The purpose of this study is to do a qualitative analysis of the swedish television drama Fröken Frimans krig. The story is focused around a group of women that starts a cooperation with the goal of providing women from all layers of the society with affordable and fresh groceries free from contamination that could diseases like tuberculosis and cholera. The goal of the analysis is to investigate the way historical surrounding circumstances and the obstacles for swedish women in the beginning of the 20th century are portrayed in the drama. The theoretical basis of the study is based on the way in which the creator uses history and to what extent the content is historically accurate according to conventional facts. The results of the analysis showed that the drama was mostly historically accurate but that during certain scenes deviations were made from the accuracy, for example an epithet used in the drama concerning the name of the cooperation was mentioned 25 years before it appears in history. The analysis also showed that one of the biggest obstacles for women to achieve social equality was the class structures which divided women into firmly established categories in society. For example a lower class woman was offered the position as manager of the cooperations first store but she firmly and clearly declines the offer as a result of her awareness of the current class structures in swedish society.

Within the context of economic history, this case study discusses “separatist cooperation” as an organizational and economic strategy for addressing multiple forms of alienation and inequality. Unique in the European cooperative movement at the time, The Women’s Cooperative Society Swedish Homes (Kvinnornas Andelsförening Svenska Hem), active in Stockholm 1905-1916, is a case in point. Using a theoretical framework drawn from social and economic reconstruction as well as critical perspectives inspired by intersectionality, the study analyzes how arguments, practices and choices of Svenska Hem are manifested in terms of three themes/strategies of de-alienation: democratic participation, asset-building and narrative representation. Cutting through each of these themes/strategies, explicit and implicit conceptions of gender, class and group solidarity are critically analyzed. The results show that the separatist strategy in combination with cooperative organizing generated considerable movement energy and capital accumulation e.g. in the face of an organized boycott from competing (male) traders. Further, the women’s cooperative constituted a space for asset-building while negotiating the changing social role of women generally and housewives in particular. The analysis shows that Svenska Hem’s organization and narrative was marked by class bias, while striving to become a cooperative relevant to “women of all classes”, invoking the housewife-as-consumer as a collective with a shared interest.

In an effort to understand the formation of the artist’s role in society from the perspective of the artists in relation to the founding of the State Art Council (Statens konstråd) during the period 1936-1946, this thesis studies the formation process and central problems of the Swedish Artists’ Association (Konstnärernas riksorganisation, K.R.O.). Using the analytical concept of representation as a base for the methodological framework, the thesis explores material including meeting protocols, letters, transcribed debates and the union members’ journal Medlemsbladet, as well as several Swedish daily newspapers. While the role and importance of K.R.O. in the 1930s and 1940s have been treated parenthetically in most prior historical writing regarding the relationship between artists and the welfare state, this thesis argues that the first decade of K.R.O’s history can shed light on important themes in the historiography. It argues also that several common assumptions about the organization need to be reconsidered, including the notion that K.R.O. was constituted with the primary task of proposing candidates for the State Art Council. The need for an artists’ union had existed prior to the formation of the State Art Council, and K.R.O. should be regarded in light of a longer history of attempts to organise artists on a national level. These prior experiences informed the artists’ considerations about how representation, in the political sense of the concept, should and could be achieved for the organisation’s claims to legitimacy towards the state and the Swedish artists. Likewise, the legitimacy of the state’s initiative hinged on the success of the organization’s claims to representativity.                   By analysing two central problems connected to the state’s and other actors’ involvement in the Swedish cultural life and social reformist claims - wartime taxation of artworks and the system of art exhibitions -  this thesis argues that the commitment and enthusiasm regarding the changed structures within Swedish cultural life, which usually is ascribed to the artists during the period, has been inordinate. Whereas the state’s new involvement and the formation of K.R.O. can be seen as initiating the process of professionalizing the occupation of artist, the experiences of other actors not heeding their claims of expert knowledge during the organization’s first ten years highlighted the need for the artists to advance their social position.