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Liberals, Socialists, and Sobriety: The Rhetoric of Citizenship in Turn-of-the-Century Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Madeleine Hurd
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh

Abstract

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Type
Drinking and the Working Class
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1994

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References

NOTES

1. For examples of these paradigms, see Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to Roosevelt (New York, 1955);Google ScholarDye's, Nancy introduction to Gender, Class, Race and Reform in the Progressive Era, ed. Frankl, Noralee and Dye, Nancy (Lexington, Ky., 1991);Google ScholarField, Peter, “A New Cross-Cultural Study of Drunkenness”, in Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns, ed. Pittman, David et al. , (Carbondale, Ill., 1962);Google ScholarBarrows, Susanna, “After the Commune: Alcoholism, Temperance and Literature in the Early Third Republic”, in Consciousness and Class Experience in 19th Century Europe, ed. Merriman, John (New York, 1979);Google Scholar and Johnson, Paul, A Shopkeepers' Millenium. Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1836 (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

2. See Jones, Gareth Stedman, “Class Expression versus Social Control? A Critique of Recent Trends in the Social History of ‘Leisure’”, in Languages of Class. Studies in English Working Class History 1832–1982 (Cambridge, 1983), 7689;Google ScholarHarrison, Brian, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872, (Pittsburgh, 1971);Google Scholaridem, Peaceable Kingdom. Stability and Change in Modern Britain (Oxford, 1982); Leventhal, F.M., Respectable Radical: George Howell and Victorian Working Class Politics (Cambridge, Mass., 1971);Google ScholarShiman, Lilian, The Crusade Against Drink in Victorian England (New York, 1988);CrossRefGoogle ScholarMalcolm, Elizabeth, Ireland Sober, Ireland Free: Drink and Temperance in 19th Century Ireland (Syracuse, N.Y., 1986);Google ScholarBretherton, George, “Against the Flowing Tide: Whiskey and Temperance in the Making Classes Before 1917”, both in Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, ed. Barrows, Susanna and Room, Robin (Berkeley, 1991);Google ScholarEpstein, Barbara, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in 19th Century America (Middletown, Conn., 1981);Google ScholarLundkvist, Sven, Politik, nykterhet och reformer. En studie i folkrörelsernas politiska verksamhet 1900–1920 (Uppsala, 1974);Google Scholaridem, Folkrörelserna i det svenska samhället, 1850–1920 (Stockholm, 1977); and Ambjörnsson, Ronny, Den skötsamma arbetaren. Idéer och ideal i ett norrländskt sågverkssamhälle 1880–1930 (Malmö, 1988).Google Scholar

3. Carlsson, Sten, Bonden i svensk historia, vol. II (Stockholm, 1956), 14.Google Scholar

4. For analyses of liberal party formation, see Vincent, John, The Formation of theLiberal Party (London, 1966);Google ScholarEley, Geoff, “Liberalism, Europe, and the Bourgeoisie 1860- 1914”, in The German Bourgeoisie. Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Cenetury, ed. Blackbourn, David and Evans, Richard (London, 1991), 296;Google Scholaridem, “Notable Politics, the Crisis of German Liberalism, and the Electoral Transition of the 1890s”, in In Search of a Liberal Germany. Studies in the History of German Liberalism from 1789 to the Present, ed. Konrad Jarausch and Larry Jones (New York, 1991), 195–96; and Evans, Richard, Rethinking German History (London, 1987), 114–16.Google Scholar

5. See Rönblom, Hans-Krister, Den frisinnade landsföreningen 1902–1927 (Stockholm, 1929), 11, 24, 29, 33, 35, 38–39;Google Scholar and Scott, Franklin, Sweden: The Nation's History (Minneapolis, 1977).Google Scholar

6. Carlsson, Sten, Svensk historia, vol. II (Stockholm, 1961), 497502; Scott, Sweden, 410–11.Google Scholar

7. For dissenter numbers and politics, see Svärd, Lydia, Väckelserörelsernas folk i andra kammaren 1867–1880 (Stockholm, 1954), 113,Google Scholar 188–89; Gunnar Wallin, Valrörelser och valresultat 1866–1884 (Stockholm, 1961), 258.

8. Not until 1920, with the decline of temperance, did unionized workers begin to outnumber temperance members. Exact numbers vary according to sources. For 1890, 1 have used Kennerström, Bernt, Katalog till Land du välsignade: Nordiska muséets och Riksutställningars vandringsutställning om industrialismens genombrott: Sverige, arbetarnas mujöer och folkrörelsernas framväxt 1850–1914 (Stockholm, 1974), 92;Google Scholar for the rest, Scott, Sweden 410; Bergmann, Johann, Den svenska nykterhetsrörelsens historia: en översikt, (Stockholm, 1913), 181–85;Google ScholarÖhngren, Bo, “Folkrörelserna och den ofantliga sektorn”, in Med eller mot strömmen? En antologi om svenskafolkrörelser, ed. Eriksson, Maj-Lis (Stockholm, 1980), 172;Google Scholar and Hjalmar Blomgren, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm (Stockholm, 1908), 305.

9. “Goodtemplarfest”, N.R. Malmström speaking, Tiden, June 3, 1884; “Fria Ord”, signed Gustaf Elmgren, Reformatorn, March 9, 1893.

10. See contemporary analysis by Axelsson, Pär, Vid femli år. Minnen och hågkomster från norr och söder, 2nd ed. (Hälsingborg, 1919), 107;Google Scholar confirmed by Lundkvist, Politik, nykterhet och reformer, 36; idem, Folkrörelserna i det svenska samhället, 1850–1920 (Stockholm, 1977), 104–28.

11. See “Kommunalstyrelsen och brännvinsförsäljningen i huvudstaden”, Tiden, July 19, 1884, for the argument used by the Stockholm City Council in rejecting a proposed law requiring food to be bought with schnapps. On the upper classes' liquor, see argument in “Nykterhetssaken och dess motståndare”, Tiden, December 16, 1884. On Goodtemplar opponents, see “Våra vedersakare”, Reformatorn, October 15, 1896.

12. Letter to the editor, Verdandisten, May 1, 1897.

13. “Nykterhetsfest”, Tiden, June 3, 1884.

14. “Arbetarfrågan sedd ur goodtemplarsynpunkt”, speech by Westin, C.E., Tiden, February 4, 1885.Google Scholar

15. For the conservative argument, see Norrlid, Ingemar, “Kommunen som bolag? en studie i liberal rösträttspolitik före förstra världskriget”, Scandia (1970);Google Scholar for pro-suffrage arguments, see “Ströblad för folket”, Stockholms rösträttsförbund, 1–16, “Rösträttsrörelsen”, Box No. 108, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv.

16. Hedin quoted in Spångberg, Valfrid, Första kammarens nykterhetsplitk och andra-kammarvalen (Stockholm, 1905), 56.Google Scholar

17. “Nykterhetsvännernas valmöte”, Tiden, October 7, 1885.

18. “Kommunalstyrelsen och brännvinsfärsäljningen i huvudstaden”, Tiden, July 19, 1884.

19. “Upprop till Stockholms arbetare”, Tiden, December 27, 1884; “Strejk mot spriten”, Szockholins-Tidningen, March 3, 1903; E. Franson, “Vi införa gärna nedanstående”, Social-Demokraten, February 21, 1903; see Social-Demokraten, February 25 and June 26, 1903, for further expressions of sympathy for a liquor strike; and “Skatt eller icke skatt å rusdrycker”, Social-Demokraten, February 27, 1903, for an invitation by the Social Democratic Temperance Group to a mass meeting on the subject.

20. “Demonstrationstal”, Reformatorn, September 14, 1893; “En kamp för sanningen och framtiden” (Hjalmar Wernberg speaking), Reformatorn, August 1, 1895; Reformatorn, May 7, 1896. “Overclass” and “underclass”, rather than “upper” and “lower”, were the terms usually used.

21. Lundkvist, Folkrörelserna idet svenska samhället, 171–73; Blomgren, Goodremplarminnen från Stockholm, 89. On the Liberal Electors' Association, see IOGT: International Order of Goodtemplars, Board meeting minutes for May 29, 1883; January 15, 1884; February 4, 1884; July 27, 1884, in “Stockholm IOGT distriktloges protokoller”, IOGT: Stockholms distrikiloges arkiv; Berndt Lundquist, “Stockholms liberala valmansförbund. Några erinringar av Berndt Lundquist”, Svenska Folket, January 18, 1910. On the General Election Committee, see Tiden, July 31, 1884; on the Electors' Association founding, ibid., July 22, 1884; and August 13, 1884 (Association advertisement).

22. Allmänna valmansförbundet rhetoric quoted in “Radikala valförberedelser”, Reformatorn, July 17, 1895.

23. “Hälsningstal”, in Meddelande från Sveriges Agrarförbund II: “I Dagens Frågor”, Agrarförbundets extra möte i Malmö d. 3. July 1896 (Stockholm, 1896), 4.

24. Ibid., 9 (italics theirs); see also “Patentpatrioterna och nykterhetsrörelsen”, Reformatorn, September 17, 1896.

25. Quoted in Petré, Monika, “Nykterhetsrörelsen 1908–1911–en maktfaktor i det politiska livet” (MA thesis, Stockholm University, 1966), 1014.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 21.

27. On the 1908 Executive Committee, see ibid., 25. On local option bills, see “1914A” (1911 demands of Frisinnade landsförening), in Svenska valprogram 1902–1952, ed. Håkansson, SvenOlof (Göteborg, 1959);Google Scholar Svärd, Väckelserörelsernas folk i andra kammaren, 336.

28. Petré, Nykterhetsrörelsen, 25; Nykterhetsfolkerts i Stockholm Centralförsamling, Nykterhetsfolkets i Stockholm Cenralförsamling. Tio års kamp 1901–1911 (Stockholm, 1911), 7.

29. In 1910. Nykterhetsfolkets i Stockholm Centralförsamling, 7.

30. In 1912, 67 percent of left-liberal M.P.s endorsed prohibition; 12 percent of the conservatives and 84 percent of the social democrats did so. Petré, Nykterhetsrörelsen, 34, 72.

31. For patterns of industrialization, see Gustafson, Uno, Industrialismens storstad. Studier rörande Stockholms sociala, ekonomiska och demo grafiska struktur 1860–1910 (Stockholm, 1976), 3435;Google Scholar for the rate of both industrialization and urbanization, see Kaelble, Hartmut, “Der Mythos von der rapiden Industrialisierung in Deutschland”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983): 117, 180;Google Scholar and Gårdlund, Torsten, Industrialismens samhälle (Stockholm, 1942), 297300.Google Scholar

32. For a description of the leisure activities common at the iron foundries, see Johansson, Johan-Olov, Smeder, brukspatroner och bergsmän, 2nd ed. (Ystad, 1980).Google Scholar

33. See interview with Gustav Zetterlund, “En sågverkares liv”, in Rehnberg, Matts, Jag kan berätta: Arbetarminnen från gamla tiders Sverige (Stockholm: n.d.), 3035.Google Scholar See also stories by Goodtemplars Martin Koch and Hjalmar Wernberg, excerpted in NBV's Stockholm Avdelning, Nykterhetsrorelsen i litteraturen (Stockholm, 1979).Google Scholar

34. On the attraction of secret activities, see interview with ex-sawmill worker Knut Granström, “Bland hälsinge sågarå, in Från proletariat till arbetarklass. Sågverksarbetarminnen från Gävleborg, ed. Gaunt, David (n.p., 1981), 35;Google Scholar for games, singing and dances, see Blomgren memoirs, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm, 199.

35. Bergman, Den svenska nykterhetsrörelsens historia, 180–89; Hirsch, Axel, “Folkbildningsarbetet”, in Social Handbook, ed. von Koch, G.H. (Stockholm, 1908), 155–56.Google Scholar

36. For political meetings in Inner Mission Houses and Baptist and Methodist chapels, see Svärd, Väckelserörelsernos folk i andra kammaren, 3; on suffrage meetings in Goodtemplar locales, see Axelsson, Vid femli år, 67–68, 74.

37. See IOGT, district board meeting minutes of February 4, 1884; Blomgren, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm, 305; Wallin, Valrörelser och valresultat, 295–96; Lindberg, Folke, Växande stad: Stockholms stadsfullmäktige 1862–1900 (Stockholm, 1980), 305, 307.Google Scholar

38. Advertisements in Tiden, September 27, 1884, February 7, 1885.

39. For examples of support groups and mutual insurance funds, see Rehnberg, Matts Erik, Byggnadsarbetarminnen (Stockholm, 1950), 77;Google ScholarSollinger, Günther, Sjuk och begravningskassor och andra understödskassor i Kungliga bibliotekets samlingar (Stockholm, 1985), 5456.Google Scholar

40. Anonymous, , Förhandlingar vid sjette allmänna industri-idkarmötet i Göteborg den 19, 20, 21 augusti 1892 (Göteborg, 1892), 51.Google Scholar

41. Gustaf af Geijerstam, “Arbetareförhållanden”, in Stockholm: Sveriges hufvudstad, skildrad med anledning af allmänna konst- och industriutställningen 1897, ed. Dahlgren, E.W. (Stockholm, 1897), 6970.Google Scholar

42. Axelsson, Vid femti åar, 103.

43. Tiden, February 24, 1885.

44. Olsson, K.J., Textilerna. Några blad ur textilarbetarrörelsens historia. Svenska textilbarbetareförbundet 1898–1938 (Norrkoping, 1938), 42.Google Scholar

45. Lindgren, , Svenska metallindustriarberarförbundets historia, vol. 7 (Stockholm, 1938), 92.Google Scholar

46. Beckholmen, Kuno, 100 år med Metall-Ettan, vol. I (Stockholm, 1984), 57, 58, 248–49.Google Scholar

47. See description of Ernst Blomberg in the Stockholm Workers' Commune 1899 election leaflet, “Krets avdelningar, circulärer”, Stockholms Arbetarkommun, copy in Arbetarrörelsens arkiv, Stockholm.

48. Lundin, Claes, Nya Stockholm (Stockholm, 1890), 648.Google Scholar

49. “Logen Klippans Fasthet”, Reformatorn, September 30, 1898.

51. As Brian Harrison has pointed out, an English teetotaling union leader, it was thought, was more likely to be trustworthy and dependable. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, 396; see also Leventhal, Respectable Radical.

52. 1912 Malmö “agitation report” from Tholin, Claes E., quoted in Lindley, Charles, Svenska Transportarbetareförbundet: Historik. Första delen 1897–1922 (Stockholm, 1943), 288.Google Scholar

53. Verdandi, Nykterhetsorden, Verdandi: Arbetarnas nykterhetsförbund, 40-års jubileum 2 Feb 1936 (Stockholm, 1936), 8.Google Scholar

54. Lindley, Charles, Transportarbetareförbundets (internationella och svenska) start och utveckling, 1897–1907: En tio-årsskrift (Stockholm, 1907), 67.Google Scholar

55. Håkanson, N.H. Ossian, Bland kulturens primärarbetare. Ur gro voch fabriksarbetets historia (Stockholm, 1928), 253.Google Scholar

56. Kilbom, Karl, Ur mitt livs äventyr (Stockholm, 1953), 149.Google Scholar

57. “Ökade löner—mera fylleri?” Reformatorn, August 27, 1896.

58. Lindley, Svenska Transportarbetareförbundet, 31, 288.

59. Lindley, Transportarbetareförbundets, 71.

60. Håkansson, Bland kulturens primärarbetare, 75, 221.

61. Ibid., 235, 303–05, 319–21.

62. Ibid., 321.

63. For unions meeting at Goodtemplar locales, see “Jordschacktare och grovarbetare möte i goodtemplarlokalen 51 A”, Tiden, September 13, 1894; on the Social Democratic Club doing the same, see “Social-demokratiska klubben”, ibid., March 30, 1885.

64. On the Hudviksvall Goodtemplar lodge, see Tiden, June 12, 1885; ibid., July 21, 1884xs, on the 200-people strong Nationalbandet “folk” meeting.

65. Lindley, Svenska Transporrarbetareförbundet, 192–93.

66. “Nykterhetsvänner! Upp till deltagande i 1 maj demonstrationen”, 1896 leaflet signed Otto Elmgren and Ernst Strömberg, in “Circulärer, tryck, broschyrer, upprop”, Nykterhets Orden Verdandi (NOV), NOVs arkiv, Arbetarrörelsens arkiv.

67. “Ökade löner–mera fylleri?” Reformatorn, August 27, 1896.

