Women Farm Servants and Their Employers
Women servants who lived in farm households were often photographed working alongside their mistress and her daughters outdoors. When those in group photos are listed, they are identified not as maidservants but by name. They can seldom be visually distinguished from family members and relatives when everyone is wearing their everyday clothing. Servants were less […]
Tenant Farmers and Landless Laborers
Carl Johan Olson, his wife Maria Sofia Jansdotter, and their children Ester Maria and Josef Hilding in front of the cottage they rented from Melltorp. Hova parish, Skaraborg (now Västergötland). Taken by Gustav Heurlin in the early spring, 1903–1906. Västergötlands Museum, Skara. Carl Johan Olson (b. 1855) and Maria Sofia Hansdotter (b. 1851) take their […]
Statare Women
Two women milkers, Ester Olsson and Nancy Persson, on the way to the barn on Stureholm estate. Vällinge, Skåne. Taken by Gunnar Lundh in 1946. Nordiska museet, Stockholm. The conditions of life and labor for landless couples who were employed on large-scale, capitalist farms and estates on the fertile plains of southern and central Sweden […]
Landowning Families and Their Farms
Family outside their farmhouse. Near Skövde, Skaraborg (now Västergötland). Taken by Anders Karlsson in 1936. Västergötlands museum, Skara. Conventional photographs of landowning farm families emphasize their resources of land and labor, but subsume women and men, relatives and employees, into family-centered units. During the early twentieth century, families increasingly identified themselves with a specific farm, […]
Family-Centered Groups and Gangs of Hired Laborers
Digging potatoes on the Alinders’ farm. Sävasta, Altuna parish, Västmanland (now in Uppland). Taken by John Alinder in 1920. Upplandsmuseet, Uppsala. In rural Sweden, potatoes were a major component of families’ diets, the home-brewed spirits called “schnapps,” and the mash fed to livestock. Everyone in the household participated in the work, which was done by […]