Diss. Linköping : Univ.

Zugl. : Stockholm ; Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Diss., 2007. - Zsfassung in engl. Sprache

The purpose of this essay was to study how people could react to the changes of the society and modernization during the 1800s. The study is based on a qualitative method and the material for this study has been letters that belong to a peasantry family from Sunne, Värmland in Sweden. The purpose with this case studie has been to find out what the letter says about peoples experiences and conditions during the modernization. In this studie the theory of modernization has been limited to geographical mobility and individualism in purpose to see how the correspondent writes about these modern phenomenon. The results show a collectivistic character, but also how the modernization and geographical mobility challenge this concept. The letters also show a interaction between the  character of the peasant society and modernization.

In this essay, we take a step into Kalmar prison that was constructed in 1852 and explore how many women were enrolled in the prison's church records between the years 1852 to 1883. This is then put into perspective to the more national statistics that are available. The main source material is the Swedish Prison and Probation Service's church books and the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics' own reports from the years 1852 to 1883. The conclusion is that there is a big difference in terms of male and female representation in the statistics. The suggestive humanization of the prison environment, combined with the innovations and societal changes of the industrial revolution, results in a drastic reduction in the total number of female prisoners represented in the prison church records at the end of the study.

The romantic western, heterosexual couple´s love is a social and cultural construction, which has altered in significance and terms between different time periods, places and social or economic groups. The new, modernized ideal of “romantic love” has in earlier research been exclusively linked to the European bourgeois class during the 19th century and their economic and social progress. The modernizing processes in the Western society during this period has also been said to both form and be affected by the romantic ideal of love during the 19th century. Two of the most important processes of modernization in the western society at the time was the secularization and individualization of structures and lives. In this study I explore these modern values and their expressions through and within the romantic love concept typical for the 19th century, within a social and economic group that has not yet been explored in this context; the working class.       Through a collection of love letters written by two workers in Sweden during the 1890s I investigate expressions which contain a secular or individualized understanding of love and if and how these expressions differed from the modernity expressed in love letters within the upper-class pairs of the time. My purpose is thus to contribute with a more nuanced and representative account of the origin and practice of the modernized understanding of love, than earlier research has done. In my study I show that the working-class couple in fact seemed to inhabit a more modernized view of love then the contemporary couples from higher parts of society. This was expressed through a lack of Godly love and the absence of religious guilt or conflict related to the worldly love for another person in the letters. The working-class couple also expressed a more modernized understanding of love through a more intense and active need for reflexivity, reciprocity, and confirmation in the building of their relationship. Accept from the fact that this couple still placed God in charge of their future material happiness, the expressions of love within the working-class relationship which I have identified thereby shows a new standpoint to present research; modernization and the romantic love concept during the 19th century do in fact not seem to have been exclusively linked to the upper classes and their material wealth, family structure or gender roles.

The present dissertation deals with the factors influencing the professional careers of mer-chants and craftsmen working in the Swedish town of Sundsvall between 1850 and 1900. The most important hypotheses are: To what degree did social origins influence an entre-preneur's opportunities for running his business? How many of the children of these busi-nessmen assumed and maintained their parents' social status upon attaining adulthood? What significance did the entrepreneur's spouse have for his business activities? To what degree were his economic activities influenced by joining local voluntary associations? By combining data culled from the parish registers of the Swedish Lutheran Church, the poll tax registers and the primary source material for national trade statistics, the author has been able to identify the individuals who worked as entrepreneurs in Sundsvall during the period under investigation, what they paid in business income tax each year, the profes-sional titles they possessed and the places in which they and their relatives resided during their lifetimes. The results show that the majority of the most successful younger entrepreneurs active in the town before the introduction of freedom of trade in Sweden in the year 1864 were mostly immigrants from other parts of the country, who had furthermore come from rela-tively modest backgrounds. However, the social and geographic origins of these entrepre-neur's wives has proven to be of central significance to the success of the business, in in-stances where she had been raised in a business family from Sundsvall. The professional skill of the entrepreneur together with his wife's familiarity with the town, in all likelihood also combined with her inherited cultural capital, contributed to creating a demand from the local populace for the goods or services sold by the company / <p>Distrubution: Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier, Umeå universitet,, 901 87 Umeå, 090-786 50 00</p>

This study deals with the relationship between communications networks and economic structure in medium-sized Swedish towns 1850-1970. Medium-sized towns have been defined as those which were ranked 4th-20th in terms of population at two points in time: in the year 1900, when industry had established a foothold and the most important railways had been built, and in the year 1970, at the end of the period studied. This means that the group studied comprises 22 towns. The communications networks which are examined are shipping, railways and roads. The economic structure is studied at various levels from economic sectors to sub-branches.Two measures have been constructed for the purpose of establishing the positions of the towns in the communications networks: accessibility and nodality. The former is calculated on the basis of distance from other towns and their populations. The latter is computed via quantification of the towns' access to the links of the respective networks and an assessment of the quality of these.Statistical relation analyses of correlation and regression type have been the principal method of analysis, which has been supplemented, however, by information culled from urban monographs and other studies.The study shows that there is a relationship between communications networks, primarily the railways, and the transformation of the towns' economic structures during the first half of the period studied. The predominant alignment of this relationship appears to be that the structural transformation precedes the expansion of the railways. Among the various economic sectors, the relationship between industry and the railways is the clearest. The relationship changes direction with the passage of time and can be divided into four phases:1.1850s - 1870s. The towns with strongest population and industrial growth attract railways to themselves and are themselves most active in expanding the railways. A weak correlation between accessibility of towns in the shipping network and industry dwindles away when the railways begin to expand.2.1870s - 1900. The relationship between industry and railways is two-way.3. 1900-1950.The building of the most important railways is completed. Industry continues to adapt to accessibility within the railway network.4.After 1950. The medium-sized towns begin to be deindustrialised as the service sector undergoes vigorous growth. The correlation between industry and railways weakens.On the other hand a supplementary study of conditions at regional level shows that railway expansion preceded structural change. In the rural parts of Sweden the railways were an important driving force behind urbanisation and industrialisation, and they created a special type of new population centre -"station villages", as they were called - which came to function as industrial focal points in the countryside. Many of these station villages rose to the status of towns later on.At lower levels of the economic structure the relationships between economic activities and communications networks are not statistically guaranteed as a rule. This is interpreted to mean that at first it was only large aggregates such as population density and total industry that were capable of influencing railway expansion. In similar fashion the railways later became a factor exercising influence primarily at the macro level, while at the micro level they formed only a base on which a number of other location factors were collected and evaluated before the individual firms reached their decisions. / digitalisering@umu

The purpose of the present dissertation is to examine the placing of the housing question on the agenda of social policy, the implications of housing for society, and the possibilities for simple shelter to be transformed into real family homes. The debate emphasizing the dwelling as the smallest social component and the home as the most important place for the raising of citizens has been studied. The dissertation consists of four essays, each of which can be seen as a separate study yet at the same time as interrelated due to the overall theme of the dissertation, housing and the home. The period under investigation is 1889-1929 and the place is Stockholm. The first section deals with philanthropic building activities, described through four representative examples: Föreningen för Välgörenhetens Ordnande, Stockholms Arbetarehem, Govenii Minne and Ella Heckscher's home for tubercular female workers. This section opens with two introductory chapters treating the philanthropic attitude toward housing and the relation of the family to the housing question, respectively. The theme of the second section is the significance of aesthetics for the home. This section also opens with two introductory chapters, whereof the first describes the aesthetic ideals of the epoch and the second presents the so-called "aesthetic educators". A number of pamphlets written about the home are discussed, as well as a selection from the home exhibitions of the day. In a closing chapter, the entrance of the architects into the housing-question arena is presented. The third study deals with politics in the broad sense of the term. The interest of social reformers for the housing question is traced by examining organizations like Studenter och Arbetare and Centralförbundet för Socialt Arbete. The second chapter deals with the contributions of academics to the housing question. The social democratic women belonging to the Stockholm's Women's Club are heard from, and the engagement of women in this question is further delineated through studying periodicals like Morgonbris and Tidevarvet. In the closing chapter, the establishment and treatment of the housing question within the municipal council of Stockholm is discussed. The fourth and final section treats the HSB. First, the origins of the HSB in 1923 via the tenant's movement and guild socialism are discussed. Thereafter the organization and membership of the HSB is described. A brief biography of Sven Wallander, the leading figure of the HSB is provided, followed by a chapter on the periodical Vår Bostad. The final two chapters discuss the materialized ideas themselves: the buildings built by the HSB and the homes which were set up in them, stimulated by the actual physical buildings and discussions about the right way of living in them. The story of the home has solid empirical grounding. This study has been conducted from different perspectives in order that a more nuanced knowledge might be acquired. Vision and practice have proven to be so closely interwoven that it is not always possible to distinguish between them. / digitalisering@umu

The thesis deals with the development of the secondary school teaching professionduring the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The emphasisof the study is on the concurrence of three structural processes in this profession:feminization, professionalization and governmental bureaucratization.The "teachers of the people" found themselves deeply affected by radical economicand social structural changes during the transition from classical industrialcapitalism to organized capitalism at the end of the 19th century. These strucuralchanges aggravated the conflicts between the classes and the sexes in society, andthe elementary school became an important institution for social and ideologicalcontrol. But the teachers were not content to be the mindless instruments of thepredominant ideology. At an early stage the elementary school and the teachersthemselves began to live "a life of their own". Both male and female teachers beganto develop strategies in the struggle for power and control over their profession. Inother words, a process of professionalization began.At the same time as the teachers were organized collectively the women's share ofthe profession increased. The teaching of the lower classes was considered verysuitable for unmarried middle-class women, and the cheap female labour wasattractive to the politicians. There were risks of clashes between male and femaleinterests, since the profession also attracted young men from the farming andworking classes, who saw possibilities of social advancement in this sector of theschool system.The men developed different strategies against their female colleagues. Duringthe whole of the 19th century women were integrated into the professional project.At the turn of the century the men developed a strategy of social closure againstwomen, which meant that these were relegated to a lower level. At the same timethe government introduced regulations which were intended to impede women'sfast access to the profession. This triggered off an open conflict between the sexes inthe profession, since the changes were initiated by male elementary school teacherswho were leaders of the professional program as well as leading politicians in thegovernment and the Riksdag. / <p>Vissa bilder borttagna av upphovsrättskäl.</p> / digitalisering@umu

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