Gendered Money: Financial Organization in Women's Movements, 1880-1933 9780857452726

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Gendered Money

International Studies in Social History General Editor: Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam Volume 1

Trade Unions, Immigration and Immigrants in Europe 1960–1993 Edited by Rinus Penninx and Judith Roosblad Volume 2

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Rebellious Families Edited by Jan Kok Volume 4

Experiencing Wages Edited by Peter Scholliers and Leonard Schwarz Volume 5

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Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire Donald Quataert Volume 8

Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction Angel Smith Volume 9

Sugarlandia Revisited Edited by Ulbe Bosma, Juan Giusti-Cordero and G. Roger Knight

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Unruly Masses Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lutz Musner Volume 14

Central European Crossroads Pieter C. van Duin Volume 15

Supervision and Authority in Industry Western European Experiences, 1830–1939 Edited by Patricia Van den Eeckhout Volume 16

Forging Political Identity Silk and Metal Workers in Lyon, France, 1900–1939 Keith Mann Volume 17

Gendered Money Pernilla Jonsson and Silke Neunsinger

Gendered Money Financial Organization in Women’s Movements, 1880–1933

Pernilla Jonsson and Silke Neunsinger

Berghahn Books N e w Yo r k • Ox f o r d

Published in 2012 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2012 Pernilla Jonsson and Silke Neunsinger All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jonsson, Pernilla, 1967Gendered money : financial organization in women’s movements, 1880-1933 / Pernilla Jonsson and Silke Neunsinger. p. cm. -- (International studies in social history ; v. 17) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-85745-271-9 (hbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-85745-272-6 (e-book) 1. Feminism--Sweden--History. 2. Socialist feminism--Sweden--History. 3. First-wave feminism--Sweden. 4. Women--Political activity--Sweden--History. 5. Women--Sweden--Societies and clubs--Finance--History. 6. Feminism-Europe--History. I. Neunsinger, Silke. II. Title. HQ1687.J66 2012 305.4209485--dc23 2011037468 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper. ISBN: 978-0-85745-271-9 (hardback) ISBN: 978-0-85745-272-6 (e-book)

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

viii

List of Abbreviations

xi

List of Swedish Terms

xii

Acknowledgements xiv Introduction  Funding Women’s Political Struggle – a Matter of Gender and Class?

1

Collective Action and Resources – Earlier Research  2 Women’s Mobilizing, Class, Resources and Political Opportunities – our Theoretical Point of Departure  4 Comparing the Swedish Case  10 Economic and Political Citizenship in Sweden  14 Sources 16 Disposition 19

1  The Fredrika Bremer Association 1884–1925

27

The Start-up  28 Ideas and Agendas  30 New Leadership and New Directions  31 Summary 32

2  A ‘Bourgeois’ Pioneer’s Purse Income 39 Membership Fees  39 Bequests and Donations  41 Fundraising Sales  43 Lotteries 45 State Subsidies and Supporting Organizations  46 Outlays 49 Premises 50 Meetings 52

37

Contents

vi

Administration, Political Work and Enlightenment  54 The Voice of the Organization  56 A Periodical as a Philanthropic Project  61 Manifestations 62 Assets and Liabilities  63 Loan Funds  64 Bonds, Real Estate and Shares  67 Summarizing Conclusion  68

3  Human Resources in the Fredrika Bremer Association

83

Mobilizing – the Value of Members  83 Giving their Time, Commitment and Skills  86 Useful Contacts in Parliament and Government  89 Publicity 91 Feminist and Philanthropic Networks within Sweden  93 Feminist Networks outside Sweden  95 Summarizing Conclusions  98

4  Social Democratic Women

108

The Road to Integrated Separatism – Women in the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party  110 Earlier Research  112 Forms and Phases of the Swedish Social Democratic Movement  114 1880–1906: The Paradox of Gender Unity and the Mobilization of Consensus  116 1906–1930: Organizing Separately  118 Breakthrough from 1933  122 Agendas and Strategies  124 Summary 126

5  The Price of Turning Women into Socialists Sources of Income  134 Contributions from the Labour Movement  135 Membership Fees  139 Extra Income  142 Spending 145 Mobilizing Members and Voters  146 Investments in Education  152 Morgonbris – the Voice of Social Democratic Women in Sweden – Nearly an Affiliated Company  154 Administration 158 Getting Together – Meetings  161 First of May, Birthdays and Funerals – Times for Manifestations  163

132

Contents

vii

Allocating Money  163 Financial Strategies: A Summary  165 Class, Gender and Separatism – Three Factors in the Financial Strategies of Socialist Women’s Movements  168

6  Human Resources in Social Democratic Women’s Organizations

183

The Magic of Number  183 Giving their Time, Commitment and Skills  186 Access to Parliaments and Government  191 Publicity 196 Cross-class Sisters? Cooperation among Swedish Women’s Organizations 197 International Connections  202 Compensating Lack of Education and Money  204 The Price of Organizing Separately and the Income from Being Integrated 206

Conclusion Gendered Money

215

Income 216 Independence through Membership Fees  219 Donations, Bequests and Successful Coalitions  220 From Needlework to Lotteries  222 Spending 223 Feminist Activists as Economic Agents  227 Compensating the Lack of Money to Keep the Organization Going  228 How Did Resources Matter for Swedish Feminist Politics?  232 The Costs of Gendered Citizenship?  234 The Resources Mobilization Theory and Women’s Organizing  235

