Sweden Celebrates Its Contributions to America: From Coca-Cola Bottles to Zippers

It hardly merits a mention in most history books, but Sweden is celebrating the 350th anniversary of its short-lived colonization of the New World and Swedes’ contribution to the American way of life.

Marking that long-ago foothold, Sweden is putting on a traveling show of its emigrants’ contributions--which range from the zipper and Coca-Cola bottle to ball bearings and monkey wrenches.

The yearlong celebration will begin with a 14-city U.S. tour in April by King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Silvia.

500 Settlers

Swedish settlers disembarked on the shores of the Delaware River on March 29, 1638, 18 years after the Pilgrims landed farther north at Plymouth Rock, Mass. At its peak, “New Sweden” had 500 people, but within 17 years the Swedes lost their colony to the Dutch, who then lost it to the British.

‘A Peaceful People’

“It’s not much to celebrate. We are a peaceful people and even then we had no knack for colonial work,” said historian Per Sorbom of Uppsala University.

“But it’s a good excuse to make Sweden a little more known in the United States and to give Sweden an identity,” said Sorbom, who has organized an exhibition of inventions and innovations by Swedish emigrants.

Sorbom’s “It’s Swedish” exhibition will open Tuesday in Chicago and move in the autumn to Los Angeles.

About 1,000 exhibitions, music festivals, seminars and other events are planned in the United States for the celebrations called “New Sweden 88.”

Crown Jewels

They include a display of the Swedish crown jewels in Washington and tributes to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat credited with saving 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps in World War II. Wallenberg disappeared toward the end of the war, and there are occasional reports that he is still alive in a Soviet labor camp after being seized by advancing Soviet troops. The Soviets insist that he is dead.

Although the Swedes’ Delaware colony had little impact on American history, it was the first page of Nordic emigration.

Poor Farmlands

In the 19th Century, before Sweden became industrialized, emigrants fled poor farmlands that could not sustain the growing population.

By 1900, 1 million people--or one-quarter of the world’s Swedish population--lived in the United States. The number of Americans of Swedish descent has grown to 4.3 million, compared to Sweden’s population of 8.4 million.

Among the Swedish immigrants are many whose names have been virtually forgotten but not their contributions. They include:

Alexander Samuelsson. A glassblower from Goteborg who emigrated in 1883, he won a design contest for a company selling its fizzy drink at soda fountains.

Wanted Recognition

Coca-Cola wanted a bottle “that would be recognizable even if it was broken in the gutter,” said Sorbom, and Samuelsson’s design is still in use.

Justus Sjoberg. He moved to Chicago from Goteborg and changed his name to Seeburg. He is credited with inventing the parking meter and the jukebox.

Gideon Sundbach. In the early 1900s he patented the modern zipper.

C.E. “Measurement” Johansson. His gauges for steelmaking became an essential element of Henry Ford’s assembly line.

Sorbom said other displays in his exhibition range from safety matches to heart pacemakers to the Hasselblad cameras used by American astronauts who landed on the moon.