Professor Julie Allen’s research uncovers the stories of thousands of pioneer women who emigrated from Scandinavia to Utah.
In 1854, Professor Julie K. Allen (opens in a new tab)’s great-great-grandmother emigrated from Denmark to Utah along with thousands of other Scandinavian women. Now, Allen (European Silent Film, Danish Literature) is taking on the feat of tracking down over 35,000 of these women and making their stories accessible to all. Allen hopes that her research will inspire others to discover more about what these faithful women faced as pioneers—and to strengthen their own faith in the process.
Women of Faith
Allen’s project began several years ago when she recognized that immigrant women do not have extensive representation in the recorded history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Alongside many of the faithful men who helped establish the Church in its early years were women just as faithful whose stories aren’t as well known. In an effort to share their examples of faith, Allen decided to look specifically into Scandinavian women and their contributions to the Church and their communities.
Allen received an initial grant for her research and hired a team of 10 students to assist her in uncovering the stories of women who emigrated from countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Her team used census records to find the names of every woman born in these countries who immigrated to Utah between 1860 and 1920, the period in which most pioneers crossed over from Europe.
The total number of women was much higher than they estimated. “People always talk about roughly 35,000 Scandinavians total,” Allen says. That total is thought to include Scandinavian men, women, and children, but the team pulled over 35,000 names of women alone—a number much higher than initial estimates. The team then listed these women on a database (opens in a new tab) created by the Office of Digital Humanities (opens in a new tab) (ODH), who has been working alongside Allen and her team to digitize their findings. As her team has found more information, the ODH has updated the database to support the growing number of profiles. They also designed the logo for the project, which appears on the database.
Stories of Faith
So far, the team has created profiles for several hundred women using all the information they can find—names, dates, stories, photos, and links to additional records. They intend to eventually upload profiles for all 35,000 women. Allen’s aim is that the profiles will help others “get a sense of the complexity of what it was like to be a Scandinavian immigrant woman in Utah.”
As converts to the Church and immigrants to the United States, these women had to adjust to Church culture and American culture simultaneously. The profiles on the database help portray the difficulties these women faced, such as the heartbreak of losing their children to cholera or simply the frustration of being unable to find the right berries for a Scandinavian pie.
One of the women on the database is Allen’s own great-great-grandmother Caroline Beck. As a young woman, Caroline converted to the Church with her older brother, Anders. A year after her baptism, the siblings left the island of Bornholm in Denmark and made their way to the United States. Anders took his wife and children north to Idaho, and Caroline went south to Utah on her own. There, she met and married Samuel Knight, the son of early Church leader Newel Knight.
Caroline and Samuel settled in Mountain Meadows, Utah. Caroline had just barely given birth to their first daughter when the Mountain Meadows Massacre took place in 1857. Though Caroline’s family was not in danger, the mass killing of a group of migrants passing through Mountain Meadows left only 17 survivors, all of whom were children. Samuel came home with a wagon full of orphans whom Caroline willingly looked after for a time. She eventually had five more daughters as well. Her story demonstrates how faithful of a wife and mother she was until the end of her life.
Legacies of Faith
Reflecting on the lives of Caroline and the many other Latter-day Saints who immigrated to Utah, Allen says it’s natural to compare their experiences to the ones faced by Latter-day Saints today. “It’s easy to look back and think they were just more faithful than us.” But in reality, Allen says, these women were still human. They too faced difficulties just like those people face today. “That, for me, is more faith-building than if they had somehow been perfect,” she says.
As one of the largest ethnic groups to immigrate to Utah, the Scandinavians have left quite the legacy on the state. Many of these women were midwives who were sought after for their expertise and who passed on their knowledge to others. They were also writers who regularly wrote in their local newspapers. Their work contributed to the building up of the communities they lived in. “They were just really good, hard-working, people,” says Allen. “We wouldn’t have Utah if we didn’t have all those Scandinavians.”
With so many more women’s lives to look into, Allen hopes the public will take part in adding to the profiles on the database. Her team welcomes any stories or records of Scandinavian ancestors. “The only way we know anything about the past is through stories,” Allen says, and telling the stories of the 35,000 helps us remember the past and inspire generations to come.
Contact Allen’s team and explore more stories on the Scandinavian LDS Women database (opens in a new tab).
The Scandinavian LDS Women database was made possible by financial support from the Emmeline B. Wells Grant, Humanities Mentored Experience Grant, and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.