The 1867-1868 great famine in Sweden combined with discontent from a repressive government made the American advertisement of land and freedom in Kansas particularly attractive to Swedes. They became the third-largest group of foreign-born citizens in the state, after Germans and Russians. Italians followed in 1871, coming to the coal-mining regions in SE Kansas. Read more about Topeka and Kansas history, and the immigrants who helped build the United States, in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
