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Mechanics of Patronage: Christopher Polhem and the Changing Regimes of the Swedish State \(1680-1750\)

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Mechanics of Patronage: Christopher Polhem and the Changing Regimes of the Swedish State \(1680-1750\) Artefact Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines 4 | 2016 L’Europe technicienne, XVe-XVIIIe siècle Mechanics of patronage: Christopher Polhem and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750) Jacob Orrje Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/artefact/383 DOI: 10.4000/artefact.383 ISSN: 2606-9245 Publisher: Association Artefact. Techniques histoire et sciences humaines, Presses universitaires du Midi Printed version Date of publication: 1 October 2016 Number of pages: 135-146 ISBN: 978-2-7535-5174-9 ISSN: 2273-0753 Electronic reference Jacob Orrje, « Mechanics of patronage: Christopher Polhem and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750) », Artefact [Online], 4 | 2016, Online since 07 July 2017, connection on 19 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/artefact/383 ; DOI : 10.4000/artefact.383 Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines Mechanics of patronage : Christopher Polhem and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750) Jacob ORRJE * « Similar to how a crowd of soldiers can accomplish little with their manliness without a sensible captain, the whole lot of craftsmen cannot make anything extraor- dinary without a good mechanicus. » Christopher Polhem, « Thoughts about mechanics » (1740) **. 135 Résumé Cet essai traite des politiques liées à la technologie pendant la période moderne à partir du mécanicien suédois Christophe Polhem. Durant la monarchie absolue du début du xviiie siècle, Polhem obtient avec succès un patronage royal. Mais sous la monarchie constitutionnelle des années 1720, ses relations royales deviennent pro- blématiques. À partir de Polhem, cet article vise à montrer l’ironie de la manière dont certains mécaniciens, présentés comme de fidèles sujets de l’ordre de la première modernité, ont été considérés comme des agents de changements. Mots-clefs : absolutisme, époque moderne, mécanique, patronage, Suède. *. Jacob Orrje is a researcher in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University. In 2015, he completed the PhD Mechanicus: performing an early modern persona on mechanics in eighteenth-century Sweden as an exercise of virtuous subjects in a hierarchic political order. At the moment, he is commencing a postdoctoral research project on the Swedish congregation in eighteenth-century London as a scientiic contact zone. **. Christopher Polhem, « Tankar om mekaniken », Kungliga vetenskapsakademiens handlingar, 1740, n° 1, p. 193. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Swedish sourcer are my own. Jacob Orrje Abstract This essay approaches the politics of early modern technology through the Swedish mechan- ical practitioner Christopher Polhem. During the absolute monarchy of early 18th century Sweden, Polhem successfully attained royal patronage. But under the constitutional monarchy of the 1720s, his royal connections became a problem. Through Polhem, this essay aims to show the irony of how mechanical practitioners, who presented themselves as faithful subjects of an early modern order, retrospectively have been interpreted as agents of change. Keywords: absolutism, early modern, mechanics, patronage, Sweden. This is an essay about the politics of operating a public sphere, as opposed to early modern technology, and more the sphere of the state. These men were specifically how one mechanical prac- presented as champions of modernity, titioner related to, and was formed into often at odds with the contempora- a symbol for, changing political orders. ries, or as visionaries who were ahead Studies of early modern invention have of their time2. The historiography of generally focused either on the English the Swedish mechanical practitioner constitutional monarchy or on abso- Christopher Polhem (1661–1751) is no lutist France. Here, I shift focus from different, and it follows a similar logic to 136 these states, which have often been pre- these other heroes of invention.3 He was sented as the source of modern indus- born as Christopher Polhammar, a son trialism, to the poor Northern-European of a German merchant who, like many state of Sweden. The Swedish case other Germans of the time, had made a highlights how expectations changed new life in the rising Swedish empire. as political systems replaced each other. By designing useful machinery, mainly Furthermore, by changing focus from in the expanding Swedish metal pro- states traditionally considered the source duction, Polhem made a name for him- of Western industrialism, to Europe’s self both among his contemporaries and northern periphery, I disentangle early among later-day historians. Some of his modern mechanics from long narra- contemporaries came to call him « the tives of modernity and industrialism. In Archimedes of the North » and to histo- the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, rians of the 19th and 20th centuries he was Europe’s technological past was enrolled the « father of Swedish technology4 ». As in liberal ideology and historiography, with other heroes of invention, his histo- according to which early modern riography is one of a man who aligned mechanical practitioners were agents himself with the expectations of his who brought about a modern industrial contemporary regime and who then was order1. In heroic biographies of the time, continuously reinterpreted and used by men such as James Watt and Gottfried posterity for a multitude of purposes. Wilhelm Leibniz came to be interpreted By studying Polhem’s relationship as entrepreneurs and as agents of change to the changing political regimes of his Mechanics of patronage time, it is not only possible to separate jects of the realm. When writing this text, the early modern mechanical practi- Polhem was 79 years old. He had lived a tioner from this nineteenth-and twen- long life, not only as a maker of mecha- tieth-century historiography. Also, a nical inventions – for use in war, mining study of the early modern politics that and manufactories – but also as a valued made Polhem’s technology possible can part of the Swedish scientific communi- show the irony of a historiography of ties of natural philosophers and mathe- technology where mechanical practitio- maticians. Over the course of Polhem’s ners, who actively presented themselves long life, Sweden’s political structure as faithful subjects of an early modern had changed radically. During the first order, retrospectively have been reinter- 57 years of his life, Polhem had been a preted as standing in radical opposition favoured subject of the Caroline abso- to their contemporary political culture5. lutist monarchs Karl XI and Karl XII. In In 1740 Christopher Polhem published the 1720s, Sweden underwent drastic his « Thoughts about mechanics » in governmental changes. From having the transactions of the Royal Swedish been an absolutist state, not unlike Academy of Sciences. His text presented France of l’Ancien regime, it became a the usefulness of mechanics as well as constitutional monarchy with a weak the merits of the mechanicus: the man king and a strong parliament6. At this who was capable of performing mecha- time, Polhem had struggled to reinvent nics. For Polhem, who all his life had car- himself as a part of the new regime. Only ried out mechanical work in the service by the late 1730s, was he rehabilitated 137 of the Swedish state, the mechanicus was and made into a figurehead of the newly defined by his relationships of superio- established Royal Swedish Academy of rity and subordination with other sub- Sciences. Mechanics of absolutism From 1680, when Karl XI declared growing number of scholars have shown Sweden an absolute monarchy, symbo- the importance of personal relationships lical representations of the monarch as of patronage for early modern arts and the power nexus of the realm, modelled sciences. Such studies have revealed after a French example, became common. how good relationships with the poli- The monarch continuously needed to tically powerful were pivotal to early manifest his absolute power, in order to modern scientists and inventors. Such balance socially powerful elites at court relationships were as much about pres- and throughout the realm. At court, enting the patron and client in a positive the king’s personal power – expressed light, as they were about the distribution through favours and patronage – flowed of resources and favours. These relation- through chains of subjects at different ships shaped patrons and clients alike: degrees of closeness to the king7. A the sovereign’s symbolic power was Jacob Orrje made in relation to his subjects and a description of past events. Polhem, like relationship with the absolute king could many other European mechanical project make or break the fortune of a civil ser- makers of the time, was highly conscious vant, artisan or scholar8. of the image of himself that he presented Considering that Polhem lived as in his published and unpublished texts12. a subject of the Caroline monarchs When Polhem presented his simple Karl XI and Karl XII up until he was 57 background, and how he was scorned years old, it is unsurprising that he was by the other students, this was as much a shaped by the absolutist regime. In an way for him to distance himself from the handwritten autobiography from 1733, average student, as a description of how Polhem described himself as a man from they distanced themselves from him. a simple background with a mechanical By describing how he performed heavy inclination but who struggled to receive work shunned by students and scholars a formal education. He had not started alike, Polhem could present himself as his studies at Uppsala until 1687, when a practical man, who did not even hesi- he was 26 years old, after a clergyman tate public humiliation in order to bring had seen his mechanical work and had theory and practice together for the recommended him for studies there9. usefulness of his sovereign. In his auto- The first part of this autobiography biography, Polhem thus clearly aligns is written like an origin story of a man himself with the worldly bureaucracy struggling to overcome his simple back- in Stockholm, and against the scho- 138 ground.
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