Skip to main content
Home
View My Favorites

Search the middle of everything...

Shedd Aquarium

Things To Do

Places To Go in Illinois

Plan Your Trip

Accessibility in Illinois

Route 66 Events in Illinois

Swedish American Museum

5211 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60640

Museums

You don?t have to be Swedish to visit Chicago?s Swedish-American Museum! The Museum has something for everyone?an art gallery, immigration exhibit, children?s museum, genealogy center, and a gift shop featuring a beautiful selection of handcrafted Scandinavian gifts. Established in 1976, the Swedish American Museum is a bustling center of Swedish art, history, and culture. A full program of exhibits, programs, and events keeps the building humming with activity seven days a week. The Museum is located in Andersonville, Chicago?s historically Swedish neighborhood, which is now a mosaic of multiethnic shops and restaurants. The Museum?s main exhibit, The Dream of America: Swedish Immigration to Chicago, displays hundreds of artifacts, pictures, and descriptions of the mass immigration of Swedes to the Chicago area beginning in the late 1800s. Visitors learn about the struggles of these early immigrants and see how they forged new lives in their new land. Youngsters will love the Brunk Children?s Museum of Immigration, a hands-on, interactive journey through history for ages 3 to 12. Donning costumes, children churn butter, milk a cow, and gather eggs on the 19th century Swedish farm. Then they pack an immigrant?s trunk and board a steamer for the New World. On arriving in America, they move into a pioneer log cabin home and begin their life in the new country. At the Nordic Family Genealogy Center, visitors can trace their roots and research their Swedish ancestry with the assistance of trained volunteers. The Museum?s first-floor gallery features special exhibits of folk art, paintings, sculpture, textiles, and glassware created by contemporary Swedish and Swedish-American artists and craftsmen. Before leaving the Museum, visitors will want to stop in the Kerstin Andersson Museum Store where they?ll find linens, jewelry, kitchen utensils, glassware, and a wide selection of fiction, biographies, cookbooks, and children?s books and toys.

Images

DSCN1264-300x225

How to find us?

Back to Listings

What's happening nearby...

Chicago Restaurant Week

Jan 23 – Feb 08

Chicago Restaurant Week is a 17-day celebration of the city’s diverse and dynamic culinary scene.

Read more about Chicago Restaurant Week

Chicago Theatre Week

Feb 05 – Feb 15

Calling all audiences — Chicago Theatre Week is back! Enjoy value-priced tickets to an array of productions from Feb. 5 – 15, 2026.

Read more about Chicago Theatre Week

Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile: The Musical at The Studebaker Theater

The Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building •  Jan 29 – Feb 21

The Roald Dahl Story Company presents its first production in Chicago, the wickedly funny, family musical based on Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile.

Read more about Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile: The Musical at The Studebaker Theater

You might also be interested...

Wild Reef: Sharks at Shedd Aquarium

Chicago

Read more about Wild Reef: Sharks at Shedd Aquarium

National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame

Chicago

Read more about National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame

American Writers Museum

Chicago

The mission of the American Writers Museum is to engage the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our…

Read more about American Writers Museum

Share your Moments

#EnjoyIllinois

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Get inspired by top travel stories, gain access to exclusive promotions and contests, and discover even more reasons to #EnjoyIllinois.