Bibliography237 Index253

List of Figures and Tables

Figures

2.1 The main types of income of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, in real value (base year 1914, in USD) 38 2.2 The annual financial result of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, in real value (base year 1914, in 1,000 USD) 50 2.3 The main expenses for the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, excluding the schools, in real value (base year 1914, in USD) 51 2.4 The value of assets and liabilities of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, in real value (base year 1914, in 1,000 USD) 64 2.5 Holdings of assets of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1920, in per cent 65 3.1 The number of members of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1930 85 5.1 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation incomes and expenses 1907–1933 133 5.2 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main incomes 1907–1933 134 5.3 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation major incomes without Morgonbris 1907–1933 136 5.4 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation members and members’ fees 1920–1933 in USD 141 5.5 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933 in USD 145 5.6 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933 without Morgonbris in USD 146 5.7 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation campaigns 1909–1933 in USD 148

List of Figures and Tables

5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 6.1 6.2

ix

Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation’s administrative costs per club 159 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation assets and liabilities 1910–1933 in USD 164 Women’s Labour League incomes and expenses 1906–1915 in USD 169 Women’s Labour League main incomes 1906–1915 170 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main incomes 171 Women’s Labour League main expenses 1906–1915 172 Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933 172 Women’s Labour League assets and liabilities 1906–1915 in USD 173 Incomes and expenses of women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD 174 Major expenses for women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD 174 Major incomes for women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD 175 Social Democratic Women’s Federation membership 1920–1952 184 Social democratic women represented in local institutions and boards 1921–1928 194

List of Figures and Tables

x

tables

I.1 Resources possible to mobilize for the first wave of women’s movements 9 2.1 Incomes and assets of the Fredrika Bremer Association and the National Councils of Great Britain, Canada and Germany, 1885–1924, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914) 70 2.2. Expenses of the Fredrika Bremer Association and the National Councils of Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1924, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914) 72 7.1 Incomes and income sources of women’s organizations in Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1933, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914) 217 7.2 Expenses of women’s organizations in Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1933, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914) 224

–x–

Abbreviations

ABF FBA BDF FVO CCF ICW LSI SSKF SPD LO LKPR WLL WTU

Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund (Worker’s Educational Federation) Fredrika Bremer Association (Fredrika Bremer Förbundet) Bund Deutscher Frauenverein Fattigvårdsförbundet (Charity Organization Society) Co-operative Commonwealth Federation International Council of Women Labour and Socialist International Sveriges Socialdemokatiska kvinnoföbund (Social Democratic Women’s Federation) Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands Swedish Trade Union Confederation Landsföreningen för kvinnans politiska rösträtt (Swedish Women’s Suffrage Association) Women ’s Labour League Women’s Trade Union (Kvinnornas Fackförbund)

Swedish Terms

Akademiskt bildade kvinnors förening – Academic Women’s Association Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein – National Council of Women of Germany Arbetarnas bildningsförbund – Workers’ Educational Federation Fattigvårdsförbundet – Charity Organization Society Föreningen Ekonomiföreståndarinnor vid större anstalter – Association for Female Heads of Economy Föreningen Kvinnor i statens tjänst – Association for Female State Employees Fredrika Bremer förbundet – Fredrika Bremer Association Frisinnade folkpartiets kvinnogrupp – Liberal Party’s Women Group Föreningen för gift qvinnas eganderätt – The Association for Married Women’s Property Rights Handarbetets vänner – Friends of Needlework Husmodersförbundet – Housewife Association Hushållningsällskap – Regional agricultural societies Kommittén för den kvinnliga agitationen – Committee for Agitation among Women Kvinnliga kontoristföreningen i Stockholm – Stockholm’s Association for Women Secretaries Kvinnliga Medborgarskolan (Fogelstad) – Female Citizen’s School Kvinnliga telefontjänstemannaföreningen – Association of Women Operators Kvinnornas Fackförbund – The Women’s Trade Union Kvinnornas Uppbåd – The Women’s Troop Läkarsällskapet – Medical Academic Association Landsorganisationen – Swedish Trade Union Confederation Landsföreningen för kvinnans politiska rösträtt – Swedish Women’s Suffrage Association Patriotiska sällskapet – Patriotic Society Riksantikvarieämbetet – National Heritage Board Riksdag – Swedish Parliament Röda korset – Red Cross Samarbetskommittén – Committee for Cooperation

Swedish Terms

xiii

Svenska Kvinnors Nationalförbund – National Council of Women of Sweden Sveriges Socialdemokatiska kvinnoföbund – Social Democratic Women’s Federation Stockholms läsesalong – Stockholm’s Reading Room Stockholms allmänna kvinnoklubb – Stockholm’s Women’s Club Stockholms fackliga centralorganisationens kvinnosektion – Women’s section of the Central Trade Union Organization of Stockholm Sveriges folkskollärarinneförbund – Swedish Elementary Teachers Association Svenska fornskriftssällskapet – Swedish Runic Association Svenska kvinnors medborgarförbund – Swedish Women’s Citizens Association Svenska kvinnors vänsterförbund – Left Women’s Organization Svenska Open-Door gruppen – Swedish section of Open-Door International Svenska sektionen av internationella kvinnoförbundet för fred och frihet – Swedish section of the International League for Peace and Freedom Svenska skolkökslärarinnornas förening – Association of Swedish Kitchen Teachers Svenska Sällskapet för Nykterhet och Folkuppfostran – Swedish Association for Temperance and People’s Education Svensk slöjdförening – Swedish Handicraft Alliance Svenska sjuksköterskornas pensionsförening – Swedish Nurses’ Pension Association Telegrafverkets kvinnliga kontorspersonals förening – Association of Female Office Staff at the Swedish Telegraph Service Vita Bandet – Swedish branch of The White Ribbon

