Franklin Roosevelt Dedicates the New Sweden Monument
1938-06-27
New Sweden grew around farming and the fur trade on Lenape land in the Delaware Valley. [1]
Rain fell as Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Fort Christina Park and its new monument in Wilmington on 27 June 1938. Crown Princess Louise and Prince Bertil attended with a Finnish delegation. Above the gathering stood Carl Milles’s model of the ship Kalmar Nyckel on a column of Swedish black granite. [1]
Three hundred years earlier, Kalmar Nyckel and Fogel Grip had brought Swedish and Finnish settlers to the Christina River, where they established a fort and a colony on Lenape land. Dutch forces captured Fort Christina in 1655, ending New Sweden’s separate existence. English rule followed in 1664. [1]
The people of Sweden gave the 1938 monument to the people of the United States, commemorating a colony whose settlers had come from more than one present day nation. Reliefs on the monument depicted episodes associated with the settlement, and the new park preserved the rocks at the landing place. [1]
Delaware created the park in which the Swedish gift was installed. [1]
Related Diplomats
Sources
- Fort Christina and the Rocks — National Park Service
1638 landing, 1655 capture, and June 1938 dedication
- 147 (Vem är det : Svensk biografisk handbok / 1953)
Related Reading
Cite This Article
Franklin Roosevelt Dedicates the New Sweden Monument. Chanceries Diplopedia. Record af33e317d3741d4f8335. https://chanceries.org/research/history/christina-1938-13e93bc760/