The following is a list of notable Swedish Americans, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants.
This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot.(August 2022)
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Swedish American or must have references showing they are Swedish American and are notable.
Nena von Schlebrügge, fashion model in the 1950s and 1960s; born in Mexico but of German and Swedish descent; mother of actress Uma Thurman
Steven Soderbergh, film producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and Oscar-winning director, of part Swedish descent[31]
Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt
Artists
John Alvin Anderson, Swedish-American photographer who is known for photographing Sioux Indians at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota from 1885 until 1930
Carl Oscar Borg, Swedish-born, painter, known for themes of the Southwestern United States[32]
Arnold Friberg, American illustrator and painter noted for his religious and patriotic works. He is perhaps best known for his 1975 painting The Prayer at Valley Forge, a depiction of George Washington praying at Valley Forge.
Ernst Julius Berg, Swedish-born, American electrical engineer. A pioneer of radio, he produced the first two-way radio voice program in the United States
Stig Bergström, Swedish-American paleontologist who described the conodont family Paracordylodontidae and in 1974, he described the multielement conodont genus Appalachignathus from the Middle Ordovician of North America
Carl Friden, Swedish-born, American mechanical engineer and businessman who founded the Friden Calculating Machine Company
Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, Swedish-born parents, aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator, considered one of the most talented and prolific aircraft design-engineers[54]
John B. Johnson, Swedish-born, electrical engineer and physicist
Clarence Hugo Linder, of Swedish descent, electrical engineer, founding member of the National Academy of Engineering
John W. Nystrom, engineer[56] Swedish born, American civil engineer, inventor, and author. He served as an assistant Secretary and Chief Engineer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Arvid Reuterdahl, Swedish-American engineer, scientist and educator
Ragnar Benson, Swedish-born building contractor & philanthropist
John L. Anderson (shipbuilder), preeminent figure in Washington state maritime industries in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly ferry service, shipbuilding, and ship-based tourism. He ran the largest ferry fleet on Lake Washington for three decades.
Asplundh Tree Expert Company, American company which specializes in tree pruning and vegetation management for utilities and government agencies and was founded by three Swedish-American brothers
Walter Hoving, Swedish-born, head of Tiffany & Company
Andrew Johnson (architect), Swedish–American architect and contractor. He designed 61 documented or attributed buildings in Panola County, Mississippi and at least 16 more in North Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Several of his works are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Josua Lindahl, Swedish American geologist and paleontologist. He was a professor at Augustana College from 1878 to 1888, then was Illinois State Geologist until 1893. He is the namesake of the extinct Cyprinidae subspecies Aphelichthys lindahlii
Lars-Eric Lindblad, Swedish-American entrepreneur and explorer, who pioneered tourism to many remote and exotic parts of the world. He led the first tourist expedition to Antarctica in 1966
Eric Bergland, Swedish-born American military officer who fought in the American Civil War as a volunteer officer, graduated from West Point at the top of his class, served his adopted country with distinction as an officer of the regular army, a professor of his alma mater, and a Western explorer, and married a cousin of the wife of president Rutherford B. Hayes
Arthur_C._Lundahl, was responsible for establishing the Central Intelligence Agency's National Photographic Interpretation Center, a forerunner of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and led the photointerpretation section of the U-2 reconnaissance program.
