Axel Leonhard Klinckowström

1775-1837

Swedish

Baron Axel Leonhard Klinckowström was a Swedish naval officer, artist and writer who served his government in America from 1818 to 1820 on a special mission to study and make drawings of the recently invented American steamboat. In addition to preparing formal and technical reports for the government, he also wrote a series of impressions of American society in the form of letters to the Swedish public. These were published in 1824 in a book about his travels in America titled Bref om de Forente Staterne, composed of two volumes of text accompanied by a third volume of pictures, charts and maps, including 19 views of New York, Washington, and Philadelphia.