Swedish iron and steel, 1600–1955

Abstract

The sources which may be used to shed light upon the history of the Swedish iron industry from the first half of the sixteenth century onwards are, by any criterion, very impressive. Well-preserved series of accounts give detailed information on the activities of a number of iron-works which the Crown began to establish during the reign of Gustav Vasa (1523–1560) and which were carried on until the opening decades of the 17th century. The Swedish kings energetically directed not only their own enterprises but also the production at the many small privately-owned furnaces and forges which continued to be responsible for the major share of the total output; they were also an important object of taxation of which the Crown kept detailed accounts. The state's own iron-working activities were abandoned in the 16205, but central direction of the industry continued and was shortly entrusted to a special department of state, the Board of Mining and Metallurgical Industries (Bergskollegium], The archives of Bergskollegium provide a fund of information on the history of the metallurgical industries looked at from the viewpoint of the central government. The customs' accounts offer primary material for the statistics of exports during the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th. Thereafter, however, the primary material has only been sporadically preserved. But as early as the 17th century customs' accounts were worked up into statistics of foreign trade in order to provide information for purposes of commercial policy.¹ After 1738 they continue as a most impressive series of uninterrupted statistics.     

Sewers,wastewater and newspapers: the early environmental debate on water pollution in Turku,Finland, 1887–1934

Abstract

A century ago, city dwellers became increasingly aware of urban environmental problems caused by the waste products of industry and the growing population. Like elsewhere in Europe, water pollution became an acute issue also in the city of Turku, in south west Finland, The sewer system built after 1895 discharged all the municipal and rapidly increasing industrial wastewater untreated into the River Aura in the centre of the city, As a result, the quality of the river water worsened rapidly, and the first complaint on this was published in the local newspaper in 1899. In this study we document the press debate on river water quality and wastewater problems in the local newspapers of Turku for the period from 1887 to 1934, when the plan for a wastewater treatment plant was finally completed (the plant was, however, not built until 1966). The failure of the city administrators to present any solution to the river pollution problem caused the first major public environmental debate in the city at the turn of the 20^th century. Our results show that (1) sewers were recognized by newspapers as the primary cause of worsened river water quality, (2) the necessity of a wastewater treatment plant was understood long before the actual plan was drawn up, (3) the local industries were hardly ever criticized in public for water pollution, and (4) the initiative for improvements was considered to be the responsibility of the city administrators. The debate in the local press was often hectic, many decades before the 1960s, when the environmental debate is commonly said to have started.     

The ‘price revolution’ of the sixteenth century: Some Swedish evidence

Abstract

Since the publication in 1895 of George Wiebe's work, Zur Geschichte der Preisreuolution des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, ¹ the ‘price revolution’ has been a generally accepted concept found in most historical textbooks. By the ‘price revolution’, Wiebe meant the general rise in commodity prices which occurred in western Europe during the 16th century, the primary cause of which according to him was the influx of silver from the new Spanish possessions in America. His explanation also came to be generally accepted, but perhaps an even more significant contribution to the influence which this book has wielded is the fact that he synthesized in readily usable form the price analyses in existence when he wrote, i.e. at the end of the 19th century. In the 1930s his tables still formed the basis of sweeping conclusions and generalizations.     

The way to industrialisation: A Finnish town history

Abstract

Scientific research on urban history in Finland dates from the end of the 19th century. The pioneer was Professor Carl von Bonsdorff, whose study of 17th century Turku (Åbo) is still a standard work in this field.¹ At the beginning of this century Professor Väinö Voionmaa added to the literature on the old pre-industrial towns his investigation of the rapid growth of Tampere (Tammerfors).² This city, ‘Finland's Manchester’, is a young industrial town; in order to survey its development before the beginning of the 20th century Voionmaa had to take a new quantitative approach. Since then Finnish research on urban history has grown to an extent that is quite out of proportion with the fact that urbanisation here is a late phenomenon. Historical studies now exist of practically every town, generally written by historians with professional training. In Finland historians have perhaps devoted themselves to a greater extent than elsewhere to research in local and thus also town history. The most ambitious attempt to produce a comprehensive history of a town from its foundation to the present is the history of Helsinki on which about ten historians are collaborating, six volumes of which have so far been published.³     

Replacement of flax by cotton in the domestic textile industry of south-west Finland