Acknowledgements

This book is not only the result of many years of research but also of fruitful meetings with researchers in and outside Sweden. We have had the privilege to have had access to different research environments: the Centre for Feminist Research and the Department of Economic History – both at Uppsala University, the Centre for Feminist Research at York University, and Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek in Stockholm. As this is a book about money we also have to acknowledge that it would have never come into existence without the generous funding of this project by the Swedish Bank’s Tercentenary Foundation. This research project was originally inspired by Gilla Dölle’s dissertation on the funding of the German women’s movement. Gilla has generously shared her knowledge with us. Mona Eliasson invited us to the Centre for Feminist Research in Uppsala to write our application, and has supported us ever since. She was also the one who introduced us to Canadian feminist research that resulted in a research trip to Canada. Linda Briskin has been a wonderful person to discuss our research with; she introduced us to feminist researchers in Canada, and taught us where to find the best organic food and the best restaurants in Toronto. Janice Newton gave us access to her entire collection of sources on Canadian socialist women. Naomi Griffith generously invited us to her house and told us all we wanted to know about the Canadian National Council of Women. Joan Sangster has been an important conversational partner since we met her the first time in autumn 2003. She shared her knowledge as a feminist labour historian with us, sent us books and has joined us for workshops and conferences in Sweden, and enabled us to continue our conversations. This research project has been based at the Department of Economic History, Uppsala University. We are grateful to all our colleagues at the department who discussed and made us rethink our interpretations. Special thanks to Lynn Karlsson who took care of our files, edited our language, and also listened and discussed every thinkable detail about the history of the feminist movement. Thanks also to Mats Larsson and Mats Morell. Birgitta Ferm has been a rock, taking care of the finances of this research project.

Acknowledgements

xv

We have also had the opportunity to discuss our preliminary results at different conferences and workshops. Dorothy Sue Cobble, Karen Hunt, Bonnie Smith, Edith Sparks, Lisa Tetrault and Susan Yohn took part in the numerous discussions we had on funding feminist movements and feminist labour history. Ulla Wikander has from the very beginning shared her knowledge and her networks on feminist history with us. She has also been a great inspiration to look deeper into the historical transnational entanglements in feminist networks. We are also grateful to Heiko Droste, Mary Hilson and Klaus Misgeld who have helped us to improve this manuscript both in regard to the content and the language. Emily Dressing has done a wonderful job editing our language and turning it into readable English. We have also to acknowledge our debt to the staff of Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek, Stockholm, The International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, Kungliga Biblioteket, the Labour History Archive in Manchester, Landesarchiv Berlin, National Archives of Canada, Riksarkivet, London Metropolitan Archive and Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg. Thanks also for the support from our families! Now Max, Love, Emmi, Egon, Hampus and Örjan, we can have Wednesday dinners without talking about endnote hang-ups and exchange rates!

Introduction Funding Women’s Political Struggle – a Matter of Gender and Class? Pernilla Jonsson & Silke Neunsinger

This is a book about women’s organizing, and what is rarely mentioned in relation to women’s organizing: money and other resources. We want to know how access and the strategic use of resources over time have mattered for women’s struggle for equality. We want to find out what kinds of resources were available for the early liberal and social democratic women’s movement and how they were used. We also want to know if any class- or gender-specific financial strategies can be discerned and, if so, how they mattered for women’s organizing. This book is also a contribution to the discussion on the importance of class and gender perspectives in social movement theory. During the nineteenth century women all around the Western world joined associations to work for reforms at a time when they had access to neither full political nor economic citizenship.1 During a time when few could imagine individualism separated from gender or a right to work not conditioned by gender, some women began to mobilize for emancipation. However, lack of economic rights and higher education, and limited access to the labour market, gave women’s organizing special obstacles to overcome in their political struggle. Resources and especially money, as well as the strategic use of them, are of particular interest from a gender perspective since access, but also the very concept of it, is highly gendered.2 As well, resources matter for organizing, although how much is under discussion.3 Despite these special restraints of money in relation to women, just a few studies have dealt with the subject.4 Most of the feminist research has for a long time been concerned with legal restrictions, and recently even with women’s use of Notes for this chapter begin on page 20.

2

Gendered Money

networks under the influence of Bourdieu’s theoretical concept. Although his model suggests four different forms of capital, economic capital has not been at the centre of these studies. The lack of interest in money in women’s organizing may as well be a result of the belief that women should not ‘sully their hands’ with money and that, as Gilla Dölle puts it, scholars like to associate the women’s movement with a superior goal rather than with the ‘schnöden Mammon’.5 It might, as well, have to do with an idea of money as connected to a male sphere and a gendered concept of money and business, where women are not defined as financial agents.6 Similar to the disappearance of class in historical feminist studies, this can be regarded as the result of the cultural turn in feminist history.7 Since the breakthrough of the linguistic turn in feminist history, less and less research has been concerned with the material realities that men and women were confronted with. Our starting point is that we need to take both the material realities and the cultural constructions into account if we want to explain historical change and continuities.

Collective Action and Resources – Earlier Research Social movements have to rely on a mass base of people with grievances. However, grievances are not sufficient to induce organizing. Mobilizing implies a range of problems, which social movements have to solve in order to make their political action successful. Social movements adopt in many ways the same survival strategies as more accepted and institutionalized organizations. They need to recruit new members and keep up commitment and solidarity among members. As well, they have to face the process of mobilization in order to gain attention and in the best of all worlds even consensus on an issue, not only among their own members but also among the general public. However, mass mobilization might not develop by the force of oppression and grievance alone.8 Instead the process of insurgency is shaped by broad social processes, usually over a longer period of time, through political opportunities, mobilizing structures and the repertoire of contention.9 At the centre of all these processes of insurgency are communication and legitimacy. Communication is dependent on mobilization structures, resources and legitimacy. Resource mobilization theory emphasizes the need for interjection of resources. Increased strain is necessary, but also the number of social resources available to the aggrieved groups is decisive for social movements to evolve.10 Every attempt to engage in collective action – whether the action is a street demonstration, a petition, or practical social work – demands some kind of resources. Since the 1970s, resource mobilization

Funding - a Matter of Gender and Class?

