About the Author

H. Arnold Barton, professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is one of the nation's foremost scholars of Nordic and Swedish American studies. Among his books are Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840-1914; The Search for Ancestors: A Swedish American Family Saga; Northern Arcadia: Foreign Travelers in Scandinavia, 1765-1815; A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and Swedish Americans, 1840-1940; and Sweden and Visions of Norway: Politics and Culture, 1814-1905. He was made Knight-Commander of the Royal Swedish Order of the Polar Star in 2000 by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and was named Swedish American of the Year in 1988 by the Royal Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Vasa Order of America.