Vasa Order of America

In the mid-19th century, thanks to the blessings--in the words of poet and bishop Esaias Tegnér--of "peace, vaccine, and potatoes," Sweden experienced a population boom. While Swedes had been immigrating to the United States since 1840, significant numbers began to make the journey around 1865, drawn by the promise of ample land for farming, fewer income and property requirements for voting, and greater freedom of religion. Large waves of immigrants followed in the 1880s and 1890s, peaking in the decade between 1881 and 1890, during which 325,000 Swedes arrived in the U.S.

Up to this point the new arrivals were largely from rural areas of Sweden, bound for similar areas in the United States like Minnesota and Illinois, but between 1890 and 1910, immigrants began to arrive from more urban areas of the country and came to form a significant portion of the industrial workforce of the northeastern states of Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. By 1920, between one fifth and one quarter of all Swedes had moved to the United States. The vast majority entered through the port of New York, first through the processing facilities at Castle Garden in present-day Battery Park, then beginning in 1892 through the facilities on Ellis Island. The community in Brooklyn was a significant East Coast Swedish enclave, encompassing about half of the total number of Swedes in New York City.

While there were always exceptions, Swedes in Brooklyn tended to be employed along fairly strict gender lines: the men in industries such as ironwork and construction (especially foundations and flooring), the women as housekeepers, maids, cooks, and seamstresses. Public service also began to attract members of the community, and by 1901 attorney J. Edward Swanstrom, son of a Swedish immigrant clergyman, became the second person to be elected president of the newly-designated borough of Brooklyn.

In addition to working and raising families, Swedish immigrants to America quickly set about forming organizations of all kinds: churches, newspapers, choral societies, and unions. One major focus of Swedish-American organizations was social welfare. The first Scandinavian branch of the Salvation Army in the U.S., the Brooklyn #3 Corps, was formed in Brooklyn in 1887. Numerous fraternal organizations were formed to offer not only fellowship but also a kind of health and life insurance in the form of "sick benefits" and "death benefits," among them the Vasa Order of America, the Scandinavian Fraternity of America, the Independent Order of Vikings, the Independent Order of Svithiod, and the Swedish Order of Valhalla. As of the first decade of the 21st century, the Vasa Order of America is still the largest Swedish-American fraternal organization in the United States, with nearly 300 lodges in the U.S., Canada, and Sweden.

The Swedish-American community in Brooklyn followed the pattern of many other immigrant communities, growing prosperous and more assimilated, and eventually moving from the city to the suburbs. In 1929 the Vasa Order had 72,000 members, but by the late 1960s and early 1970s, their memberships dwindling, the Brooklyn lodges of the Vasa Order began to consolidate, culminating in a flurry of mergers in the early 1970s. As of 2006, only one active lodge, Nobel-Liljan #64, remains in Brooklyn. Vasa's emphasis has shifted from the first two items stated in its original charter ("To render aid to sick members of the corporation ... and to render pecuniary aid towards defraying the funeral expenses of members") to the third, the promotion of "social and intellectual fellowship among the members," focusing largely on the celebration and preservation of Scandinavian culture.

The Order runs an education fund which provides scholarships, non-interest-bearing student loans, and money for cultural promotion and children's clubs (barnklubben) and camps. It continues to publish the Vasa Star ( Vasastjernan ), and owns and maintains Vasa Parks in Budd Lake, NJ; South Elgin, IL; Bellevue, WA; Agoura Hills, CA; Foster, RI; and Edmonton, AB. The Vasa Order also maintains a national archive, based in Bishop Hill, IL, and a library of educational audiovisual materials on Scandinavian subjects.

Other Scandinavian-American fraternal organizations have survived as well. As of 2006, the Independent Order of Vikings has nearly 30 lodges in the U.S., still offers life insurance and prescription drug benefits to its members, and sponsors scholarships. It also publishes a magazine, The Viking Journal . Three lodges of the Independent Order of Vikings remain in New York State, but none are in Brooklyn. The Independent Order of Svithiod sponsors a children's group, scholarships, and a benevolent assistance program for "needy members." As of 2006, the Independent Order of Svithiod has 10 lodges, all in Illinois.

The Brooklyn Lodges

The Vasa Order is organized into a three-tiered hierarchy, with the Grand Lodge of the Vasa Order at the top, District Lodges below the Grand Lodge, and the local lodges for the most part within the jurisdictions of the District Lodges. The lodges of Brooklyn fell under the jurisdiction of New York District Lodge #4. At least ten Vasa lodges were founded in Brooklyn: Sture #33, Valkyrian #35, Nobel #64, Nordstjernan #89, Liljan #107, Olympic #235, Björn #275, Syskonkedjan #306, Strängnäs #371, and Harmony #476. Valkyrian and Liljan ("the lily") appear to have been founded as women's lodges. Each lodge met at one of two locations: Olympic, Björn, Syskonkedjan, Strängnäs, and Harmony met at the Vasa Club at 465 Dean Street; Sture, Valkyrian, Nobel, and Liljan originally met at Vasa Hall at 267 52nd Street. Until 1915, Nordstjernan met at Lyrik Hall at 329 Atlantic Avenue, then at the Vasa Hall, finally moving to Dean Street between 1955 and 1958. Nobel and Liljan both moved their meetings to the Dean Street clubhouse in 1967. St. Erik #338, a prominent Bronx lodge at which the Barnklubb Elsa Rix #1 (the oldest children's club in the Vasa Order) was founded, met at the Harlem Masonic Temple at 310 Lenox Avenue at West 126th Street until 1922, then at the Hotel Astor in Times Square through 1933, then the Stockholm Restaurant at 27 West 51st Street, and finally, beginning in 1937, at the Vasa Temple, located at 138 East 149th Street in the Bronx.

After World War II, as lodge members began to move away from the city, a process of consolidation began. St. Erik #338 was absorbed by Olympic #235, which moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island in 1964, where, as of 2006, it remains active. Sture #33 and Valkyrian #35 disbanded or were absorbed by other lodges sometime between 1951 and 1966; Björn #275 did the same sometime after 1966. Nobel #64 and Liljan #107 voted to merge in early 1970 to form Nobel-Liljan #64.

While Syskonkedjan #306, Strängnäs #371, and Harmony #476 all discussed merging with Nordstjernan #89, only Strängnäs appears to have done so, also around 1970. Syskonkedjan #306 appears to have merged with the newly-formed Nobel-Liljan #64 instead, and Harmony #476 seems to have done the same in March of 1973. As of 2006, Nobel-Liljan was meeting at the Salem Auditorium at 450 67th Street in Brooklyn.

From the guide to the Brooklyn and Bronx lodges of the Vasa Order of America records, 1906-1982, (Brooklyn Historical Society)