Creating Narratives of Place and Identity in “Little Sweden, U.S.A.”^*

* I would like to thank Pete Shortridge, Garth Myers, Bob Nunley, Rita Napier, and Terry Slocum for their helpful input during this project. Also, many thanks to Lisa Schnell for her comments on an earlier draft of this article. Most of all, I would like to thank the residents of Lindsborg who gave me their time and insight, and particularly Kathryn and Carl Frantz, for their boundless hospitality during my visits to Lindsborg.

Abstract

In Lindsborg, Kansas—“Little Sweden, U.S.A.”—the streets are lined with shops offering “An Adventure in Swedish Tradition,” and residents put on numerous festivals throughout the year highlighting Swedish folk customs. Such ethnic tourist towns have become increasingly widespread in the United States over the past thirty years. Tourists tend to perceive these places as towns where folk culture has been passed down unchanged for generations, while academics tend to dismiss residents' ethnicity as crass commercialism. Neither view is correct. Ethnicity and tradition are not static but constantly invented and reinvented. Modern folk ethnicity, among European Americans in particular, is simply the most recent incarnation of this process, one that attempts to recover ties to a specific, small‐scale landscape and history. This article explores the changing nature of the narratives of ethnicity and place‐based identity that the residents of Lindsborg have used to create a place for themselves in American society.

• ethnicity
• Kansas
• place identity
• tourism
• tradition
• Swedish Americans

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven M. Schnell

Dr. Schnell is an assistant professor of geography at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530.