This study deals with how the subjects Gardening, Handicraft, Domestic Science and Temperance Instruction were introduced and developed in elementary school (compulsory school) in Sweden during the period 1842-1919. During this same period a capitalist mode of production replaced the feudal one with consequent changes in home life for the people. The school subjects dealt with have been selected to throw light on whether and to what extent the elementary school was used to bring about a reorganization in the lives of wage earner families.The official argument, curricula and school enquiries have been examined. Teaching content in relation to workers' family conditions has been studied in the parish of Skön in the sawmill region of northern Sweden.The main official argument was that the miserable conditions of working class life were caused just as much by ignorant housewives and drunken fathers as by low wages and poor housing. The cure was therefore seen to lie in education, and the introduction of the subjects in question can be seen in the light of this.The study shows how the state gradually took over more and more of the responsibility for child upbringing, and how the schools of the sawmill companies played a part in this process. The results, however, indicate that the actual effect of elementary school teaching on the home lives of sawmill workers was insignificant. Working class poverty was ol course caused primarily by economic and structural factors, but defining the problems in pedagogical terms meant that responsibility could be apportioned at an individual level - and thereby the bourgeoisie reaped considerable ideological profits.Key word: history of education, Swedish compulsory school, Gardening, Handicraft, Domestic Science, Temperance Instruction, working class family, sawmill region. / digitalisering@umu