Alcohol Consumption and the Construction of a Working-Class Identity in Late Nineteenth
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THE DREAMING BOY AND THE WAKING CITY: ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A WORKING-CLASS IDENTITY IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY STOCKHOLM by Stewart B. Lawrence A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History Memorial University of Newfoundland December 2019 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador i Abstract Sweden’s capital city of Stockholm grew in commercial importance in the second half of the nineteenth century as the country experienced rapid industrialisation. This resulted in high labour mobility as people migrated to the city seeking work. The sanitary and housing conditions of the working class varied according to income and the availability of employment. Stockholm’s administration and middle-class imposed its authority on transitory workers with the passage of the Vagrancy Act of 1885 and the introduction of lease agreements. The working class resisted this oppression by drinking. They actively resisted the authority of their employers and middle-class morality by drinking on the job and during their leisure time in the tavern. The act of consuming alcohol brought men of different occupations together and enabled the construction of a working-class identity. ii Acknowledgments I owe many people and several institutions my gratitude for their assistance in completing this project. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Dr. Stephan Curtis for the countless hours he invested in helping me develop the ideas in this thesis and for providing feedback during the writing process. I would also like to thank my instructors Dr. Sébastien Rossignol and Dr. Neil Kennedy for encouraging work on the theorical and historiographical components on this project during their classes. Dr. Mike O’Brien’s course introduced me to some of the fundamental texts on labour history and allowed me to engage with alcohol consumption and the working class. I would also like to thank members of my original graduate cohort for sharing my struggles and listening patiently while I chatted endlessly about Swedish history. Thanks especially to Elsa, Anna, Corinne, Andrew, Jeremy, Miranda and J.P. Outside of our department, I have many patrons that have provided emotional and financial support since moving to Canada to pursue my graduate studies. This project would not be possible without the support I received from my mom and my sisters back down in the United States. I am also grateful to my family in Alberta and British Columbia. Thanks especially to Bruce Hettinger for his help finding this program and his encouragement to pursue my PhD, as well as opening up his home and hosting me for the holidays. Thanks to Vanessa Hettinger and James Derry for their hospitality while I stayed in Edmonton. I am also grateful to Dennis Hettinger and Sheena Duddy for flying me over to Vancouver and reminding me of what life is like in a big city. Back in iii Newfoundland, thanks to Wesley Courage for showing me the island and sharing its history. Finally, I would like to thank the archival institutions which provided access to the materials that inform this thesis. The staff of Stockholm’s City Archive were extremely helpful in providing material from several different archives within their collection. The staff of the Centre for Business History in Stockholm were also very helpful during my short time there. I could not have visited these fine institutions without the financial support provided by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences’ Scholarship in the Arts. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable feedback on this thesis and for their suggestions on directions for further research. iv Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii List of Tables vi List of Figures vii List of Maps viii Chapter 1: Introduction, Theory and Method, and the Geography of Stockholm 1 1.1 Introduction and Argument 1 1.2 Theoretical Framework 3 1.3 Historiography 7 1.4 Sources and Method 22 1.5 The Geography of Stockholm 28 Chapter 2: Bright Lights, Big City: The Arrival of the Working Man in 40 Stockholm 2.1: Seasonal Migration, Industrial Recruitment, and Stockholm’s Population 41 2.2: Securing Work in the Big City 50 2.3: The Working Man’s Wages 53 2.4: Home and Housing in Stockholm 56 2.5: Acclimating to the Urban Environment and the Working-Class Culture 63 Chapter 3: The Invisible Fist: The Imposition of Municipal Authority on the 70 Working-Class Man and Drinking as an Expression of Agency 3.1: The Stockholm Property Owner’s Association and Middle-Class Interests 71 v 3.2: The Expansion of Municipal Authority and Enforcement of the Vagrancy 79 Act 3.3: “Drunks” as Vagrants and Drinking as a “Weapon of the Weak” 82 Chapter 4: Consumption, Camaraderie, and Crime: Case Studies of Working- 90 Class Alcohol Consumption in Late Nineteenth-Century Stockholm 4.1: The Dockworkers 91 4.2: The Tavern 99 4.3: Five Men and Thirty-Five Crowns 105 Conclusion 112 Bibliography 117 List of Tables 1.1 Number of Warning and Detainment Protocols for Vagrancy Drawn from 23 Archives 1885-1923. 