Abstract This microhistorical study examines the local circle of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in Växjö during the years 1935 to 1967. The purpose of the essay is to contribute to research in women’s history by describing and analyzing some of the association’s members and activities. The unprinted source material consisting of the association’s protocol books provides the basis for this study.  The theoretical basis is a gender perspective and a microhistorical perspective. Short biographies highlight the background and roles of the individual members in the association. The association’s organization and activities are described too. The analysis shows the members’ solidarity with other women, for instance through helping refugees. It also shows how the members used their economic, social and cultural capital in their peace efforts, and in forming networks both among themselves and with other organisations. In short, the members’ economic, social and cultural capital enabled them to work for peace. In their efforts they both came to challenge and maintain the gender system of their time.

Syftet med studien har varit att med en mikrohistorisk ansats lyfta fram Anna Wemans roll som en föregångare i den svenska förskolans historia. I undersökningen av Wemans pedagogiska material skapas en bild av hur den småbarnsskolornas pedagogiska utveckling i riktning mot Fröbel såg ut vid sekelskiftet 1900. Med hjälp av en analys som påbörjades redan vid arkivet har jag hittat tecken på spårberoende, förändring och kontinuitet gentemot såväl dåtid som nutid. I arbetet har en empiridriven metod använts och empirin har visat tydliga tecken på att Anna Weman var engagerad och påläst inom gängse pedagogiska metoder och att förändringsarbetet bedrevs med en respekt och ödmjukhet inför det förflutna.

The purpose of this study is to expand and variegate the general history of psychiatric care in Sweden in the late nineteenth century. My objects of interest are the first two head doctors of Stockholm’s hospital and their handwritten annual reports to the directorate of the hospital from the year of 1862 to the year of 1889. During this time the psychiatric care in Sweden went through a number of changes. Laws against treating patients of the asylums with physical restraint and force were passed, and humanitarian and philanthropic movements were a big part of these changes. In Sweden, the psychiatric care was expanding at this time. The old asylums were condemned by humanitarian intellectuals for its horrible conditions, and the doctors called out for new modern asylums. The modern day general history of the expansion of asylums is often in some way linked to Michel Foucault’s theory of the psychiatric asylum as an institution of social control. One of the main undertakings in this essay is to test this theory in the context of a late nineteenth century asylum of Stockholm. Another ambition in this essay is to establish which other characteristic structures of the nineteenth century that appear to have influenced the psychiatric care. Testing Foucault’s theory of social control has in this study proven to call for the need of additional theories concerning both class and gender structures. To expose the nuances of the general history of the asylum I have been using a microhistorical approach, while still integrating with the macro-leveled general history and the control theory of Michel Foucault.Focus in this research is on the two first head doctors of Stockholm’s first real asylum. In this essay, I analyse their description of patient labour and the use of physical restraint/force methods as treatments. The results of my research show that the upholding of social control and moral standards was a big part of the head doctors profession during the second half of the nineteenth century in the Swedish asylum. The results also show that the patients were treated differently based on gender and which of the three different payment classes of the asylum that they belonged to.

This essay examines the final part of the life of former volunteer foreign legionary Sven Blom, and is part of a project which started in 2017 with my first essay: Red Trousers and Watery Mud. : Sven Blom’s Experience of the First World War: a Case-study, which explores the Swedish volunteer Sven Bloms’ experience of the First World War in the French foreign legion. My second essay: Dear Mr. Blom: Swedish Voices from the Western Front (2019), widens the scope to the other Swedish volunteers which served in the French foreign legion through their letters sent to Sven.In this final essay, I examine Sven Bloms life after the war through the source material in his archive. The overarching question posed to the material is: How does Sven Bloms thoughts, literary texts, letters and life compare and connect with the mentality and discourses present in France and Paris after Sven’s involvement in the First World War? Based on the use of Microhistorical theory, several parts of Sven’s life are examined in order to answer the large question through the small life that was Sven’s: How did he lead his life to his death in 1931, and what part did he play in the social circles which he took part in? How did he remember his fallen comrades and the war which claimed their lives? And how does his own writings, letters and diaries reflect on his view on life, and the war? Through the obituaries of Sven Blom, how is he remembered by his friends? And how does previously unexplored source material about Sven Bloms early life and demobilization help explain his agency?Through Sven Bloms eyes we are given a window into a postwar France and Paris torn by war and filled with a desire for life, having experienced want and death. Sven lived through these “Les années folles”, “the roaring twenties” of French society. Through Sven we are given access to the French process of healing, and through his experiences and thoughts, shared by many, he gives an account of a nation, a city and a people moving forward.

