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Köpmannen i Stockholm : Grosshandlares ekonomiska och sociala strategier under 1700-talet / The Merchant of Stockholm : Wholesalers’ economic and social strategies during the eighteenth century

The purpose of this thesis has been to describe and explain why wholesalers in Stockholm during the eighteenth century acted as they did. This analysis is built on the idea that peoples’ possibilities to act depends on the context in which they live and the person’s network. The starting-point for the analysis is an old discussion if the merchants made any difference in the transformation of society; were they a dynamic element or not? In this thesis wholesalers’ social and economic relations are studied from different viewpoints: how they married, how their credit network was built up, and what they consumed. The wholesalers are divided into groups depending on their income. The materials used are inventories, parish registers, registers of tax-payments and biographical books. The research shows that the differences in behaviour were small between the income groups. Most of the wholesalers married daughters of other merchants, they lent money to their own family, and they consumed more or less in the same way. There was a big economic gap between the wealthiest wholesalers and the less wealthy. Why their behaviour was nonethless so homogenous depended on their need of a network. The importance of this made them act the same. However, the study shows one group that acted a bit differently, wholesalers who belonged to the German congregation. In several ways they were an association in themselves. And the way they act can described as dynamic. Because they did not have an obligation to the Swedish network, they could act differently.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-8328
Date January 2007
CreatorsÅgren, Karin
PublisherUppsala universitet, Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, Uppsala : Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageSwedish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDoctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
RelationUppsala Studies in Economic History, 0346-6493 ; 82

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