Abstract

In Finland Proper, economically by far the most advanced province of Finland, domestic weaving, at least from the sixteenth century onwards, was carried on on a scale sufficient to produce a surplus for sale. The main products were linens and coarse, strong woollen cloth, though from the seventeenth century onwards, woollen and linen stockings also became important. Domestic weaving, as a subsidiary occupation, did not produce much linen cloth for sale in the seventeenth century, but the same century saw the rise on a large scale of professional linen weaving in the city of Turku (Abo), from whence considerable quantities were exported to Sweden, primarily to Stockholm. ¹ Finland was a part of the Swedish Kingdom until 1809 and thereafter a part of the Russian Empire until 1917 The gild of linen weavers in Turku steadily increased in strength until about the 1750s, after which date the number of masters and workers began to decrease rapidly despite the fact that Swedish tariff policy protected native cloth manufacture against foreign imports.² The decline of professional linen weaving was due to the increase in rural domestic industry in both Sweden and Finland. Linen weaving in Turku suffered particularly from the rapid increase in the production of fine linen in the Swedish province of Ångermanland,³ though the growth of rural weaving in Finland Proper also played a part. Rural weavers, of course, failed to achieve the technical proficiency of the best professional weavers in Turku, but they came close enough to be dangerous competitors. The urban weavers derived their livelihood solely from weaving, while the rural weavers exercised their craft in the intervals of farming work, principally in winter time, and were more able to content themselves with lower earnings from a subsidiary occupation than were the urban weavers. The result was that the Turku gild of weavers disappeared entirely during the early decades of the nineteenth century, while linen weaving in the neighbouring rural districts remained fairly vigorous.     

A case study in German economic imperialism: The colonial economic committee, 1896–1914

Abstract

The most thorough attempt so far made to estimate the population of Finland in the 17th century is that by the Swedish military historian, Major S. Sundquist. The purpose of his investigation was to discover the basis of enlistment in the army of the kingdom of Sweden under Gustavus II Adolphus. Sundquist obtained the number of farmsteads from the Crown terriers of the first decade of the 17th century and from lists drawn up in connexion with a levy raised to buy back the castle of Elfsborg lost to Denmark in the war of 1611–1613. His next step was to assess the average size of households. In source materials from the sheriffdoms (fögderier) of Porvoo (Borgå) and Kymi (Kymmene) an assessment term, näbb, was found. Sundquist interpreted this term as indicating the number of married couples living in a farm household in addition to the farmer and his wife. In the two sheriffdoms mentioned, the number of such additional couples was 1.14 per farmstead. Sundquist changed this ratio into the round figure of one which he applied to the whole country, thus assuming a national average of two married couples per farm. Assuming, furthermore, that the population structure was the same in the 17th century as in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the earliest official population statistics were drawn up, he assumed for each married couple the same number of widows and widowers, unmarried adults and children as appeared in these statistics. In this way he arrived at a ‘probable minimum’ of 350,000 persons; he also calculated a ‘proved minimum’ of 219,000 by assuming that the average number of married couples per farmstead was 2.14 in the sheriffdorns of Porvoo and Kymi but only 1.0 in the rest of Finland. ¹ S. Sundquist, Finlands folkmängd och bebyggelse i början av 1600-talet [Finland's population and colonization at the beginning of the 17th century], Meddelanden Iran generalstabens krigshistoriska avdelning II, Stockholm.      

Norwegian timber exports in the 18th Century: A comparison of port books and private accounts

Abstract

The subject of Norwegian timber exports in the 18th century is a very wide one and it is not the intention of this article to treat it fully. The purpose here is to discuss some of the problems connected with the subject, especially the special character of the port books and their value as historical source material. The method adopted in this investigation will be to compare the information derived from the port books with the information afforded by a private archive.     

Finnish foreign trade in the 18th century

Abstract

In this comprehensive study, Professor Alanen deals with Finnish foreign trade and shipping from the opening of the 18th century until roughly the time of Finland's secession from Sweden in 1809.     

The population of Denmark, 1660–1960

Abstract

The most important sources for the study of population trends in Denmark from 1660 to 1801 are the somewhat crude but fairly well preserved Census of Peasants¹ (compiled in the autumn of 1660), the incomplete census of 1769,² and the very reliable population census of 1801.³ If the reliability of the first two of these censuses can be evaluated and their defects remedied, it ought to be possible to verify the pattern of demographic development in the intervening period parish by parish, herred by herred or province by province, by reference to parish registers and records of births and deaths. For it may be assumed that the aggregate growth of the kingdom's population did not significantly exceed the aggregate excess of births over deaths.     