3

theory has emphasized resources when discussing variation in social movement activity.11 Resources are regarded as crucial for organizations to make their voices heard. Resources are needed for mobilizing and to keep an organization going. Resources play an important role for the use of power. Access to resources also has an impact on an organization’s external strength.12 However, the volume of resources available is not sufficient to build a movement. Decisions on how to use and invest resources,13 key strategies14 and framing,15 as well as external factors such as the political context,16 have been stated as crucial. Resource mobilization theory has been criticized for the vagueness of the definition of the concept of resources, incorporating anything that could affect an organization. As well, the model fails to acknowledge the political capabilities of a movement’s mass base and risks overemphasizing the importance of influential allies. The risk of co-optation, where the established elite tries to neutralize the insurgency, is not discussed. Even in the case of moderate reform movements, support from groups possessing sufficient politicoeconomic resources to ensure that their interests are routinely taken into account in decision-making processes could be detrimental to the goals of the movement in the long run. It could be expressed as ‘… the lower the share of membership contributions to an organization’s budget, the more autonomous it is with respect to its members and the greater the likelihood that goals which are not of immediate concern to its members are playing an important role in the considerations of the organization’s dominate coalition’.17 Moreover, the strength of the ties between an organization and its individual members also has consequences for the payment of membership fees; strong ties will create a good payment discipline.18 And even though resources from outside to support collective protests have been the key to success for some movements, elite involvement often proves to occur as a response to the threat posed by the generation of a mass-based social movement.19 In contrast, political process theory emphasizes the resources within the oppressed group. Mobilization is dependent on the level of organization within the aggrieved population (readiness); collective assessment of the prospects for successful insurgency within the same population (insurgent consciousness); and the political alignment of groups within the larger political environment (structure of political opportunities).20 The social movement could increase its opportunities by expanding its repertoire of collective actions. The strength gained is a result of the fact that each new form of collective action finds authorities unprepared. Collective actions could also expand the opportunities of other groups by placing new frames of meaning on the agenda as the notion of rights. On the other hand, collective actions create opportunities for opponents’ counter-mobilization.

4

Gendered Money

To succeed, a social movement has to be able to convert a favorable structure of political opportunities into an organized campaign of social protest.21 The choices that are made to pursue change have consequences for its ability to raise material resources, mobilize, and achieve legitimacy in society. It could involve the choice of protest repertoires as well as organizational forms.22 The choices are affected by the political, cultural and social structures of the surrounding society. On the one hand, a closed society could encourage less formal organizing and a confrontational protest repertoire. On the other hand, an open society facilitates social movements to operate largely within institutional channels, which could encourage more formal organizing and centralized professional interest groups within the movement.23 Studies of social movements have emphasized ‘frames’ and ‘cultures’, rather than access to resources to explain outcomes of organizations. However, new approaches have stressed that frames and political opportunities can be created by activists; here a more dynamic model has been suggested instead of the earlier static model that listed a number of ingredients.24 Social movements are embedded in all aspects of society. Individuals in the movement act in relation to what is culturally given. The existing cultural context provides the limits of the thinkable, even if the thinkable is a reaction against the dominating culture. Meaning and collective identity are constructed through public discourse, persuasive communication, rituals and political symbols.25 Networks of friends and kinship are often important in the early phase of recruitment and in facilitating the forming of a collective identity.26 This shaping of a collective identity and how it is communicated is decisive. To be successful, culturally acquired understandings of which models are appropriate to which actors and situations are needed. Habitus, or a repertoire of rules and internalized disposition, of individuals who may provide support could facilitate or restrict the forming of collective action.27 This means that we, as well as differences in access to resources, can also expect variation in both the use of these resources and forms and developments of collective action depending on gender, class and ethnicity of those mobilized and the historical context.

Women’s Mobilizing, Class, Resources and Political Opportunities – our Theoretical Point of Departure Social movement theory has been concerned with the rise and fall of social movements, starting with grassroots mobilization and ending with the demobilization of movements when the struggle was over. Our study is

Funding - a Matter of Gender and Class?

5

limited to the stage when the mobilization of consensus is not enough to reach any political change, but when long-term strategies are needed and part of a movement begins to transform into one or several more formal organizations. Moreover, social movement theory and especially resource mobilization theory have, for a number of years, been dealing with the importance of resources for political action, but gender and class have not been at the centre of its explanations. We assume, similar to Dorothy Sue Cobble in her introduction to The Other Women’s Movement, that class differences affect the lives of women and men and that their demands for reforms were shaped through this. Class is, therefore, not the only difference between people, but as long as economic differences matter for definitions of ourselves and others and transfer into cultural expressions of class, this affects our lives.28 Susan E. Marshall states that the notion of gendered class position in the women’s movement highlights the contradictory effects of class – both opportunities and constraints – on the behaviour of women.29 The first wave of the women’s movement was divided into socialist and middle-class liberal or more conservative wings.30 The division between ‘bourgeois’ and ‘socialist’ wings of the women’s movement is a historical construction initiated by socialist women’s leader Clara Zetkin. Recently Marilyn Boxer has criticized feminist historians for using this concept uncritically even for later periods and, by this, creating a theoretical division that did not exist in reality.31 It could be questioned to what extent the women active in the different women’s organizations, and women walking in and out of different organizations and sometimes even cooperating in the same organizations, defined themselves or could be fitted into this dichotomy. At the same time this dichotomy indicates that multiple forms of feminism existed at the same time and that they included different strategies on how to reach equality. Although the historicization and validation of the use of these concepts is an important task for every historian, we still use the terms ‘bourgeois’ and ‘socialist’ in citation marks in this book.32 The reason for this is that the organizations we have studied regarded themselves as belonging to two different political movements. Socialist women regarded themselves not as part of the women’s movement but as members of the labour movement. To use the concept of ‘women’s movement’ for both organizations means using the result of later historical research that has shown that socialist women activists, who organized as women, were interested in matters of equality. One important difference between the two types of women’s organizations is their autonomous organizing or their integration into a party organization.33 These different ways of organizing are the product of different political strategies developed in some ways by

