IOWA WOMEN’S ARCHIVES
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA LIBRARIES
IOWA CITY, IOWA
AUGUSTA GUSTAFSON SWANSON
(1862? - )
CORRESPONDENCE, 1884-1938, 1993
5 linear inches
|
ACQUISITION: |
The papers
(donor no. 127) were donated by Ellen
Swanson in 1993. The originals are
held by Ellen and Julia Swanson. |
|
ACCESS: |
The papers
are open for research. |
|
COPYRIGHT: |
Copyright has been transferred to the University
of Iowa. |
|
PHOTOGRAPHS: |
In box 1. |
|
PROCESSED BY: |
Lori Jargo and Robert
Jett, 1993. |
Biography
Augusta Gustafson Swanson
was born in 1862(?) in Hygnestad, Vaderstad, a province of Ostergotland,
Sweden. On July 28, 1889, she was
married to Carl Swanson in Sweden and emigrated with him to his home in
Iowa. The couple settled on a farm in
Grant Township in Montgomery County, Iowa.
Carl Swanson, born in 1850 in Sweden, emigrated to Iowa in 1868. Augusta and Carl Swanson raised a family of
nine children. Carl Swanson died in
1922. Augusta later moved to Red Oak,
Iowa.
Scope and
Content Note
The Augusta Swanson papers measure 5
linear inches and date from 1884 to 1938.
They consist of photocopies of letters written in Swedish by Augusta Swanson
to her family in Sweden, along with English translations of the letters. The papers are divided into three series:
Correspondence, Transcripts, and Newspaper clipping.
The Correspondence series
consists of 109 letters written in Swedish by Augusta Swanson describing day to
day activities as well as events of national importance. Family members' health, the births of her
children, school and church activities, weddings, funerals, and landmark events
such as acquisition of the family's first car, are all documented. Daily activities around the farm, the
weather, harvests and yields, prices of grain and livestock, the remodeling of
the house, and the activities of the persons hired to help on the farm and in
the house, are also covered. One letter
(number 40) includes Carl Swanson's financial statement for 1901.
Swanson mentions many events of
national importance, among them the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the bank
crisis of 1894, the re-election of President McKinley in 1900, McKinley's
assassination in 1901, the 1901 beginning of Rural Free Delivery of mail, World
War I, the events of the stock market crash in 1929, the election of Franklin
Roosevelt, and Prohibition.
The Transcripts series
consists of English translations of the correspondence, translated by Ellen
Swanson. Preceding these translations
is a calendar listing of each letter by number and date written, followed by a
brief description of its contents, and four pages of photocopies of personal
photographs, including one of each of Swanson's two homes in Iowa, one of her
birth home, and one of Swanson and her nine adult children. Also included are a brief narrative
description of Carl Swanson's two return trips to Sweden, during the second of
which he and Augusta Gustafson were married.
The Newspaper clipping series
consists of a photocopy of a newspaper article about Ellen and Julia Swanson
from The Red Oak Express about the
donation of their mother’s papers to
the Iowa Women’s Archives.
Box no. Description
Box 1
Correspondence [in Swedish]
1884-1896
1897-1904
1905-1913
1914-1928
1929-1938
Transcripts [in English]
1884-1899
1900-1938
Newspaper clipping, 1993
“Letter tell of early Farm Life,” The Red
Oak Express, February 9, 1993