Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Blaðsíða 23

DANISH EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA 13
the Norwegian-born, one seventh of whom are farmers, while
of the Swedish-born not quite one tenth are farmers.
If the Danish-, Norwegian-, and Swedish-born Americans
are added together in one Scandinavian group, the latter is seen
to constitute the seventh largest of all foreign-born groups.
Those born in the United Kingdom amounted to 2,148,000 (in-
cluding one million Irish), the Italian-born 1,790,400, the Ger-
man-born 1,608,000, the Canadian-born 1,286,000, the Polish-
born 1,268,600, the Russian-born 1,153,600, and the Scandi-
navian-born 1,125,400.
The total number of foreign-born Americans was 14,200,000.
It has already been pointed out that the majority of the
Danes who emigrated to America about the middle of the i9th
century belonged to non-Lutheran religious communities, such
as Mormons, Baptists, and Methodists, and many settlers who
at home had been indifferent, or even antagonistic, to the tenets
of the Christian churches joined these religious communities,
which also displayed so much activity in the field of practical
colonization.
After emigration had begun to assume large dimensions —
i. e. about 1870 — certain circles within the Church of Den-
mark began to take an interest in the emigrants and to send out
clergymen to the settlements in North America. Both of the two
wings of the Church which then had a preponderant influence
on its affairs, the “Grundtvigians” and the “Home Mission” (see
above), were represented in this work, and gradually a number
of congregations sprang up, grouping themselved in two large
organizations: “The Danish Church” (Grundtvigian) and “The
United Church” (Home Mission).
The congregations were founded without any financial sup-
port from Denmark, and the two above-mentioned communities
are independent organizations, whose only connecting link with
the Church of Denmark is constituted by two committees, one
for each of them. Each of the two organizations has a member-
ship of about 20,000. The United Church owns 170 church
buildings, and comprises 185 congregations, served by 140 clergy-
men. The Danish Church has 92 church buildings and comprises