テクノロジーと移民のアメリカニズム――スウェーデン系移民社会による軍艦「モニター」とジョン・エリクソンの表象――

抄録

This paper discusses the commemoration of John Ericsson (1803- 1889), a Swedish-born engineer and the inventor of the famous Civil-War era war vessel Monitor. Monitor, the first ironclad built for the Union Navy, gained an international acclaim by stopping the Confederate ironclad Virginia from breaking the Union blockade on the East Coast at the battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. Ericsson was named a national hero by Swedish Americans, and his heroic image assumed an exemplary role for Swedish immigrants who aspired to move into American middle class. Ericsson was designated as an important figure in Swedish-Americanism, which may be defined as a discourse that saw the history of Swedish Americans as interwoven with the mainstream narrative of American nation-building. The story of Ericsson and the Monitor formed a part of the Swedish-American historical discourse that highlighted Swedish involvement at the critical moments of American history.

Some examples of such discourse are observed in the activities of the Swedish American Republican League of Illinois, an ethnic political organization established in 1894. In the speeches given at the League’s annual meetings, Ericsson was presented as a hero born out of Swedish "nationality," and was comparable to Lincoln and Grant, because of his contribution to the cause of freedom. Also, the tributes to Ericsson would include the words of praise to the power of science and technology. At the time when science and technology growingly came to be seen as an inseparable set, Ericsson was described as a forerunner who had applied scientific knowledge to technological innovations. Ericsson, therefore, was presented as a defender of the American political principle of liberty and, at the same time, as an early leader of American industrial development. The League and cultural leaders of Swedish-American community sought to propagate this image of Ericsson to American society at large, and their efforts culminated in the unveiling of John Ericsson statue in Potomac Park, Washington D. C., in 1926.

The decades around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the rise of new Americanism, which regarded science and technology as omnipotent, and took the capability to control technology as Americanness itself. At this time, it was a reasonable strategy for immigrants to appropriate the image of technology in the narrative of collective representation in order to join American mainstream society. Novelty of technology enabled Ericsson and the Monitor function as cultural icons that simultaneously represented Swedish ethno-national identity and Americanness. For smaller groups to claim their share of power and interest in an established social structure, the groups without much of the traditionally valued cultural capitals and heritages would have to compete with something that allowed them to be on equal terms with older groups with power. For the leaders of the Swedish immigrant community, technology was just such an arena for an open competition. Technology, in this regard, worked in a way parallel to the role it was endowed with when American civilization was claimed to be equal to, or superior to, European civilization.