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.