WWII: The Danish American experience
  • Home
  • Timeline
  • Themes
    • Danish Americans in 1940
    • Volunteer work
    • Public diplomacy
    • Armed forces and merchant marine
  • Bibliography
  • Links
  • About
  • Home
  • Timeline
  • Themes
    • Danish Americans in 1940
    • Volunteer work
    • Public diplomacy
    • Armed forces and merchant marine
  • Bibliography
  • Links
  • About

 444,000 Danish Americans in 1940

Picture
Postcard of Oscar II - one of the ships of the Scandinavian-American Line which brought Danish immigrants to the USA. Postmarked 1914. Author's collection.
In 1940, the U.S. census shows that there were 138,174 Danish-born people living in the United States as well as 305,640 second generation Danish-Americans - people whose mother, father or both were born in Denmark. In comparison, the county of Denmark had four million inhabitants in 1945. 

Geographically, the largest numbers of Danish-born Americans lived in California, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and New York. The largest number of second-generation Danish-Americans were located in the same states plus in sizeable numbers in Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. The cities with the largest numbers of Danish-Americans include New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.   

Most of the Danish-Americans who were born in Denmark had become American citizens before the outbreak of WWII.  
  

Sources:
Torben Grøngaard Jeppesen, Danske i USA 1850-2000: En demografisk, social og kultur-geografisk undersøgelse af de danske immigranter og deres efterkommere [Danes in the USA 1850-2000: A demographic, social and culture-geographical study of the Danish immigrants and their descendants] (Odense, DK: Odense Bys Museer, 2005): 324-331. 

Axel Sporon-Fiedler, Den danske bevægelse i de forenede stater i besættelsesårene: en kort redegørelse af Axel Sporon-Fiedler [The Danish movement in the United States during the years of the occupation: A brief account of Axel Sponron-Fiedler] ([Publisher unknown], 1947).

Copyright Catrine Antonie Kyster Christensen Giery © 2021