We were glad to host Dr. James Leary, along with Swedish-American Historical Society board member, Dr. Marcus Cederström, as they presented and discussed Swede Home Chicago: Wallin’s Svenska Records, 1923-1927, a multimedia presentation highlighting the music from Gustaf Waldemar Wallin’s Chicago-based record label. A recording of the event, which took place 
via Zoom on November 7th, 2021, is accessible HERE.
Chicago, the most populous Swedish city after Stockholm in the early 1900s, was also home to the first record label founded by a Nordic immigrant to the United States. Gustaf Waldemar Wallin, a former crofter from Sweden’s rocky western coast, owned a Chicago music shop issuing 28 double-sided discs. Newly restored and reissued by Archeophone Records with a richly illustrated 76-page booklet, Swede Home Chicago: Wallin’s Svenska Records, 1923-1927 features raucous vaudevillians, operatic tenors, accordion dance bands, classical duos, novelty bell ringers, vocal quartets, and massed choirs. Folklorist/lead researcher Jim Leary’s presentation combines insights into the label’s founder and performers with an appreciation of archival collections preserving critical fragments of the immigrant experience, while Cederström briefly discusses the research and translation that went into producing this work in order to make this wealth of historically important songs accessible today. Swede Home Chicago: Wallin’s Svenska Records, 1923-1927 is a reminder of the importance of preserving and, in this case, restoring and reissuing the numerous songs from an era in which Swedish rang out all around Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood.