This essay is about classhabitus. It concerns No1Tbottnic railway navvies and other working­class families lifestyle and revealed preferences. Gender and class is seen as important in order to explain gender relations concerning division of labour, childcare and the function of homes. The results show that railway navvies had a clear view concerning appropriate tasks for men and women to perform. The same is true for other working-class families, although they had a more equal view on this. Railway navvies had often bad relations with people outside the family. The children of navvies had a lot of work to perform and these tasks were gender coded. Other workning-class children tasks were more flexible concerning these codes. Living conditions in the homes were generally bad although it was seen as important to arrange things as good as possible.

This paper concerns the question how the Norrbottnic railway navvy has been used inNorrbottnic newspapers in order to deal with contemporary issues of a political and economicnature. The time period covered is 1951-2004 and 36 newspaper articles have been used. Thepaper shows that there is no obvious connection between the newspapers political affiliationand the components from the navvies lives one otherwise would expect the newspaper topresent. Ideological use of history is not always present. There are other uses of history to, inthe articles. On the other hand the results of this investigation shows all newspapers wants topreserve the navvies accomplishments for later generations. There is no clear connectionbetween a decision to preserve and important events in the surrounding contemporary society.A commitment to preserve is taken independently of important contemporary events.