6

Gendered Money

socialist leader Clara Zetkin. Many socialist women, especially during the early period of socialist women’s organizing, were convinced that gender equality could only be reached through the end of capitalism; this meant that the struggle for gender equality was part of a larger political struggle. The two wings can be understood in terms of class and gender during the historical period studied here, especially when referring to class as process and identity infused with other processual identities,34 differently from Marx and Weber’s concepts of class as a relationship between the process of production and a corresponding social identity.35 Both the actual resources an individual woman has access to and her identification with the liberal feminist or the socialist movement create differences in attitudes towards the use of money and other resources. Most of the socialist women came from the lower social strata, although we know not all of them did, while most of the women in the early liberal women’s movement came from the middle and upper classes. These differences in the material situation of everyday life should put limits to how much money and time could individually be spent on political activity. However, social strata are also discursive constructions, differing in time and space.36 This means that the monetary resources available for the early socialist and liberal women’s movement could vary with who they mobilized and was dependent on, amongst other things, the nation’s wealth. Thus, the relation between class and resources is not clear cut and not given once and forever, but needs instead to be investigated. Since both resource mobilization theory and political process theory risk being ‘grab bags of ad hoc residual categories’,37 it is important to define what it includes and differentiate the concepts we use and how they are linked to social movement theory. We take our departure from the resource mobilization theory but are as interested in indigenous resources as in influential allies’ contributions. In order to analyse the strategic use of resources, we also need to problematize the value of different kinds of resources over time and in relation to class and gender.38 For the American women’s suffrage movements, Holly J. McCammon et al. claim that success in fundraising helped them to achieve their goals, while Lee Ann Banazak rather emphasized the importance of how funds were used.39 Hence, both the source of resources and what was given priority when spending them ought to be considered. What kind of resources are we then talking about? Monetary resources are important, and are seen by some as the most important.40 What makes money important in politics is its convertibility – the fact that it can easily be transformed into other valuable political resources.41 Money could buy paid staff or hire experts, and thereby give opportunities to provide the organization with opportunities to do its own investigations as well as write

Funding - a Matter of Gender and Class?

7

reports, pamphlets and petitions.42 Money could also buy possibilities to communicate externally with potential or existing members or internally with periodical mass mailings, and such like. Money could even give opportunities to buy the ear of those in powerful positions.43 Also coalitions with other organizations seem to be dependent on monetary resources, where Kevin W. Hula argues: ‘financial resources are one of the key elements required of core members in a coalition’.44 However, the access to funds is restricted by circumstances, such as social wealth and background as well as class identity of the mobilized people in the organization. Moreover, income distribution and business cycles in society affect an organization’s ability to raise funds. Sydney Tarrow has, in his study on transnational activism, shown that social movements vary in their ‘meaning work’. The reason for this, according to Tarrow, is that the activists work within their own countries power structures and political culture. Resources, opportunities and relative power positions can differ between the countries and are decisive in how the meaning work is framed.45 We can expect that the rank and file among liberal middle-class feminists would have access to larger amounts of money than the rank and file of socialist women’s organizations. However, money could be divided into a wide set of different categories of currencies, where the uses are highly dependent on social relations, gender, class and ethnicity.46 In relation to the women’s movement, the access to money was circumscribed, due to women’s weaker property rights and less access to education and the labour market than men. Moreover, money’s social value is also dependent on the source of income. For example the kind of money – pin money, a gift, or salary – involved may put limits on how money could be used, at least according to the dominant societal norms.47 In this way the very concept of money could be affected by gender, class and ethnicity of the user.48 Thus, in women’s organizations income and income sources, as well as how to spend or invest money, could have been influenced and circumscribed by the historical context. Limited access to resources, or restrictions of use by social values of money, can be compensated for. Money does not, however, buy everything. Other resources can also be mobilized without a large budget: members, solidarity, strategic allies, and so on. The members’ social and cultural capital could open doors to important networks, such as allies in government, political parties, and media or other influential organizations, that otherwise would have demanded many financial resources or would have been impossible to open. A strong organization, administration, and in particular a skilful and dedicated staff, are also instrumental.49 An example of the use of already established older organizations positive to the stake of newer movements is how newer women’s organizations have

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been able to take advantage of older, more established ones – by using their networks of communication, their premises and their constitutions.50 Different kinds of resources could affect the possibility of achieving the goals of the organizations in different ways and in different situations. On the one hand, monetary resources set the standard for what could be done. On the other hand, members and allies as such could be crucial for the success of social movements in both democratic and undemocratic systems.51 However, mobilization is a precondition for both income and supporters. Irrespective of nationality and the political subjects mobilized by organizations or social movements, there are the same problems: to legitimize both the goals and strategies of the organization. To attain these mobilizing structures, organizations must be able to stand up for their political demands. New members have to be recruited and solidarity among existing members must be kept up. Interests have to be framed in such a way that the public pays attention to the organization’s claims. Support from other organizations and groups has to be obtained. In order to get support, information has to be distributed to members and potential members. Having more sympathizers provides more chances to make one’s voice heard. However, having a growing number of members increases the administrative costs. An organization is more expensive to run than a loose network, but it gives the movement better ability to survive and act for longer periods.52 Thus, monetary and human resources are interwoven. To be able to handle different kinds of resources, we take our departure from Jo Freeman’s scheme of resources used for her study on American women’s organizations.53 Table  1 illustrates how she separates tangible and intangible resources into more detailed categories. Examples for tangible resources are money, an office and a journal. Intangible resources could mainly be regarded as human resources. Members themselves can here be seen as contributing human resources, which can be split into ‘unspecialized’ and ‘specialized’ resources. ‘Unspecialized’ resources include, for example, members’ time, their convictions, and their solidarity. Their names and bodies can be useful in demonstrations or as human shields in non-violent protests, although they might have other personal resources that can be used to legitimize action and organization.54 Organizations or movements can use members’ unpaid labour, including their time.55 Even temporalities restrict access to free time. While workers can buy and sell time, it is not possible for housewives to commodify their time and separate between free time and work. This means that there are differences between groups in their individual relation to time, their use of time and the degree of control over time in relation to paid employment and domestic work.56

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Table I.1. Resources possible to mobilize for the first wave of women’s movements. Created by the authors. Tangible resources

Intangible resources Unspecialized human resources Specialized human resources

Money Space Press organ People Time Commitment Expertise Access to decision makers; allies in government, political parties, and media or other influential organizations Status in polity Status in group

Source: This is a modified model of what Jo Freeman has presented in: Freeman, Jo (1999), A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations. In Waves of Protest, J. Freeman and V. Johnson (eds); Lanham, MD and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 225.

‘Specialized’ resources include, for example, expert knowledge and access to important decision makers – allies in government, political parties, media, or other influential organizations.57 The importance of different allies may vary, depending on the context. Research on social movements has emphasized the importance of allies, such as political parties, for new organizations. Sidney Tarrow emphasizes the role of influential allies as an extraordinary resource, for example, in non-democratic or repressive systems where organizations or social movements only have few internal resources. We know that even after women formally had received the right to vote, they were under-represented and sometimes not present at all in parliaments, which made them still dependent on men in parliament. Relations with the press have been important for a long time, even if access to media might be more decisive today.58 Here also the state could facilitate or obstruct opportunities by legislation and economic support. We can also expect that access to or restrictions in the access to higher education make a difference in men’s and women’s human resources, such as expert knowledge, which is of course also affected by their class. Most groups raise money from many sources – not just one source. Income sources could be monetary bequests or donations, membership fees, staff-generated revenue such as the sale of pamphlets or organizing meetings giving revenue, fundraising, investments giving good return, or state subsidies.59 Yet all resources are not always available, and even if they are they cannot always be used for all types of organizing in all

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historical situations. Vivianne A. Zelizer has discussed the social value of money, depending on the source of income and the use of it.60 Orsi Husz has, for example, shown how a debate on taxes in Sweden during the 1950s made a point that middle-class families had less money left after having paid taxes than what was necessary for their living, including a big house, a maid, etc., than ordinary workers who did not have to pay for a luxury lifestyle.61 Here the demands on a certain standard of living, due to a certain class background, were the reason why less money was suddenly more money. This is especially interesting when we are looking at women’s organizations, and women of different classes, since the ideological division of the private sphere as female and the public sphere as male have made economical agents male gendered.62 We have to take into account not only what resources the women’s organization had access to but also what was regarded as ‘legitimate’ or ‘respectable’ dependent on gender, class and the historical context. The value and legitimacy of different resources will be influenced by the ‘cultural context’, or dominating attitudes within groups and societies. ‘Social context’ is the social milieu and networks in which the social movement is embedded. If an organization is sensitive to these attitudes, it will be able to frame a problem in a way that mobilizes individuals and hence also generates support, money, or participation in protest actions. In this context, it seems possible that for women’s organizations attitudes towards what is regarded as appropriate according to gender and class are important for the way protests can be and actually are conducted. This means that the formulation and framing of goals could be dependent on the cultural context as well. The ‘political context’ is also central. Access to political influence and powerful allies is important, as are conflicts between elites in society. The political context and the actions of opponents are decisive for collective action, for legitimizing activity, and for determining the prospects of winning or losing.63 The outcome may be dependent on whether a less established organization is ideologically placed far from the political establishment or not.

Comparing the Swedish Case Sweden today is well known for its welfare state promoting gender politics and its state feminism. However, Swedish women’s organizations still have less access to major financial resources than male-dominated or mixed organizations. At the turn of the twenty-first century, Swedish women’s organizations also had lower state subsidies per member than other kinds of organizations.64