Burn-beating as the technical basis of colonisation in Finland in the 16th and 17th centuries

Abstract

In the forest regions of northern Europe burn-beating has always been associated with the clearance of previously untilled land and human settlement. Colonisation based on burn-beating continued in Finland well into modern times, and burn-beating was practised in many places even after the period of first settlement. In Finland's eastern provinces of Savo and Karelia, it was still the predominant form of cultivation in the 18th century; in these provinces it played an essential role in farming into the early 19th century and it was not until the latter part of the century that burn-beating began to die out because of the rapid growth of the timber trade; it finally disappeared only in the early 20th century.     

Swedish artisans in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The history of the artisan class and of the gild system in Sweden has been dealt with in a number of works, such as Professor E. Heckscher's Sveriges ekonomiska historia [The Economic History of Sweden] and in two of the volumes of the great work of Landsorganisationen ¹ Landsorganisationen, popularly known as ‘L.O’, the Swedish equivalent of the T.U.C. : Den svenska arbetarklassens historia [History of the Swedish Working Class], as well as in Professor E. Söderlund's Stockholms hantverkarklass 1720–1772 [The Artisan Class of Stockholm, 1720–1772]. These topics are of course also touched upon in histories of towns and other literature. However, in those studies which cover the whole country the subject has only been pursued to the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th. The subsequent period is discussed in Henry Lindström's two books Näringsfrihetens utveckling i Sverige 1809–1836 and Näringsirihetsirågan i Sverige 1837–1864 [The Development of Industrial Freedom in Sweden, 1809–1836, and The Problem of Industrial Freedom in Sweden, 1837–1864], but only from a special point of view. Thanks, however, to the good offices of Sveriges hantuerks- och småindustriorgonisation (The Swedish Craft and Minor Industries Organisation), an attempt has now been made, in a work by Dr. Tom Söderberg that has been in preparation for some time, to fill the gap thus existing in respect of the period after 1815. The result, in spite of the relatively limited number of pages, is a very comprehensive exposition, even if the subject obviously cannot be exhausted within the given frame of reference.     

Russia and the world market in the seventeenth century

Abstract

At the end of the 16th century there were three principle routes linking the Russian market with Western Europe: an overland route through Poland, a sea route through the Baltic, and another sea route across the White Sea from the port of Archangel.     

Peasant trading and shipping in the Gulf of Finland

Abstract

Docent Gunvor Kerkkonen's study of the shipping and trading activities of the peasants of the coastal areas of Nyland (Uusimaa) is the result of a long period of research. The author's work has made her familiar with the era and the subject; many of her earlier publications have been concerned with the same centuries and the same regions and have touched upon questions discussed in the present work. Dr. Kerkkonen's knowledge of the subject is indeed necessary, for the source material is exceptionally scattered and fragmentary. Items of information were found here and there in medieval and 16th century documents, but the only two extensive collections of material are from the 16th century. The author's versatility and thoroughness in her handling of the subject matter are therefore particulary meritorious. The work is confined to the coasted areas of Nyland, the middle sector of the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, as comparable studies of the other districts are known to be in progress.     

The Birkarlians in the melting pot

Abstract

In 1924 the Finnish historian, Jalmari Jaakkola, published a study Pirkkalaisliikkeen synty (The Birth of the Birkarlian Movement) in which he argued convincingly for the theory that the Birkarlians (Pirkkalaiset), who lived in the sixteenth century in the northernmost corner of the Gulf of Bothnia and levied taxes on the Lapps, were of Finnish origin. In Jaakkola's opinion, the Birkarlians were the successors of even older west-Finnish armed Lapland-farers, the men of Kainuu, who from at least the thirteenth century onwards made long hunting treks, chiefly from the parish of Pirkkala (Birkala) in Upper Satakunta, into Lapland and along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and gradually subjected a great proportion of the Lapps to taxation. This theory has been generally accepted in Finnish historical literature, and a number of Swedish scholars have even given it their blessing with minor reservations.¹ In the summer of 1964, six months after the death of Professor Jaakkola, a complete surprise was sprung from the Swedish side. Birger Steckzén, former keeper of Sweden's military archives, published a 500-page work entitled Birkarlar och lappar (Birkarlians and Lapps). In it, he tried to refute the Finnish theory and made the Birkarlians of the Far North into Swedes. The Swedish word 'birkarls', in his opinion, is an archaic form of the ‘biurkarl’ (biur = beaver in Old Swedish). The Birkarls, i.e. beavermen, were thus, he claimed, Swedish beaver trappers who subjugated the whole of Lapland in the early Middle Ages.     

