Young Women Performing Unconventional Tasks
Margareta Lagerman sits high atop a load of hay and holds the reins, ready to drive the wagon into the farmyard on her parents’ farm. Tvågården, Spårröd village, Kållered parish, Västergötland. Photographer unknown, 1930s. Collection of Kållereds hembygdsförening, in Östergötlands Museum, Linköping. The physical courage of young women growing up on farms impressed those who […]
Portraying Women Engaged in Dairying
Woman pouring milk from a pail into a milk can. Stockholm county (now in Uppland). Taken by Gunnar Lundh in 1935. Nordiska museet, Stockholm. Consider this striking image of a woman straining milk outside the cowshed on the Börjeson family farm near the Baltic coast north of Stockholm. Three generations were living there—an older couple, […]
Men and Women Sharing Labor
Doing Laundry John Alinder and others doing laundry at the Alinders’ farm. Sävasta, Altuna parish, Västmanland (now in Uppland). Taken by John Alinder, undated. Upplandsmuseet, Uppsala. Few photographs of women performing household chores are found in the archives before the middle of the twentieth century. The technology was not suited to taking pictures of indoor […]
Gender-Mixed Work Groups
Seasonal operations such as making hay and harvesting grain required larger work crews composed of men and women from neighboring households and laborers of both sexes hired by the task or the day. Adult men used scythes cut hay or grain, and women, older children, and aging men raked and turned the hay and put it […]
Dairymaids in Centralized Mechanized Dairies
Lisa Larsson in the dairy on Mackmyra estate, Gävleborg. Taken by an unknown photographer in the early 1920s. Länsmuseet Gävleborg, Gävle. The expansion and mechanization of the dairy industry transformed the labor process for women, who continued to be responsible for milking and making butter and cheese. In Sweden, in contrast to other countries in […]