Gustav Albert Andreen, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of Gustav Albert Andreen
GUSTAV ALBERT ANDREEN, president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary, was born at Porter, Ind., March 13, 1864. His parents were Rev. A. Andreen who died in Rock Island, Feb. 10, 1880, and his wife Hilda Esping, who passed away in August, 1878. From Porter Rev. Andreen removed to Swedona, and here the son attended the public and parochial schools. Aged eleven years, he entered Augustana College at Rock Island, and was graduated at the head of the college class of 1881.
Having taught at Augustana in 1882-04, studying law in the meantime, and at Bethany College, at Lindsborg, Kansas, from 1886 to 1893, he entered Yale University, doing post graduate work, which led to the degree of Ph. D. in 1898. From 1894 to 1901 he was instructor at the university. After his appointment to the chair of Scandinavian languages, he went to Europe for more thorough study of the old Norse and Scandinavian languages and spent two years at Upsala University and the University of Christania for that purpose. He returned in the fall of 1900 and assumed his new duties at Yale. When, upon the death of Dr. O. Olsson in 1900, a new president of Augustana College and Theological Seminary was to be chosen, the Augustana Synod first turned to that eminent educator, Dr. Carl Swensson of Bethany College, with a request that he fill the vacant presidential chair. Being too closely attached to that institution of his own making, he declined the call, and Dr. C. W. Foss continued as acting president until the close of the following school year. At the annual meeting of the Augustana Synod at Jamestown, N. Y., in June, 1901, after a year's casting about for a man for the place, Dr. Gustav Andreen was elected to the presidency, the choice being influenced to a marked degree by Dr. Andreen's efforts to enlist the interest of prominent men of Sweden in behalf of the Swedish-American institution of learning. These efforts later bore fruit in a contribution of 100,000 crowns from the old country toward an endowment fund for Augustana. As the head of this institution Dr. Andreen has continued his efforts to put it on a firmer financial basis, a task still far from completed.
Dr. Andreen recently completed a course in theology begun while a teacher at Augustana in the '8os and was ordained to the ministry in 1905.
Dr. Andreen has done much public speaking, principally in behalf of the institution he represents. He addressed the Chautauqua Assembly on Swedish Day in 1905 and has appeared as speaker on other occasions of moment. On the platform he handles the two mother tongues of the Swedish-Americans with like fluency. His published writings heretofore are confined to his doctoral thesis entitled "Studies in the German Idyl" (Rock Island, 1902) and a treatise on "Svenska Spraket I Amerika" (Upsala, 1900).
On Aug. 7, 1890, Dr. Andreen was joined in wedlock to Miss Maria Augusta Strand of Junction City, Kans., a lady of Norwegian descent. The following children have been born to them: Paul Harold, 1891, Marion Albert, 1894, Esther Miriam, 1896, Gustav Strand, 1901, Margaret Dorothy, 1903, Signe Marie, 1904, and Carl Oscar, 1906. Signe died Jan. 2, 1906, and Dorothy Sept. 22, 1906. Mrs. Andreen was born Aug. 17, 1870.
Source: Olson, Ernst W., and Martin J. Engberg. 1908. History of the Swedes of Illinois. Volume II. Chicago, Illinois: The Holmberg-Engberg Publishing Company. 1617 p.
Page(s) in Source: 121-122
This biography has been transcribed exactly as it was originally published in the source. Please note that we do not provide photocopies or digital scans of biographies appearing on this website.
Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook