Johan A. Lundin

Sweden 1880–1910: The Age of the Labour Movement

Greiff and Lundin offer a stringent overview on the rise and consolidation of the Swedish labour movement. Their chapter includes five crucial events: the violent struggles in Malmo in 1890; the strike at Norberg in 1891–1892; the strike for general voting rights in 1902; the explosion on the ship Amalthea in 1908; and the general strike in 1909. These local events, showing a struggle from below, are put into a more national and transnational context. By that, the dialectic relationship between micro and macro perspectives in history becomes evident. It is necessary to study ordinary workers in a local context to understand the rise of a national labour movement.

The Salvation Army in Sweden and the Making of Gender — Conversion Narratives 1887–1918

This article discusses how Swedish Salvationists wrote about femininity and masculinity in conversion narratives during the period 1887–1918; the “breakthrough” of modern Sweden. Through their religious conversion female Salvationists adopted a femininity that demanded the same right to participate in religious life as men. In a similar manner, men in the Salvation Army achieved a changed masculinity through conversion, which allowed them to express feelings and cry in public. Doing so, these Salvationists expressed an unconscious or conscious criticism towards the prevailing values about gender in society.