Den här uppsatsens fokus ligger på lagstiftningen och hanteringen av sekretessbelagd information om enskilda personer gällande hälsa och sociala förhållanden. Att tolka lagar är inte lätt och vilket ansvar vilar på arkiven kring utlämnande av sådana handlingar. Med studien vill jag få fram hur arkiven praktiskt arbetar med detta för att få fram ett underlag om hur man kan tänka kring hanteringen vid utlämnande av sådana uppgifter. Appraisalmetoden som använts och sekretessen påverkar vad som finns tillgängligt från arkiven. Urvalet av det som bevaras av handlingar speciellt rörande barn som har kommit i kontakt med Socialstyrelsen har kritiserats då det framkommit att dessa har gallrats för mycket utifrån de förfrågningar som kommit till arkiven om utlämnande av dessa då de inte funnits. För att få fram detta har jag använt mig av två metoder där det ena är litteraturstudier och den andra är intervjuer av två arkivinstitutioner som har hand om sådana handlingar, ett kommunarkiv och ett landstingsarkiv. Resultatet av studien har blivit ett underlag till en vägledning utifrån rådande lagstiftning där hanteringen och frågor som kan vara bra att ha med sig för att kunna avgöra om en handling kan lämnas ut eller inte. Det har också kommit fram att sekretesstiden kan ha blivit för kort i Sverige med sina 70 år jämfört med till exempel Norge och Kanada som har 80 år och mer beroende på handlingstypen. Detta utifrån att vi lever längre än tidigare och lagen borde anpassas efter det.

When war broke out in Europe in 1939 a mother of two, the thirty-three-year-old Astrid Lindgren, begun keeping a journal. In this diary she wrote about the events of the war, the decisions of the government of Sweden and her own personal life in Stockholm. With a micro historical approach and with a theoretical framework from history of emotions this study aims to explore Lindgren´s emotional life and her emotions towards the changing aspects of the ordinary life, her government´s political agenda, and towards the international players and victims of the second world war. With the use of William K. Reddy´s terminology of emotive and emotional navigation as well as Hugo Nordland´s emotional strategies as analyzing tools the results showed that Lindgren´s initial emotion towards the ordinary life, now affected by the war, was despair, expressed in emotives such as chock, sadness and despondency. The emotion later shifted to gratitude (towards her own privileged situation) and blues (caused by war fatigue), existing simultaneously. The most common emotion expressed correlating to the Swedish government is the emotion of trust. Lindgren´s main emotions towards the victims of the war was compassion. At multiples times, in her diaries, she expressed pity for those who suffered and gratitude for not being among them. The emotions she expressed correlating to the great powers of the war was hate (Germany), fear (Soviet Union) and contempt (Italy). But she also felt conflicted when faced with the fact that she might have to make a choice between Germany and the Soviet Union. The fear of the Russians trumped her loathing of the Nazi regime, but when she gained a greater knowledge of the German atrocities, she came to regard both regimes as equally horrible. The frequent use of certain emotives (such as confidence, gratitude and pity) indicates an emotional navigation to consolidate her feelings and avoid other less desirable emotions. In the same way the uses of biblical metaphors, comparisons of beasts and the reference to brotherly love gives proof of emotional strategies in her handling of undesirable feelings such as hatred and shame. Lastly, this study concludes in a didactical discussion arguing that Astrid Lindgren´s war diaries is a material of great value when teaching of and developing a historical consciousness.

The aim of the paper was to identify tendencies in the type of descriptions, categories, and identities that the doctors at the mental hospital Stockholm’s hospital gave to the mentally ill patients. The time period was chosen for a few specific reasons, one being Bror Gadelius, then chief physician at the mental hospital and his ambitions for a humanistic care of the mentally ill. The other reason is that this period has been forgotten in Swedish history of mental health care as it fell between the 18th and 19th century ‘surveillance and control’, and on the other hand a period of electrical treatments, lobotomies,and sterilisations to ‘treat’ mental illness and fix society during 1930-1950. In the paper, two theories are used to be able to discern tendencies and different attitudes from the doctors in the patient records. The first is the intersectional perspective with some main categories such as Gender, Class, Body, and Sexuality, but also smaller categories that I discovered during the research. These are somewhat abstract yet self-explanatory: Curable/Incurable, meaning whether the attitude in the records suggests that there was any chance for the patient to get well. Talking/Not talking, where the patient's ability or unwillingness to talk to the doctor changes how the patient is described, and finally Docile/Resistant, which means that the patient is described according to how they behave in accordance with the norms of the mental hospital. The second theory is about objective medicine, which developed with the natural sciences, and the need to be scientifically accurate and to be able to define what disease is, what it looks like and its dimensions. However, when objective medicine developed, it was based on a subjective basis, and therefore being ill meant being 'ugly' and not conforming to societal norms. The two theories work well together because they both highlight historically changing meanings within patients' categories and given identities. Although these are two major theories, the paper is still a micro-historical study, I wanted to get up close to the source material and thoroughly examine the different ways in which patients could be described in the mental hospital. And I believe that it is possible, even with a small study of ten patient records, to provide some nuances of how the doctors viewed the mentally ill patients in the early 20th century.

