Come and join us for our various events! We celebrate heritage and both traditional Swedish and American Holidays. There is always something going on at the American Swedish Historical Museum. See below for scheduled events. All events will take place at the Museum unless otherwise noted. Please check with the Museum to confirm dates and other details.
For information about Scandinavian related events in the region click here>>
See photos from past events>>August 6th, 6:30pm-Annual Summer Crayfish Party
Join ASHM for a late Swedish summer tradition: the crayfish party. Platters of crayfish (with the option to add meatballs) will be served with potato salad, salad, bread, cheese and dessert. One snaps included with each meal.
$40 for Members, $45 for Non-members. Please RSVP by July 30th.
Click here for more info on the Crayfish Party >>
August 26th, 7pm- Mariakören, the Maria Choir Performs
Mariakören was founded in 1990 by choir director Lennart Johansson and is based in Stadsökyrka Stadso Church in Gammekstad just outside Luleå in the very north of Sweden. Their repetoire consists of sacral music, as well as Swedish folk music. This tour of the USA is in celebration of the choir's 20th anniversary. Admission is free, and coffee and dessert will be served.
Click here more for info on the Mariakören >>
August 28th- Auxiliary Open House and Flea Market
The Auxiliary is hosting a Flea Market on the Museum's grounds on Saturday, August 28th from 8am-2pm. Everyone is welcome to come and shop, set up your own table, volunteer to help at the Auxiliary's table or donate items for the Auxiliary. The cost to reserve a space is $20. Contact Linda Alexy at (215) 677-2046 or Dawn Gould at (215) 729-3432 for vendor or donation information. There will also be refreshments, food and baked goods for sale, as well as free admission to the museum all day.
Date change! September 26th, 3pm-ASHM Annual Meeting
Members are invited to attend the Annual Meeting, which will include the presentation of the Amandus Johnson Service Award and a reception.
Swedish Language Class Begins
Monday, September 27th Beginner
Tuesday, September 28th Intermidiate
Click here to download the Language Class enrollement form >>
October 23rd-10th Annual New Sweden History Conference at Bartram's Garden: "Native and Newcomer Medicine in New Sweden 1638-1655"
In this year’s program four scholars will consider the state of medicine in the New Sweden of the 17 th and 18 th centuries. They will discuss the nature of the medicine Europeans and Indians practiced, including their use of plants as medicines; the theories that supported their practices; and the actual day-to-day medical practices of colonial barber-surgeons, the practitioners most European-Americans encountered in the 17 th and 18 th centuries.
Speakers' Bios:
Cara Lee Blume holds a Ph. D. in anthropology from the Catholic University of America. In 2009 she retired from the Delaware Division of Parks and Recreation as cultural heritage program manager. She also served the division as an archaeologist and a historic preservation specialist over the course of a career of more than 35 years. She was also a senior archaeologist (part-time) for Heite Consulting from 1990 to 2005. Her research has focused on the history of the Lenape and Nanticoke tribal communities in Delaware since contact with Europeans, use of the U. S. Census to identify native communities in Delaware, and segregation and the preservation of tribal identity in Delaware.
Peter R. Christoph ’s most recent publication is his essay “Barber-Surgeons in New Netherland and Early New York,” in Explorers, Fortunes and Love Letters: A Window on New Netherland (2010). He was the director of the New Netherland Project for its first ten years and now serves as editor of the New York Historical Manuscripts series. He has produced seventeen books and some sixty articles, primarily on New York’s colonial history. He was head of the Manuscripts and Special Collections unit of the New York State Library for twenty years and served on the State Education Department’s Archives Committee, which led to the creation of the New York State Archives. He was elected a Fellow of the Holland Society of New York in 1979.
Joel T. Fry has been the curator at Philadelphia’s Bartram’s Garden since 1992 and is also a very active archaeological and historical consultant. His many works about the history of early American science include “America’s ‘Ancient Garden’: The Bartram Botanic Garden, 1728–1850,” in The Culture of Nature: Arts and Science in Philadelphia, 1740-1840 (2008), and “John Bartram and His Garden: Would John Bartram Recognize His Garden Today?” in Nancy E. Hoffmann and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentenary Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777 (2004); and “Bartram’s Garden, Historic American Landscapes Survey, HALS No. PA-01, Historic Report,” Historic American Landscapes Survey, National Park Service, U. S. Department of the Interior (Summer 2004).
Karen M. Reeds , an independent scholar, is a historian of science and medicine, as well as an independent exhibit curator and museum and editorial consultant. She is a Visiting Scholar in the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Princeton Research Forum/National Coalition of Independent Scholars, and of the Columbia University Seminar on the Renaissance. She is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and the president of the Medical History Society of New Jersey. Among her numerous guest curatorships the one most significant for this project was her service as project director and guest curator for “Come into the New World: Linnaeus and America,” exhibition, catalogue, community outreach, grant writing, for the American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia, and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, 2002-09. She holds a Ph. D. in the history of science from Harvard University, and is the author many works including Come into a New World: Linnaeus and America (2007); Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, (coeditor, 2006); A State of Health: New Jersey’s Medical Heritage (2001); and Botany in Medieval and Renaissance Universities (1991).