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We have chosen to study one middle-class emancipatory women’s organization, the Fredrika Bremer Association (FBA), and one socialist women’s organization, the Social Democratic Women’s Federation (SSKF) and its predecessors. Both have been important women’s organizations in Sweden’s political life and organized mainly white Lutheran women. The FBA was the first national women’s organization, founded in 1884. For several decades it was the dominant women’s organization and could be regarded as a liberal women’s organization mainly for middle-class women. By 1925 the organization had matured and found its organizational structure, with development from a centralized organization dominated by a network in the capital city to the structure with local clubs formally represented on the board that still remains today. The SSKF was officially founded about forty years later, in 1920, but had since 1906 a predecessor which also is taken into account in this study, as it was an earlier form of organizing that probably for strategic reasons was not called an organization. The organizations are studied during their initial phase of organizing until they were more or less consolidated: the FBA from the 1880s to 1925 and the social democratic women’s movement from 1906 to 1933. This comparison between two different organizations is also a comparison between slightly different historical periods. The question is if a comparison is meaningful under these circumstances – our answer is yes, of course. This study is based on extensive comparative research. When we started our research we planned for a systematic comparison between similar organizations in Sweden, Great Britain, Germany and Canada, all connected with the same international movements the Swedish organizations were members of as well. Although many historians have regarded comparisons as the golden way to knowledge and have likened historical comparisons with laboratory experiments, the experience of many historians down in the basements of archives differs much from these glorifications of comparisons. The reason is very simple: many times archival material that at a first glance seems to be comparable is, when examined more closely, not comparable in all respects or not at all, which is an interesting first result.65 Our intention was also to limit our comparisons to monetary resources for each case, as it seemed that money would be a perfect unit to compare and because it would be difficult to make the same extensive network studies as in the Swedish case. The results of our comparative approach are as much a result of this research as the starting point for this book. Our comparative approach has forced us many times to rewrite the aims of our studies as insights from our comparisons showed that our starting points were very Sweden-centred. One of the most important results of our research was that we found out how special Swedish organizations were in comparison with the

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organizations in other parts of the Western world. First of all, FBA was one of the few member organizations of the International Council of Women (ICW), the umbrella organization of non-socialist women’s organizations that was not initiated by the international organization. Differently from other member organizations, FBA was not an umbrella organization of Swedish women’s organizations. In Germany, Canada and Great Britain, ICW had initiated a congregation of national women’s organizations in one umbrella organization. Second, Swedish socialist women were one of the few socialist women’s groups during the period of study that had a women’s organization with its own budget and that was formally financially independent from the Swedish social democratic party. The finances of socialist women were in most of the cases embedded in the finances of the different social democratic parties, making it impossible to study access to money without diving into the archival material on a level of verifications which are seldom kept in archives. As a result of this we were not able to compare the exact access to financial means between the socialist women’s organizations in these countries, with the exception of a few years in the case of the British Women’s Labour League. Our ambition to combine cross-class and cross-national comparisons in a systematic way was therefore difficult to fulfil the way we originally planned it. One of the questions that remains from this comparative experience is why were Swedish organizations so different, although they belonged to the same international movements during a period of time when synchronicity was one of the characteristics of a wave of globalization at the turn of the century? We have chosen to use minor comparisons in our summarizing chapters, whenever comparisons were possible to make. These comparisons are first of all used to contextualize the Swedish cases, to highlight both what can be discerned as a general pattern and also what can be discerned as shaped by the specific Swedish context studied here. We have also been able to compare how a specific situation, the lack of available money, has been treated in the different organizations, as strategies to engage in politics with little or no money were necessary to develop for all of the organizations, whether they were part of a political party or an independent organization. We have already emphasized political and economic rights as being important for women’s political struggle. These laws were made by the nation-state – in this regard the different nation-states are an important framework to understand part of the mobilization process of the women’s movement, but we also need to find out how much they mattered as mentioned earlier: political rights did not automatically lead to political power, but of course they could. Comparisons often keep to explanations that tend to overemphasize the nation-state as an explanatory factor.

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Nation-states are simply very handy units to make comparisons between. Nation-states have been important for the development of women’s movements, but so have other networks as well. Women’s organizing was to a large extent a transnational phenomenon and was not created in a national vacuum. During the nineteenth century women mobilized in many countries all over the world. The first wave of women’s movements started not only due to transnational processes; it also created transnational space and transferred ideas and strategies between different countries. The women’s movement could be regarded as an expression and consequence of developments in the history of the Western world, giving echo far beyond the national or continental borders.66 Thus, women’s organizing and the goals women fought for were similar in many countries.67 Despite these similarities, due to transfers between nations and larger global changes regarding economic and political development, the nation-state provided a frame that modelled transnational subjects in a specific national context. This means also that both the nation-state and the entanglements between a local development and larger networks need to be analysed in order to understand how they mattered for specific organizations. This helps us to understand single and very specific cases. Another way to contextualize a historical development is to analyse a phenomenon during different periods of time. The studied time periods are even in our case not coherent, as we wanted to highlight general patterns of strategic use of resources during the start-up of women’s organizations. Earlier research has stressed that independently of when an organization is started it has to handle similar problems. In the beginning, the focus is on mobilization and how to formulate a problem and reach consensus on the problem and future goals, often in a relatively homogenous group of people.68 Then a more outward and broader mobilization starts in order to build a more formal organization.69 At a later stage, administration and the maintenance of internal identity and solidarity might be more important. Striving for survival becomes a dominant issue, and in this, organizations can be more of a party or interest group. Focus is now on supportive service to members, and the mobilization becomes more exclusive than before.70 The chosen time period could in both cases be regarded as the initial phase of organizing until the organizations were more consolidated. The difference in time gives us the advantage of studying what was similar for the start-up, despite differences in cultural, social and political contexts, which opens up the opportunity for more general conclusions on the strategic use of resources and their meaning for social movements.

