Historisk tidskrift

Stora historiepriset 2024

2024-08-30T12:37:20+00:00

Nytt om historisk forskning

2024-08-30T12:38:48+00:00

Årsmötesförhandlingar

2024-08-30T12:39:57+00:00

Rörelser mot det industriella

2024-08-28T10:38:14+00:00

Moving towards the industrial: Ironmaking and historical change

Industrialisation has almost always been analysed retrospectively as the ‘prehistory’ of our modern era. This has been the case ever since Arnold Toynbee introduced the concept of the Industrial Revolution in the late nineteenth century, and this story has been repeated by scholars such as David Landes and Joel Mokyr. In this article, we flip the perspective to approach industrialisation as a gradual process incorporating technology, the organisation of labour, markets, and state politics. Our case deals with ironmaking, the most important non-agricultural sector in the early modern Swedish economy, and emphasises changing notions of work and the daily routines of skilled artisans and mobile civil servants in Swedish workshops and abroad.

Tracing the development of Swedish metal manufacturing, the continued dominance of a traditional idea of householding is apparent, and with it a key link between labour and natural resources. In the second half of the eighteenth century, state officials such as Samuel Schröder and Sven Rinman took a more prominent role in promoting several interrelated improvements, from the “English way” of organising work to finding new ways of refining iron and steel and adapting to changing markets. The valuable storehouse of ore and metals increasingly came under the authority of the state. It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century, however, that groundbreaking paths ahead were articulated by members of the Swedish mining administration, often building on advances seen in Britain. Eric Thomas Svedenstierna and Gustaf Broling saw the potential of steam engines, mineral coal, and large-scale production, but it was left to the ironmaking entrepreneur Gustaf Ekman, a couple of decades later, to initiate the full industrialisation of the iron trade by implementing what was known in Sweden as the Lancashire method. By analysing the trajectories of individuals – in our case mobile officials – we achieve a better forward-looking understanding of the industrialisation process, an approach that also bridges the spheres of discourse and practice.

Adertonhundratalets argonauter

2024-08-28T10:43:40+00:00

Argonauts of industry: Knowledge gathering and technologies in use in Sweden’s industrial breakthrough

In this article we explore how knowledge transfer about industrial production and new technologies affected Sweden’s rapid industrialisation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on two case studies taken from the Swedish glass and gunpowder industries, we argue for the importance of human actors with a practical bent: technical workers and non-academic specialists who collected new forms of knowledge as they visited industrial sites across Europe and the globe. Inspired by the American economist AnnaLee Saxenian and her research on Asian migration to Silicon Valley, we refer to these actors as ”Argonauts” as they undertook long, adventurous journeys in their quest for industrial knowledge. They were driven by practical concerns and issues, and primarily on the lookout for applicable solutions to the technical problems which were hampering production back in Sweden. Thus, these Argonauts of industry were determined to find what the American Israeli economic historian Joel Mokyr has labelled ”useful knowledge”: knowledge that made a difference for dayto-day production and could easily be adapted to local conditions. It was an experiential form of knowledge inextricably intertwined with people’s practical skills and somatic memories. Industrial knowledge was neither bookish nor institutional, but based on trained eyes, skilled hands, and a professional feel for the tools and materials necessary for industrial production. We propose an analytical model for future studies into the crucial relationship between knowledge transfer and the specific processes of industrialisation. The model has a threefold aim and emphasises the importance of technologies in use, professional journeys, and cultural concepts – the interaction of hand, eye, and brain.

Kvalitet som ideal och strategi

2024-08-28T10:49:15+00:00

Quality as an ideal and a strategy: One coat factory and the globalisation of the clothing industry, 1940–1970

In the period 1940–1970, the Swedish clothing industry went from prosperity to crisis. The article identifies three contributing factors: the shift in demand to comfortable everyday clothes; Sweden’s inclusion in the European Free Trade Union (EFTA); and the move towards more department stores and retail chains. Using Upsala Kappfabrik AB, one of Sweden’s largest coat factories, as an example, the article explores how manufacturers of women’s coats and two-piece suits reacted when consumers chose fast trends and quantity over quality. Upsala Kappfabrik’s response to growing competition was to rationalise and invest in youth fashion, marketing, design collaborations, and exports. Everything was done without forsaking the company’s idea of quality. The article shows that, despite its efforts, Upsala Kappfabrik’s existing business did not become profitable, neither did it adapt to the new market changes. The strategy indicates that Upsala Kappfabrik, like many other manufacturers of fine clothing, misjudged the market, did not want to give in to modern patterns of consumption, and refused to change its mode of production. Convinced that quality was the right way to go, the clothing industry campaigned for consumers to choose Swedish-made goods over foreign ones. As the industry, encouraged by official government inquiries, the Swedish Consumer Agency, and politicians, continued to invest in quality, retailers turned to foreign manufacturers who supplied cheap, fashionable clothes with short delivery times. The article finds that the dismantling of the Swedish clothing industry went hand in hand with the rise of the clothing retailer H&M, which took the lead in what was to become the Swedish fashion industry. It also argues that, as a brand, Swedish quality is based on decades of quality industrial production and fostering consumer information.