1.2 Poverty Ratios and Per Capita Values of Real Property, Income Tax, and 29 Commercial Tax in 1850 (Stockholm = 100) 1.3 Stockholm’s Population by District, 1870 and 1900 33 2.1 Stockholm’s Total Population and In-Migration, 1855-1900 48 2.2 County of Birth of People in Interrogation Protocols 1885-1886 49 3.1 Percent of Population Receiving Poor Relief by District, 1868 and 1900 78 3.2 Protocols Issued in October-December 1885 81 3.3 Protocols Issued in January-March 1886 82 vi 3.4 Number of People and Rate/100,000 Hospitalised in Stockholm for 85 Chronic Alcoholism 1870-1885 List of Figures 1.1 Utrikes sjöfart på Stockholm, Göteborg och hela riket 1850-1913. 35 Logaritmisk skala (International Shipping in Stockholm, Gothenburg and the Whole Kingdom 1850-1913. Logarithmic Scale) 1.2 Sales of Liquor, Wine and Beer in Liters of Alcohol 100% per Inhabitant 38 15 Years and Above. 1861-2004 2.1 Crude Death Rates and Age Specific Mortality Rates per 1,000 for 46 Malmö, Stockholm, the County Towns, the Rural County of Malmöhus and Rural Sweden, 1811-1820 to 1901-1910 2.2 Annual Income of Selected Occupational Groups: Stockholm, 1880-1900 55 2.3 Stockholm Real House Prices 1840-2017, 1840=100 57 2.4 Genomspärning i A-B (Cross-Section in A-B) 59 2.5 Den 27-Ånge Stuverifömannen L's Bostad som Nygift 1890 (The 27- 62 Year-Old Stevedore L's Residence as a Newlywed 1890) 2.6 Dans i Haga, 1903 (Dance in Haga, 1903) 65 4.1 The Corporate Pub at 17 Österlånggatan on the Corner of Brunnsgrand. 100 Closed in 1901 when the House was Rebuilt. vii List of Maps 1.1 "The City of Stockholm ca 1890 with Neighbouring Parishes and Royal 29 Ground (Djurgården)" 1.2 "Docking Areas of Stockholm as of the Mid 1890s" 36 2.1 The Division of Sweden into Counties 43 3.1 Geographical Spread of Bad Conduct Reports in Stockholm, 1887-1892, 76 According to the 'Black Book'. Grey Colour: Average 5-15 Reports per Year. Black Colour: Average 15-30 Reports per Year. 4.1 Location of Arrests of Dockworkers, 1885-1893 93 4.2 Central Stockholm with Österlånggatan Emphasised 101 4.2 Map of Stockholm with Locations in Detective Carl Oskar Andersson’s 107 Investigation viii Chapter One Introduction, Theory and Method, and the Geography of Stockholm Introduction and Argument Sweden experienced a late but intense industrialisation process in the second half of the nineteenth century which dramatically influenced the inhabitants of the country’s urban areas. Industrialisation began in Sweden’s rural areas with the introduction of new technologies to some of country’s largest enterprises in the middle of the century including the lumber and iron industries.1 These operations expanded in central and northern Sweden and created a surplus of raw materials for export to the international market. The state-sponsored construction of railroads at approximately the same time facilitated the transportation of goods and people between the major commercial cities and towns of Sweden.2 The capital emerged as one of the largest and most important port cities in Sweden as the volume of raw materials and later manufactured goods continued to rise in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Stockholm’s growth as a port city towards the end of the nineteenth century created a high demand for labour which created a dynamic and transient working-class population. The influx of people combined with the shortage of affordable housing resulted in precarious employment and living situations and the passage of the Vagrancy 1 Ingrid Hammarström, Stockholm i Svensk Ekonomi 1850-1914 (Stockholm in Sweden’s Economy 1850- 1914) (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1970), 31; Lars Magnusson, Sveriges Ekonomiska Historia (Sweden’s Economic History) (Stockholm, Tiden Athena, 1996) 310; Lennart Schön, An Economic History of Modern Sweden (New York: Routledge, 2016), 104-106. 2 Hammarström, Stockholm i Svensk Ekonomi, 33; Magnusson, Sveriges Ekonomiska Historia, 384; Schön, An Economic History of Modern Sweden, 98. 1 Act of 1885. This Act served as a method of municipal control on Stockholm’s transient population by removing individuals considered vagrants to work in workhouses or sentencing them to hard labour. Police arrested people found in an intoxicated state for violating the Act by exhibiting behavior that endangered the public welfare. Male members of the working-class used the consumption of strong drinks as a “weapon of the weak” to rebel against this authority.3 Drinking also represented a part of everyday working-class life and leisure.