Stig Östlund

lördag, januari 15, 2011

Avhandlingar

Här följer ett utdrag ur en avhandling. Fortsättningen på denna (för mig en guldgruva), och andra intressanta avhandlingar hittar man på:
http://www.avhandlingar.se/avhandling/0d4e95e4b4/




Institutionen för idé och samhällsstudier


CONSTRUCTING COMMUNITIES

The establishment and demographic development of sawmill communities in the Sundsvall district,
1850-1890
Maria Bergman

"Sundsvall district in north central Sweden became the epicentre of the Swedish
sawmill industry during the second half of the 19th century. Located in a rural
environment, these industries did not only introduce technological improvements
but would also become the starting point of a new type of settlement, the sawmill
communities. These communities emerged from, and were based on, a combination
of older traditions, structures and patriarchal values that met with new perspectives
and understandings of social interaction and employment rights. They
were not only geographically separated from the agricultural villages, but they
also included social and symbolic components that would have had just as great,
if not even a greater importance to the inhabitants. The social environments that
emanated from within the communities and from above due to the sawmill owners,
helped to consolidate diverse and heterogeneous sawmill populations, and
the sawmill workers as an occupational group.
It could therefore be argued that the people that settled at the mill sites had
an important part to play in the overall industrial and structural development
of the areas around the industries. Stable population cores did not only enable
community structures to become more pronounced, a residential workforce also
provided a basis for industrial expansion and profi ts by making work more effi -
cient. This means that while communities were important for the development of
the industries, the populations played and imperative part for the construction of
those communities. Population and development were therefore intertwined; the
residents did not only propel development but would have demanded it.
George Alter wrote that that it always has been “easy to underestimate the
power of community in early industrial cities”2 and surprisingly little is known
about the development of the sawmill communities and their residents. Despite
that there would not have been any settlements to speak of had not people migrated
to these areas and been willing to stay. Few studies have focused on the early
development of the mill sites, such as their prerequisites and registered residents
prior to the construction of the industries. Demographic research has usually
been confi ned to the development of individual mills or included all inhabitants
of an entire industrialised parish without specifi cally singling out the sawmill po-
2 George Alter, Family and the female life course. The women of Verviers, Belgium,
1849-1880, University of Wisconsin Press 1988, p. 124.
p. 13
pulations. This means that there are still areas regarding the sawmill industry,
especially the importance of the sawmill communities and their development that
has remained unexplored. The Sundsvall district offers the perfect area for conducting
such a study as it can provide information not only from one but 31 individual
sawmills.3 This study will delve into when and how the sawmill communities
were established and developed demographically, as well as who the populations
were and what it meant to live within these communities.
1:1 Aim
The aim of this dissertation is to study the establishment and demographic development
of the sawmill communities in the Sundsvall district between 1850-1890.
The intention is to highlight the importance of the sawmill communities and their
resident populations more than what previously have been done in earlier studies.
This will be done by discussing community construction, not just from a physical
aspect, but also from a social and symbolic perspective. This dissertation is therefore
divided; it includes the establishment and development of residential communities
and the development of a sense of community among the populations.
The study will utilise both longitudinal demographic perspectives and local
cross-section studies to exemplify the sawmill populations on a more individual
level. The integration of a more general perspective with specifi c local perspectives
will add important components to understanding the process of the establishment
and development of these communities. This will allow for a more comprehensive
picture of the sawmill communities and their populations to emerge.
1:2 Structure and questions
A diffi cult question when studying the sawmill communities is how the demographic
perspective is to be approached. The establishment and demographic development
of the sawmill communities was a complex process that involved many
different aspects contributing to establishing functioning communities in their
own right. The developments were individual to each sawmill and given their own
prerequisites in the form of geographical location, year of construction, population
proximity and owner. These differences would also have affected the sawmill
communities’ developments.
3 The study includes 30 steam powered sawmills built between 1849-1890 and one water
powered sawmill that had been constructed in ---"
/fortsättningen hittas alltså på: http://www.avhandlingar.se/avhandling/0d4e95e4b4/

Vi tackar Maria Bergman för lånet ur den gedigna redovisningen

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