Hans Mattson, Swedish American politician. He served with distinction as a colonel in the American Civil War (1861–65) and in 1869 became the Minnesota Secretary of State. He later served as United States Consul General in India
Gregory J. Newell, former US Ambassador to Sweden (1985–1989); US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (1982–1985); former assistant secretary of State for President Ronald Reagan[93]
William Rehnquist, lawyer, jurist and a political figure, who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the Chief Justice of the United States[95]
Adam Strohm, Swedish-American librarian. Strohm served as chief librarian of the Detroit Public Library from 1912 until his retirement in 1941
David Ivar Swanson, Swedish-American Illinois state representative for the Republican Party who served 24 years in the Illinois state legislature between the years 1922-46 and 1948–50
Earl Warren, California district attorney of Alameda County, the 30th Governor of California, and the 14th Chief Justice of the United States (from 1953 to 1969);[98] of Swedish and Norwegian descent
G. Aaron Youngquist, Swedish-American lawyer and public prosecutor. He served as Minnesota Attorney General and as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General who successfully prosecuted Al Capone for federal income tax evasion
Alexander P. Anderson, was an American plant physiologist, botanist, educator and inventor. His scientific experiments led to the discovery of "puffed rice", a starting point for a new breakfast cereal that was later advertised as "Food Shot From Guns"
Ernst Antevs, was a Swedish-American geologist and educator who made significant contributions to Quaternary geology, particularly geomorphology and geochronology
Hugo Leander Blomquist, was a Swedish-born American botanist. His well-rounded expertise encompassed fungi, bacteria, bryophytes, algae, grasses, and ferns
Anton Julius Carlson, was a Swedish American physiologist. Carlson was Chairman of the Physiology Department at the University of Chicago from 1916 until 1940
Otto Folin, was a Swedish-born American chemist who is best known for his groundbreaking work at Harvard University
Fritiof Fryxell, was an American educator, geologist and mountain climber, best known for his research and writing on the Teton Range of Wyoming
Lennart Heimer, was a Swedish-American neuroscientist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Virginia. He was most noted for mapping circuits of the brain in the limbic lobe and basal ganglia, structures that play central roles in emotion processing and movement
John Bertrand Johnson, Swedish-born American electrical engineer and physicist. He first explained in detail a fundamental source of random interference with information traveling on wires
Torkel Korling, Swedish-born American industrial, commercial, portrait and botanical photographer
Ludwig Kumlien, was an American ornithologist. He took part in the Howgate Polar Expedition 1877-78 and collected a large number of bird specimens which led to the discovery of several new species
Thure Kumlien, was a Swedish-American ornithologist, naturalist, and taxidermist. A contemporary of Thoreau, Audubon, and Agassiz, he contributed much to the knowledge of the natural history of Wisconsin and its birds
John Bernhard Leiberg, Swedish-American botanical explorer, forester, and bryologist
Paco Lagerstrom, was an applied mathematician and aeronautical engineer
Roger Tory Peterson naturalist, ornithologist, illustrator and educator, held to be one of the founding inspirations for the 20th-century environmental movement, his father was a Swedish immigrant
Carl-Gustaf Rossby, Swedish-born American meteorologist who first explained the large-scale motions of the atmosphere in terms of fluid mechanics. He identified and characterized both the jet stream and the long waves in the westerlies that were later named Rossby waves
Per Axel Rydberg, Swedish-born, American botanist who was the first curator of the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium
Glenn T. Seaborg, Nobel Prize laureate, chemist prominent in the discovery and isolation of ten transuranic elements including plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and seaborgium, which was named in his honor[110]
Thorsten Sellin, was a Swedish American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology
Folke K. Skoog, Swedish-born American plant physiologist who was a pioneer in the field of plant growth regulators
Orvar Swenson, Swedish-born American pediatric surgeon. He discovered the cause of Hirschsprung's disease and in 1948, with Alexander Bill, performed the first pull-through operation in a child with megacolon
J. E. Wallace Wallin, was an American psychologist and an early proponent of educational services for the mentally handicapped
Nils Yngve Wessell, was a Swedish-American psychologist and the eighth president of Tufts University from 1953 to 1966, overseeing its transformation from a small liberal arts college to an internationally known research university
Peter Jansen Wester, was a Swedish-American agricultural botanist. Born in Sweden, he emigrated to the United States in 1897. Wester worked in several agricultural offices from 1897 to 1903, including leading the United States Department of Agriculture's experiment station and experimental plots for subtropical plants in Miami.