68. Granström, “Bland hälsinge sågar”, 35.

69. Ljungquist, Ivar, Tidningsmästare och -gesäller (Stockholm, 1955), 47, 80, 136–38.Google Scholar

70. Axelsson, Vid femti år, 155.

71. Verdandi, Nykterhetsorden, “Fästskrift med anledning av NOVs 20 års minne, 1896- 1916”, Verdandisten, February 1, 1916, 10. See also accounts in Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, Verdandi, 31.Google Scholar

72. Landin, Sven, Stockholms byggnadsarbetare (Borås, 1985), 41.Google Scholar

73. Håkansson, Bland kulturens primärarbetare, 161. The motion was defeated, but 198 of 384 congress members agreed that all union representatives should have a “sober way of life”. See Beckholmen, 100 år med Metall-ettan, 58–59.

74. “Insandare” and “Jag är goodtemplare”, Social-Demokraten, December 25, 1885; “Goodtemplars föreningen”, ibid., July 23, 1887.

75. Vennerström, Ivar, F. V. Thorsson. En minneskrift (Stockholm, 1926), 83, 98–100, 103–10, 223–24, 196.Google Scholar

76. See Bergman, Den svenska nykterhetsrörelsens historia, 214; Blomgren, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm, 86, 243; Magnusson, Gerhard, Social-demokratin i Sverige (Stockholm, 1921), 347–51;Google ScholarNerman, Ture, K. J. Gabrielsson (Stockholm, 1942), 2223.Google Scholar

77. See the description of the Young Socialists in Henrik Berggren, “Workers' Education and Representation of Class in the Swedish Labour Movement 1900–1939”, in Language and the Construction of Class Identities, ed. Stråth, Bo (Gothenburg, 1990), 475–79.Google Scholar

78. See IOGT, district lodge minutes for June 1, 1883; January 15, 1884; May 18, 1884; May 18, 1884; Verdandi, Nykterhets Orden, Fästskrift: Utgiven till NOVs 25-årsjubileum den 2 Feb. 1921 (Stockholm, 1921), 21, 22, 46;Google Scholar Blomgren, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm, 193–207; Löfkvist, Konrad, Sammandrag av förhandlingarna vid NOVs Rikslogemöten åren 1896–1905 (Stockholm, 1906), 46.Google Scholar

79. Blomgren, Goodtemplarminnen från Stockholm, 305.

80. “To the Credit” and “Sins”, Verdandisten, March 18, 1897. See also April 15, 1897; June 1, 1897; April 7, 1898; March 18, 1897; June 3, 1897.

81. Ibid., April 15, 1897.

82. Ibid., April 6, 1905, 290.

83. Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, “Fästskrift med anledning av NOVs 20 års minne”, 11.

84. See leaflet entitled “Medborgare! Att bruket av rusgivande drycker”, signed Knut Tengdahl, J. A. Karlsson, J. A. Johansson, et al., in NOV, “Circulärer, tryck, broschyrer, upprop.”

85. Quoted in Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, Verdandi, 11.

86. Quoted in ibid., 53.

87. Verdandisten, May 15, 1897; April 6, 1905; April 7, 1898; Wilden, Thor, Jättarnes kamp, eller Absolutism och arbetarepolitik (Stockholm, 1906), 11.Google Scholar

88. Neumann, Ivar, NOVs Årsbok 1910, (Stockholm, 1910), 31.Google Scholar

89. Ibid.

90. Ibid.

91. Quoted in Tarschy, Bernhard, “Perspektiv på åtti-talet”, in Historia kring Stockholm, ed. Neveus, Torgney (Stockholm, 1967), 149–50.Google Scholar

92. As social democrat Hjalmar Larsson supposedly put it. Quoted in Ljungkvist, Tidningsmästare och -gesäller, 198.

93. Quoted in Nykterhetsorden Verdandi, Verdandi, 11.

94. Quoted in ibid.

95. Editorials, Svenska morgonbladet, August 13, 1914; August 11, 1914.

96. Otto von Zweigbeck quoted in Palme, Sven Ulric, På Karl Staaffs tid (Stockholm, 1964), 33. Palme also makes this point.Google Scholar

97. Staaff's 1914 reply to meeting of Uppsala student group Heimdal, quoted in ibid., 44.