Syftet med avhandlingen är att undersöka den sammantagna livssituationen för ett begränsat urval individer (en primär kohort av 19 män och en utökad kohort av ytterligare 42 män, det vill säga totalt 61 män) i ett familjesammanhang. Det handlar närmare bestämt om att så långt källorna tillåter söka kvalitativt förstå och karaktärisera socioekonomiska villkor, familjeliv och hälsa, såsom de gestaltar sig i den vardagliga livsföringen och i relation till den specifika tiden och den lokala stadsmiljön. Gemensamt för dessa utvalda individer är att de företrädesvis tillhörde det undre samhällsskiktet och flyttade till staden under början av 1800-talet, innan inflyttningen till städerna blev fri. I denna skärningspunkt mellan individen och den yttre omgivningen undersöks såväl möjligheter som begränsningar, händelser och handlingar med ett mikrohistoriskt angreppssätt. I syftet ingår således också att gestalta själva det lokala samhället i förändring och dess förhållande till nya invånare och grupper, för att ge underlag för fortsatt forskning kring social förändring. Vidare karaktäriseras den utökade kohorten i förhållande till stadens demografiska profil. Studiens huvudmaterial utgörs av kyrkböckerna, det vill säga husförhörslängder, födelse- och dödböcker samt vigsel- och flyttlängder. Detta material kompletteras med ett flertal andra källor såsom sjukhusjournaler, saköreslängder, fattigvårdens protokoll, bouppteckningar, landshövdingens femårsberättelser, sockenstämmoprotokoll och lokala tidningar i syfte att få en så bred bild som möjligt. Individerna följs genom sina livskurser i staden under flera decennier och analyseras i nära kontakt med den lokala kontexten. Det senare innebär också en analys av de lokala auktoriteternas syn på och hantering av inflyttningsfrågan i staden under 1800-talets första hälft, det vill säga innan inflyttningen till staden, eller landsbygdens socknar, blev fri 1847. Staden var inte redo för detta arbetsfolk som valde att bo kvar där och skaffa familj. Det var ett ovanligt val, sett i förhållande till migrationsmönstret, och de gjorde det på eget bevåg, det vill säga de bosatte sig utanför husböndernas hushåll och tog därmed risken att inte få ett patriarkalt beskydd. Fattigvården tog också formellt avstånd från dessa arbetsfolkfamiljer och sökte hindra deras inträde i staden. Det visar sig i flera fall att fattigvården agerade utan lagligt stöd då de försökte fatta beslut kring inflyttning baserat på framtida försörjningsprognoser och antal barn i familjen att föda. Överhuvudtaget var dock stadens inflyttningsrestriktioner hårdare på pappret än de var i verkligheten. Relativt få fall blev ovillkorligen nekade inflyttning och de flesta som prövades individuellt fick flytta in med villkoret att de kunde visa försvar och/eller borgen. Staden var på så vis kluven inför arbetsfolket på ett sätt som tolkas som typiskt för den förändring som låg i tiden. Borgarna behövde det unga, ogifta tjänstefolket som arbetskraft men ville inte behålla det i staden när det skulle bilda familj. Männen i kohorterna, och deras familjer, behövde för sin del finna en ny plats att stadga sig på när landsbygdens möjligheter till försörjning började sina. Livet i staden blev för många av dem ett liv mitt emellan två samhällen. Det karaktäriserades, för många, av en svår försörjningssituation med inslag av en dold ekonomi men med sämre förutsättningar än på landsbygden och där till exempel tiggeriet troligen spelade en betydande roll. Det innebar ett begynnande arbetarliv men baserat på en mager lön som egentligen skulle räcka till en person, snarare än fem-sex stycken. Männens livsföring var i många fall tärande och de fick ta del av det ”urbana straffet” i form av hög dödlighet i den sena medelåldern. Nöden spred sig inom familjerna. Arbetsfolket i staden blev en länk mellan torparlivet och arbetarlivet. Många familjer bodde tillfälligt utökade och hyste släkt och familjemedlemmar utanför kärnfamiljen, vilket tolkas som ett sätt att tackla en svår situation. Genom sina livsval medverkade dessa individer till en betydande social förändring. / The purpose of the dissertation is to investigate the overall living situation for a selected group of individuals(one primary cohort of 19 men and one extended cohort of another 42 men, i.e. a total of 61 men) in a familycontext. This means, as far as the sources allow, trying to qualitatively understand and characterise socioeconomicconditions, family life and health, as it appears in the everyday life and in relation to the specifictime and the local urban environment. These individuals mainly belong to the lower social strata and havemoved to Linköping in the early 19th century before the regulations made it free to move into town. Possibilitiesand limitations, as well as events and acts are investigated in the intersection between individual and theenvironment, from a micro-historical point of view. In the purpose is thus also included to picture the localsociety in change and its relation to newcomers, as a foundation for further research regarding social change.Furthermore, the extended cohort is characterised from a micro-demographic perspective. The basic sources for this study are church books, i.e. records of catechetical meetings, records of births and deaths, records of weddings and migration. These sources are completed by several other sources like hospital records, records of fines, the chronicles of the county governor, records of the parish assembly and poor relief committee and the local newspapers, to get as rich a picture as possible. The individuals are followed throughout their life courses in town for several decades and are analysed in close connection to the local context. The latter also means that the local authorities are analysed in regard to their attitude and policy towards the migrants to town during the first half of the 19th century, i.e. before the 1847 legislation made migration free in the country. The town was not yet ready for these labourers who chose to stay there and start a family. They did thison their own responsibility, i.e. they settled outside the master´s household and risked being without thepatriarchal protection. The poor relief committee in town also rejected these families and tried to prevent theircoming into town. It is shown that the poor relief committee sometimes acted without legal support when ittried to make decisions regarding migration, based on estimated future incomes and the amount of children tofeed. Overall, the migration restriction was stricter in writing than it was in reality. Relatively few people weredenied access to the town and most who were tried individually got permission to move in on condition thatthey could show that they hade an employment and/or a personal guarantee. In this sense, the town was dividedin its attitude towards the servants and labourers in a manner typical of the situation. The burghersneeded the young, unmarried servants as labour force but were not interested in their staying in town to startfamilies. The men in the cohorts, and their families, on the other hand needed to find a new place to settlewhen the countryside ran out of opportunities. The life in the town became, for many of them, a life betweentwo societies. It was characterised by a constant struggle to support oneself, with a strain of a hidden economywhere for example begging was most likely important. This also meant a labourer´s life but with a meagresalary, sufficient only for one person, not for five or six. Many of the men in the cohorts were struck by the“urban penalty” with high mortality in late midlife. These labourers became a link between the crofter´s lifeand the labourer´s life. Many families were temporarily extended when they housed relatives and familymembers beyond the nuclear family and this is interpreted as a way of handling a tough situation. By their lifechoices these men and families contributed to an important social change.

Syftet med studien har varit att med en mikrohistorisk ansats lyfta fram Anna Wemans roll som en föregångare i den svenska förskolans historia. I undersökningen av Wemans pedagogiska material skapas en bild av hur den småbarnsskolornas pedagogiska utveckling i riktning mot Fröbel såg ut vid sekelskiftet 1900. Med hjälp av en analys som påbörjades redan vid arkivet har jag hittat tecken på spårberoende, förändring och kontinuitet gentemot såväl dåtid som nutid. I arbetet har en empiridriven metod använts och empirin har visat tydliga tecken på att Anna Weman var engagerad och påläst inom gängse pedagogiska metoder och att förändringsarbetet bedrevs med en respekt och ödmjukhet inför det förflutna.