Olof B. Widlund, Swedish-American mathematician. He is well known for his leading role in and fundamental contributions to domain decomposition methods
Victor Davis Hanson, military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics
James Jerpe, Pittsburgh sportswriter with a Swedish immigrant father and second-generation Swedish-American mother[116]
Gustavo A. Mellander, historian, columnist, political commentator, university administrator, college president; honored by the United States House of Representatives, 1985
Emory Lindquist, was the president of Bethany College (1943–1953) in Lindsborg, Kansas and Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas (1963–1968). He also served as a professor and authored many articles and books, especially regarding Swedish-American history
H. S. "Andy" Anderson, Swedish-American woodcarver, one of the recognized masters of 20th-century woodcarving, most famous for Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving and caricature carving
Bo Andersson, former General Motors executive, and present President/CEO of GAZ Group
William Lee Bergstrom, commonly known as The Suitcase Man or Phantom Gambler, was a gambler and high roller known for placing the largest bet in casino gambling history at the time amounting to $777,000 ($2.41 million present day amount) at the Horseshoe Casino, which he won
Oscar Broneer, was a prominent Swedish American educator and archaeologist known in particular for his work on Ancient Greece. He is most associated with his discovery of the Temple of Isthmia, an important Panhellenic shrine dating from the seventh century B.C.
Paul Carlson, was an American physician and medical missionary who served in Congo. He was killed in 1964 by rebel insurgents after being falsely accused of being an American spy
Victor Carlstrom, was a record-holding Swedish-American pioneer aviator. He set a cross-America flight air speed record
Neil Erickson, Swedish-born American pioneer in Cochise County, Arizona
Eric Enstrom, Swedish-born American photographer. He became famous for his 1918 photograph of Charles Wilden in Bovey, Minnesota. The photo is now known as "Grace" and depicts Wilden saying a prayer over a simple meal
Axel Erlandson, was a Swedish American farmer who shaped trees as a hobby, and opened a horticultural attraction in 1947 called "The Tree Circus"
Frank Erickson, was Arnold Rothstein's right-hand man and New York's largest bookmaker during the 1930s and 40s
Febold Feboldson, is an American folk hero who was a Swedish American plainsman and cloudbuster from Nebraska
Eric A. Hegg, Swedish-American photographer who portrayed the people in Skagway, Bennett and Dawson City during the Klondike Gold Rush from 1897 to 1901
Olof Jonsson, Swedish-born engineer and psychic, famous for his long-distance telepathy experiment during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971
Gary Larson, Swedish-American cartoonist. He is the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series
Jon Lindbergh, is a former underwater diver from the United States. He has worked as a United States Navy demolition expert and as a commercial diver, and was one of the world's earliest aquanauts in the 1960s. He was also a pioneer in cave diving. He is the oldest surviving child of aviator Charles Lindbergh
Raymond Nels Nelson, Chief of Staff Senator Claiborne Pell, R.I., former Bureau Chief, Providence Journal, unsolved murder 1981
Frank Olson, biochemist, he was covertly given LSD in the CIA's MKUltra program
Sigurd F. Olson, author, environmentalist, and advocate for the protection of wilderness
Ingrid Pedersen, was a Swedish-American aviator; first female pilot to fly over the North Pole
Eric P. Quain, was a Swedish-born physician who co-founded the Quain and Ramstad Clinic in Bismarck, North Dakota. He also served as head of surgical services in France for the United States Army during World War I.
Tom Rolf, was a Swedish-born American film editor who worked on at least 48 feature films in a career spanning over fifty years. Famous for editing Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese.
Calvin Rutstrum, author of wilderness camping experiences and techniques books
Olaf Swenson, was a Seattle-based fur trader and adventurer active in Siberia and Alaska in the first third of the 20th century. His career intersected with activities of notable explorers of the period, and with the Russian Civil War. He is credited with leading the rescue of the Karluk survivors from Wrangel Island in 1914
Richard H. Saunders and Ellen G. Miles, American Colonial Portraits, 1700-1776, Washington, D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 1987
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on July 22, 2011. Retrieved January 25, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Swedish-American Archives of Greater Chicago Manuscript Collection #35, Exhibition by Swedish-American Artists at the Swedish Club of Chicago 1911-1982.
Andreas Rudman and his Family (by Dr. Peter Stebbins Craig. Swedish Colonial News, Volume 2, Number 1 . Winter 2000) "Pastor Andreas Rudman and his Family". Archived from the original on November 15, 2009. Retrieved September 7, 2009.
The Founders of the Graduate College (by Robert Knoll, Professor Emeritus of English. University of Nebraska-Lincoln January 13, 2000)[permanent dead link]