). Its population of 1 ...

, located in the traditional province of

Bohuslän Bohuslän (; da, Bohuslen; no, Båhuslen) is a Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. He was the son of Carl Wilhelm Skarstedt (1815–1908) and Hedvig Elina Wieselgren (1839–1863). Skarstedt was born at the parsonage where his father served as a parish priest. His father later became a distinguished professor of theology at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Svenska amerikanaren ''Svenska Amerikanaren Tribunen'' is a Swedish-American weekly newspaper which was published in Chicago and read by Swedish immigrants. Two competing newspapers have held the name ''Svenska Amerikanaren'', both with roots in the 1870s, but the t ...

'' in 1880 and ''Svenska tribunen'' in 1884, both published in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. From 1891 he edited ''

Vestkusten was an originally Swedish-language newspaper, published in California from 1887 to 2007. It was founded as ''Ebenezer'', a church news bulletin by Augustana Lutheran pastor Johannes Tellen, but it soon changed focus and became a newspaper afte ...

'', published in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He was later hired as the editor of ''

Nordstjernan Nordstjernan () is a Swedish investment company. Nordstjernan is a fourth-generation family company controlled by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. The origin is the shipping company Nordstjernan, which was founded in 1890. Histo ...

'' in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Later having moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, Skarstedt made an attempt to publish a local Swedish-language newspaper, ''Demokraten'', a newspaper aimed at educating Swedes about local politics. In 1890, Skarstedt published ''Oregon och Washington: Dessa staters historia, resurser och folkliv'', a volume that combined history with a handbook for potential settlers. ''Washington och dess Svenska Befolkning'' was published in 1908. This provided a history of the area and descriptions of communities and industries. In 1911, he published the last volume in his trilogy ''Oregon och dess svenska befolkning'' containing biographies of prominent Swedish-Americans. Ernst Skarstedt died in Seattle, Washington, during 1929.

Selected works

* ''Svensk-amerikanska poeter i ord och bild'' (1890) * ''Oregon och Washington'' (1890) * ''Våra pennfäktare'' (1897) * ''Under västliga skyar, poetry'' (1907) * ''Washington och dess svenska befolkning'' (1908) * ''California och dess Svenska Befolkning'' (1910) * ''Oregon och dess svenska befolkning'' (1911) * ''Vagabond och redaktör'' (1914) * ''Svensk-amerikanska folket i helg och söcken'' (1917)

References

Other sources

*Nordström, Lars (2008) ''Swedish Oregon'' (Portland, OR: Swedish Roots in Oregon Press) *Rosqvist, Leif (2008) ''The Great History of Swedes in Oregon'' (Portland, OR: Swedish Roots in Oregon Press)

External links

Ernst Skarstedt and Ellen Hogberg Skarstedt, Seattle, July 1926
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skarstedt, Ernst 1857 births 1929 deaths People from Kungälv Municipality Lund University alumni Writers from Oregon Writers from Washington (state) 19th-century American newspaper publishers (people) Swedish emigrants to the United States

Background

Selected works

References

Other sources

Related reading

External links