January 26, 2024
Reeka Larsen filed an “Application to Take Oath of Allegiance” in Long Beach, California in 1955. This application was filed to reinstate Reeka’s U.S. citizenship. She’d lost her citizenship when she married James Larsen in 1912. Reeka was born in Meeker County, Minnesota in 1885. She was a natural born American citizen, but her husband was born in Sweden and was not a citizen of the U.S. when they married.
Like thousands of other women during this era, Reeka lost her American citizenship simply by marrying a foreigner. In 1907 Congress passed the Expatriation Act which provided that a female U.S. citizen automatically lost citizenship upon marriage to an alien. The law was based on the principle that women assumed the citizenship of their husbands. The reverse was not true. American men who married aliens did not lose their citizenship. In fact, their foreign wives immediately became American citizens as soon as they said their “I do’s.”
The Expatriation act was in effect from 1907 until 1922. Even after this unfair act was repealed, women who had lost their citizenship did not have it automatically reinstated. They needed to file paperwork and take an oath of allegiance to do that. Many of these records can be found online on Ancestry.com and Family Search.
In Reeka’s case, her husband James eventually filed a Declaration of Intent to become an American citizen, but he did not finish the process. Reeka and James were married for over thirty years. During that time, they moved to various parts of the U.S. They eventually ended up in California, where James died in 1943.
Even after James’ death, Reeka’s citizenship was not restored. The U.S. government considered her to be Swedish, even after her husband’s death. Although Sweden will allow a foreign spouse of a Swede to become a Swedish citizen, a specific procedure must be followed. Sweden would not have considered Reeka to be Swedish. This left her without citizenship anywhere in the world.
I don’t know exactly why Reeka filed to reclaim her citizenship in 1955. She may have wanted to claim Social Security benefits in her old age, or perhaps she needed a passport to take a trip. Whatever the reason, Reeka’s application was accepted. After over forty years as a citizen of nowhere, she was once again an American.
Even if you don’t think you have ancestors who were impacted by the Expatriation Act, it’s worth checking the citizenship status of women on censuses from 1910 and later. Since I learned about this often-overlooked era of U.S. history, I have been surprised at how many of my collateral relatives lost their citizenship through marriage. Reeka is my distant cousin, but she’s not the only woman whose life was changed by this act. There were thousands of them. Their stories deserve to be recovered.
Carol Stetser
Larimer County Genealogical Society
Researcher