Kapitalets nya rörlighet

2024-08-28T10:52:46+00:00

The new mobility of capital: The Swedish Garment Workers’ Union and overseas production, 1960–1972

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Swedish clothing manufacturers responded to the textile crisis by moving production abroad to countries where wages were lower and trade unions were weaker. With EFTA (the European Free Trade Association), the opportunity arose to manufacture clothing in Portugal and Finland for export back to Sweden. With a focus on the Swedish Garment Workers’ Union, this article analyses trade union reactions to the mobility of capital, looking at the public narratives about Swedish-owned factories in Portugal and Finland, published in the trade union members’ magazine Beklädnadsfolket, as well as internal trade union discussions about overseas production. In print, Beklädnadsfolket described the factories in Portugal in a critical colonial perspective. It informed readers that the regime prohibited trade unions and Swedish entrepreneurs sewed clothes from cotton produced in Portugal’s colonies. Thus, it tried to engage in a public discussion, and to generate public opinion against such foreign ventures. As for Finland, the trade union narrative was somewhat less critical. Nevertheless, Swedish representatives argued that the new factories in Finland posed a trade union problem, primarily because groups politically left of the Social Democrats controlled the local trade union organisations. In internal discussions, however, the mobility of capital – regarding both Portugal and Finland – was something the trade unionists considered when discussing other issues, such as free trade versus tariffs, the prospects for successful wage negotiations, or unemployment among the rank and file.

Kampen om skogsråvaran i norra Sverige

2024-08-28T10:56:12+00:00

Competing for Northern Sweden’s forest resources: The sawmill sector and industrial operations, 1962–2003

This article addresses how private sawmills that did not own forests (merchant sawmills) managed the supply of raw materials, timber prices, and market conditions in the late twentieth century, when faced by tougher international competition, increased concentration, demands for new production technology, and large-scale production with greater capital investment. Why did some firms survive longer than others? How did they deal with changing market conditions and a new political climate? We analyse how merchant sawmills in the Swedish county of Västerbotten tried to organise their interests to influence the supply and price level of their raw material. The study focuses on the interest organisations whose archives we have had access to, AB Sågverksintressenter (ABSI) later Sågab, which primarily worked to secure access to timber and influence price levels. In this context, the government also played a major role since the Swedish timber market was divided into price areas. The sawmills, through their cartels, negotiated the price in each area with the sellers through the forest owners’ associations. The decisive moment came in 1993, when Sweden was to become a member of the EU and needed to adapt its competition legislation, which had far-reaching consequences, especially for the merchant sawmills. Our investigation shows some merchant sawmills tended towards concentration and large-scale operations, while the differences in size among the remaining merchant sawmills in the early 2000s still varied greatly. The coordination of the merchant sawmills by ABSI and Sågab could have offset some of the disadvantages of smallness in the markets. Sågab succeeded in coordinating the supply of raw materials, electricity contracts, and the negotiation of the sales price of woodchips, while other types of cooperation were not thought important – for example there is no sign that Sågab coordinated the purchase of production technology or the like. Both external forces (state involvement) and internal forces (intracartel competition) influenced the extent to which cartel cooperation developed. The results contribute to our knowledge of the complexity and institutional conditions of industrial development.

En ”lågindustri” i skuggan av 1900-talets högindustriella epok?

2024-08-28T13:17:36+00:00

Det nya framtidslandet?

2024-08-28T13:20:07+00:00

Ska vi sakta ner maskinen?

2024-08-15T08:23:26+00:00

Industrins öar av övergivenhet – öar av betydelse

2024-08-28T13:27:20+00:00

Martin Andersson, Från trälar till tjänstefolk: Legofolk i Sverige 1250–1600 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press 2023). 414 s.

2024-08-30T12:15:28+00:00

Ståle Holgersen, Krisernas tid: Ekologi och ekonomi under kapitalismen (Göteborg: Bokförlaget Daidalos 2022). 401 s.

2024-08-30T12:23:13+00:00

Gunnel Cederlöf (red.), The Imperial Underbelly: Workers, Contractors, and Entrepreneurs in Colonial India and Scandinavia (London & New York: Routledge 2023). 224 s + xiv.

2024-08-30T12:24:53+00:00

Sofi Thanhauser, Worn: A people’s history of clothing (New York: Pantheon Books 2022). 375 s.

2024-08-30T12:26:20+00:00

Mats Larsson, Arbetare i svensk järnindustri under 1800-talet: Exemplet Bredsjö bruk (Stockholm: Dialogos 2024). 163 s.

2024-08-30T12:28:22+00:00

Bernt Schiller, Arbete, kapital och politik i Norden ca 1860–2000 (Göteborg: Kungl. Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället 2023). 361 s.

2024-08-30T12:29:58+00:00

Carl Cassegård & Håkan Thörn, I apokalypsens skugga: Miljörörelser och industrikapitalism 1870–2020 (Göteborg: Daidalos 2023). 537 s.

2024-08-30T12:31:43+00:00

Jesper Jørgensen & Flemming Mikkelsen (red.), Trade Union Activism in the Nordic Countries since 1900 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan 2023). 390 s.

2024-08-30T12:33:37+00:00

Maths Isacson, Vad gör en fackförening? Den dagliga kampen för jobben 1975–2000 utifrån en klubbordförandes dagböcker (Lund: Arkiv förlag 2022). 304 s.

2024-08-30T12:35:42+00:00

På återbesök hos allmogen

2024-08-30T08:40:25+00:00

Campfires and coloured shirts: Children’s organisations in Norway 1910–1960

2024-08-30T12:13:36+00:00

Historiska perspektiv på industri

2024-08-15T08:28:25+00:00

Forskarnas folkhem

2024-08-28T13:29:17+00:00

Forskarnas folkhem

2024-08-28T13:31:12+00:00

Den mångfacetterade avindustrialiseringen

2024-08-28T13:24:33+00:00