Sällsynta, vanliga kvinnor - Genremåleriets skildringar som kunskapskälla kring 1700-talets arbetande kvinnor i Sverige. The aim of this essay is to study whether genre paintings portraying lower and middle class women in the 18th century Sweden can act as a source of information and knowledge regarding these women ́s types of work and way of life and if so, what in the the motives can be used as a source of information and thus contribute to traditional historical research. The essay focuses on Sweden and the years between 1770 - 1810 since this was a time of rapid political, economic and cultural development which all effected the art market. These years were also the productive years of the artist Pehr Hilleström who was the most formative contributor to Swedish genre painting at the time. In this essay three motives have been analysed with attention to repertoires of work, ways of performing work and social hierarchies within work among the portrayed women. Research on aspects of economic history, material culture, work, family and gender, dress history as well as pictures as historical evidence puts the depicted women in relation to their context. The conclusion is that with knowledge of the time period and culture, special knowledge of what is displayed and thereby the adequate ability to critically evaluate the source indeed makes genre painting a useful source of information. / Sällsynta, vanliga kvinnor - Genremåleriets skildringar som kunskapskälla kring 1700-talets arbetande kvinnor i Sverige. Uppsatsen fokuserar på perioden 1770-1810 och det som då var Sverige eftersom samhälle och kultur utvecklades snabbt under denna tid vilket gynnade konstmarknaden och en ny typ av motiv då blev populärt - genremotiv. Uppsatsen undersöker om dessa kan användas som källa till kunskap och i så fall vad i motiven som kan utgöra detta. Tre motiv målade av Pehr Hilleström under den aktuella perioden valdes ut för verksanalyser. I motiven föreställande kvinnor ur ett lägre samhällsskikt och som utför någon typ av hushållsrelaterat arbete undersöks om kunskap och information kring dessa kvinnor och deras arbetsliv kan erhållas. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att med tillräcklig kunskap om aktuell tid och kontext, rätt specialkunskaper kring vad som avbildas i form av föremål, interiörer och klädedräkt samt adekvat källkritik så kan genremotiv användas som en källa till information och kunskap.

The aim of this dissertation is to illuminate the interplay between female agency and legal regulation in Sweden during the period 1760-1860. The material chosen for the study relates to matters concerning women that were brought before the Judiciary Inspection, the highest legal authority in Sweden. From its central position in the state hierarchy, this court was an arena in which the central power could identify and find solutions to problems important for the stability and development of society. The study identifies issues that encouraged women to bring proceedings before the court, or prompted other parties to bring women to court. The dissertation has analysed the actions taken and arguments made in these cases by women, their counterparts, and court representatives, in relation to the regulations or the absence of regulations in each particular situation. This has shown the room for manoeuvre that could be achieved, and how the women could achieve it – in terms of right to manage property, economic agency and debt responsibility, finding ways to support themselves and their families, or affirming their positions as mothers and mistresses of households. In this way, the dissertation illuminates the freedom of agency in practice that has often been seen as contradictory in a strictly patriarchal society like early modern Sweden. The dissertation also traces some important changes over time, including the increasingly diverse class background of litigants over the period in question, shifts in understandings of property, work, family, and the meaning of legal majority. The central diachronic claims are firstly that the legal system shifted over time from one primarily based upon status, circumstance, and local opinion to one based on formalized understanding of the law founded upon contract and clear legal definitions, and that this had important implications for women’s room for manoeuvre in the courts and in society. Secondly, that the negotiation process contributed to historical change by forcing solutions to contradictions and specifying terms of property ownership and legal majority.

Barnamordsplakatet (a Infanticide Proclamation) of 1778 was a circular allowing unmarried mothers to give birth at an undisclosed location without giving up the name of the father. The proclamation was supposed to ease the situation for the unwed mother in Sweden. The aim was to investigate whether women in Assembly of Hällefors, far from government and close to remote forest Finnskogen, was affected by the Infanticide Proclamation, between 1771 and 1830. Case studies has been done on people who had illegitimate children, if they were convicted, what the crime was and what the punishment was. The investigation is made at a local level and compared against national analyzes on the same theme. A lot of illegitimate children were born in Grythyttan nearby and slightly less in Hällefors, compared to other places of Sweden. Mothers and fathers were convicted in the district court for crimes, including, sexual intercourse between unmarried persons. More women than men were convicted. The cases in court with convicted for the second time, was culminating between 1800 and 1810. Infanticide Proclamation is immediately adapted in court. People's behavior changed before the law took effect when the amount of born illegitimate children outnumbered the amount of convicted mothers.