Agrarian history as a sub-field of Swedish economic history

Abstract

During the first half of this century a main interest in international economic history was the focus on towns and trade. This path of research derived support from both Adam Smith and Karl Marx, as well as, for example, Karl Bücher in the late 19th century and, of course, Henri Pirenne in the early 20th century.     

Denmark in China 1839–65: A pawn in a British game

Abstract

Denmark's trading connections with China date back to the seventeenth century, but it was not until the establishment of Asiatisk Kompagni (the Danish Asiatic Company) in 1732 that they became at all regular. In the period between the Company's foundation and the outbreak of war with England in 1807, 124 ships were sent to China; imported Chinese products were the basis of the trade, and of course the Danish market was too small to absorb such a volume of business. The China trade was therefore primarily a transit trade with Copenhagen as the entrepôt: conditions for this were particularly favourable during periods of war between the European great powers when, by virtue of their neutrality, Danish ships were able to take over a major share in supplying the north-west European market. The war of 1807–14 with England, however, entirely changed both the external political and the internal economic conditions for the continuation of this traffic. Thus the exceptionally large-scale and, by Danish standards, profitable operations of Asiatisk Kompagni in the eighteenth century were emphatically a passing phenomenon produced by the peculiar business conditions of the time.¹     

Camilla Josephson,Growth and Business Cycles: Swedish Manufacturing Industry 1953–2001

Abstract

Danish historians, like those of other countries, have increasingly devoted their attention in the 20th century to the study of the economic and social aspects of historical evolution, in the belief that these aspects are of fundamental importance to the understanding of political and cultural history—indeed to the deeper understanding of the whole course of history. At present, however, the only complete account of the history of economic life in Denmark is one which appeared in a German series dealing with a number of different European countries. The series included Französische Wirtschaftsgeschichte by Henri Sée, Holländische Wirtschaftsgeschichte by E. Baasch, Norwegische Wirtschaftsgeschichte by O. A. Johnsen, and Allgemeine Wirtschaitsgeschiclite by E. Kulischer.     

Macroeconomic history in Sweden

Abstract

The term macrohistory can have reference to the overall history of large units, e.g. world development during the last two hundred years, or European history in the Middle Ages. Another example is the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Yet another is the macrohistorical problem posed by Jones in a recently-published book. He pursues the thesis that tendencies to economic growth have been present in most societies but that for various reasons they have been prevented from becoming more than just tendencies: “Why Europe rather than China?”¹     

Early history of banking in Gothenburg discount house operations 1783–1818

Abstract

For many years Sweden lacked a well-developed banking system. Even by the middle of the eighteenth century, there were no established institutions for the effective mobilising and channelling of capital. However, Sweden's economic development during the eighteen century, when commerce and the production of goods were expanding swiftly, increased the need for some institutionalising of capital movements and the establishment of fixed forms, especially for personal credits. During the latter half of the century, the Swedish Rikshankdid deliberately conduct certain types of operation whose effect was to satisfy a growing demand for capital in some sectors, of the economy. This was effected through such bodies as Manufakturdiskontoen(The Manufacturers' Discount Bank), Generalassistans-kontoret(General Assistance Office), Diskontkompaniet(the Discount Company), Generaldiskontkontoret(the General Discounting Office) and Riksgäldskontoret(the National Debt Office). ¹ On this development generally see Fritz, S., Studier i svenskt bänkväsen 1772-1789, Stockholm 1967 and literature referred to therein.      

Patterns of concentration in the newspaper industry

Abstract

This short paper, presented in 1967 as a thesis, is a resume of seven rather more specialised articles by the same author, together with some conclusions drawn from them. The original articles, running to 253 pages, described the concentration which has taken place in the structure of the Swedish press since 1945, resulting in a reduction of at least one-third in the number of daily newspapers and in the replacement, to a large extent, of fierce competition by local quasi-monopolies. The purely factual events were already known in some detail, in particular from the report of the Investigation into the Press (SOU 1965: 22) for which the author's own efforts were largely responsible. He is also responsible for the view, which rounds off his analysis of the structural development of the Swedish press, that growth and decline in newspapers are the result of a self-generated process of increasing strength within given marketing areas (e.g. local districts), the interaction of circulation, advertising and revenue automatically ensuring a continual increase in the lead of the largest paper until it finally eliminates its weaker competitors. This process is called by the author ‘the circulation spiral’ (upplagespiralen). The principle can be recognised in various forms in recent developments in the press of many western countries. Attention has been drawn to it by the present reviewer in connection with the even higher mortality rate in the Danish press, and it would appear to be relevant to the study of other branches of the economy.