Previously available only in an out-of-print Swedish edition published in 1955, Henry Bengston's firsthand account deals with what historian Dag Blanck calls the "other Swedish America."

Swedish immigrants in general were conservative, but Bengston and others—most notably Joe Hill—joined the working-class labor movement on the left, primarily as Debsian socialists, although their ranks included other socialists, communists, and anarchists. Involved in the radical labor movement on many fronts, Bengston was the editor of Svenska Socialisten from 1912 until he dropped out of the Scandinavian Socialist Federation in 1920. Even after 1920, however, his sympathies remained with the movement he had once strongly espoused.

Kermit B. Westerberg is the major translator of From Sweden to America: A History of the Migration, edited by Harald Runblom and Hans Norman.

Michael Brook is the former special collections librarian at the University of Nottingham Library.

“[Bengston] gives intimate, knowledgeable insights into the agitative activity, confrontations, and ultimate demise of Swedish American leftists, largely of the Debsian variety. The work is further enhanced by interviews Bengston conducted with former participants in the inner circles of Swedish American radicalism from the early 1900s through the 1940s.”—Choice