The aim of this thesis is to understand the diffusion process of Swedish life insurance during the period c. 1830-1950, with the specific aim to understand financial modernization and social mobilization as reflected in the diffusion of life insurance to less well-to-do classes and women. In contrast to British and American experiences, the results of this thesis show that the rural classes played an important role in the diffusion of Swedish life insurance. The thesis shows that demand-side factors such as income and urbanisation cannot fully explain this diffusion of life insurance, and why additionally, non-quantitative factors need to be addressed. It is shown how cultural preferences assist in understanding the development of industrial life insurance in different countries. It is also stressed that women, in their capacity as policyholders, beneficiaries of life policies, as dependents, and their limited property rights, constituted the conditions under which the life insurance industry had to adjust and operate. In sum, female policyholders, cultural representations of women and legal constraints on women, constituted an important subset of the 'rules of the game' for the life insurance industry. Important results of the thesis are that female policyholders constituted a large part of the policyholders in the largest industrial life insurance company already in the early twentieth century. It is furthermore shown that life insurance representatives were members in organizations of the women's movement and that they acted for married women's property rights in parliament. It is also argued that different notions of 'a good death', as reflected in funeral practices, contributed to different developments of private and public insurance in Sweden and the United States. By widening the concept of 'business' and recognizing the cultural and social contexts under which the industry operated, this thesis highlights the interaction between business and social change. / "Den enskildes risk och det gemensamma åtagandet" Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse Tore Browaldhs stiftelse

Dès la fin du dix-huitième siècle, des voix s’élèvent pour défendre la cause des femmes et dénoncer les inégalités dont elles sont victimes par rapport aux hommes au sein de la société britannique. On peut songer, notamment, à Mary Wollstonecraft dont le célèbre pamphlet, très controversé intitulé : A Vindication of the Rights of Woman est publié en 1792. Néanmoins, si les arguments avancés par Mary Wollstonecraft ont eu une influence certaine, on ne saurait parler à la fin du dix-huitième siècle, de naissance du mouvement féministe en Grande-Bretagne. Ainsi, ce n’est que vers les années 1850-1860, dans le contexte de la Révolution Industrielle et des bouleversements qu’elle engendre au niveau de la société, que se constitue, progressivement le mouvement féministe, en tant que tel. Cette thèse a pour objet de retracer et d’analyser le cheminement qui a conduit à l’émergence du mouvement féministe en Grande-Bretagne sachant que le terme féministe appliqué à cette période pose un certain nombre de problèmes. Il s’agira également de mettre en lumière certains aspects du mouvement féministe auxquels la recherche s’est souvent moins intéressée et notamment, la contribution active de certains hommes au combat mené par les féministes pour la reconnaissance des droits des femmes en matière de droit de propriété pour les femmes mariées et de droit de vote, la question de la filiation entre la première génération de militantes féministes et les suffragettes sera aussi l'objet d'une étude approfondie. / In the eighteenth century, certain women took their pen and resolved to expose the inequalities they were confronted with as women, within British society. The most famous one is probably Mary Wollstonecraft whose controversial pamphlet entitled : A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in 1792. However, this new awareness did not result at least in the eighteenth century, in the emergence of an organized feminist movement. How did feminist consciousnesss gradually give rise to concrete actions, leading to the emergence of an organized feminist movement? In fact, it was only around 1850-1860, within the context of the Industrial Revolution, and its consequences on British society as a whole, that an organized feminist movement gradually took shape in Great-Britain. We should nevertheless bear in mind the problematic nature of the term feminist as applied to this period.The object of this dissertation will be to identify and examine the various stages that led to the emergence of an organized feminist movement, while enhancing some of its specific aspects such as, partnership between men and women or the issue of the links between suffragists and suffragettes in terms of continuity and discontinuity.