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Economic and Political Citizenship in Sweden Sweden, together with other Scandinavian countries, has provided a model for feminist activists. Nordic feminism was according to Evans (1977) ‘probably the most successful in Europe before the First World War’.71 In policy and practice Sweden has never developed a strong ‘male breadwinner model’. Relative poverty in Sweden in the nineteenth century, with big income gaps and a thin middle class, is one part of the explanation. However, the low standard of living kept most Swedish women busy with a mix of household work and gainful employment until the 1930s.72 This might have negatively affected the possibilities for doing social and political work as volunteers, albeit facilitating class-crossing strategies. In the late nineteenth century, Swedish men and women had to face the same social changes as in many other European countries in the periphery. The population growth was high: from 4.5 million in 1890 to 6.5 million in 1930. The country was an industrial latecomer in Western Europe and industrialization had just taken off. A radical change from employment in agriculture to work in town mills and workshops had begun and altered many people’s everyday lives, even though most Swedish towns remained small. Export of raw material-based products was still dominant, but the ground was laid for more diversified industry. Still, in 1900 Sweden was one of the poorest and most debt-burdened countries in Europe. To escape poverty, many made the decision to leave the country; emigration peaked during the last decades in the nineteenth century and continued until the 1920s.73 In just a few decades the situation had, however, changed. In the first half of the twentieth century, Sweden turned into one of the fastest growing and most stable economies in the world. The demand for labour combined with decades of emigration provided a high growth in real wages and altered social power relations. Sweden did not take part in the First World War, but the secondary effects of the wartime did, as in other parts of the world, lead to social unrest and political reforms. The crisis of the early 1920s was dramatic and severe in Sweden. Yet Sweden came out of it with a favourable financial and industrial structure.74 The rapidly altered economic and social situation affected both men and women, though in different ways. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the female ratio increased when more men than women emigrated. An increased number of women, especially in the capital city, Stockholm, did not marry or re-marry. To avoid the growing problem of ‘unsupported’ women, the legal status of unmarried women was reformed. Around 1850 unmarried women achieved the same right to run trade and business and inherit and own property as men. In 1862, they also attained a property-

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based municipal franchise. Married women attained in 1874 the right to their own income and property, if the spouse had a marriage settlement, and unmarried women attained full majority in 1884. These reforms were leaving more women able to gain influence over their own economic situation. Yet both married and unmarried women were excluded from many kinds of gainful employment and full economic citizenship.75 Higher education was open for women in the 1870s. Even though many women entered an academic or professional career in the following decades, higher education remained a strictly class-bound choice in Sweden. Not until the 1920s were state secondary grammar schools and jobs in the civil services opened up for women.76 Many of these reforms were passed before Swedish women had founded organizations. Loose organizing for women’s emancipation could be discerned in the mid-nineteenth century, while women’s emancipatory organizations first emerged in the 1870s and 1880s. The political context for the studied women’s movements altered rather dramatically during the studied period, 1885–1933. The labour movement challenged the political elite and the pressure for demarcation was high in the 1890s. In 1896 the first social democrat was elected to the Parliament, and a few social reforms were carried out in the field of industrial safety. However, more repressive labour legislation was also enacted. During the first decade of the new century, Sweden moved further in a democratic direction, with suffrage for all men in 1909. The liberal and right-wing parties took turns governing. The first liberal and social democratic coalition government was elected for the period 1917 to 1920. The 1920s were characterized by political instability, with short-lived minority governments with social democratic rule as well as liberal and right-wing governments. The 1930s saw a new era, with social democratic governmental hegemony for decades and the emergence of a general welfare state. Instead of a weakened social democratic party and trade unions in the 1920s and 1930s, the Swedish labour movement got its breakthrough.77 The first decades of the twentieth century also consolidated a corporative system. From the late nineteenth century, associations, mainly trade organizations, had been active in taking initiative to introduce bills and had been invited to join legislative committees. Around 1910 popular movements also started to get into this cooperation with the state, and by the end of the 1920s a quarter of the members of legislative committees came from associations, mainly trade unions and employers’ associations.78 During the 1920s and 1930s, the Social Democratic Labour Party of Sweden (Socialdemokratiska Arbetarepartiet, SAP), after the split from communists, strengthened their relation to the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen, LO).79

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When Swedish women founded organizations to achieve their goals, they had to overcome the obstacle of a rather large sparsely populated country and an undemocratic conservative political structure. Development into more radical feminism and demand for women’s suffrage was late in Sweden, even later than in other Scandinavian countries. Economic rather than political rights were emphasized until the turn of the century. Only then did women’s suffrage come into focus.80 In 1903 the first national organization for women’s suffrage was established. Yet Swedish women had to wait until 1921 to get their vote, once the social democrats and radical liberals had managed to get a majority and after several other countries had led the way. Instead the corporatist model has been regarded as an important door-opener for Swedish women activists and what has been called Swedish state feminism. Women became members of state committees before they had gained general suffrage. This can also be regarded as the reason for progressive Swedish family law introduced in 1921. Swedish family law put both spouses on an equal footing; both were made responsible for family income and the education of their children. Although we know today that gender-neutral legislation can also be used against women, the law was regarded as very progressive at the time when it was introduced.81 In 1939 another law was introduced under the leadership of famous Swedish feminists, which turned marriage bars illegal. This law must also be regarded as rather radical compared to other European countries, and was similar to the family law used as a model by feminists in other countries.82 Even after the general franchise had been introduced, Sweden had only five women (1.3 per cent) in parliament divided between two chambers. In comparison with, for example, Germany, with forty-one women (10 per cent) in parliament and the highest women’s representation in Europe at this time, the Swedish women’s representation can be regarded as rather low.83 The success of the ‘women-friendly’ Swedish state cannot therefore be understood without the considering the importance of the corporatist state. State commissions, rather than the parliament, provided Swedish feminists with important political arenas for a long time. Today Swedish parliament can be regarded as one of the most equal in the world.84

Sources Financial statements could be found in the treasurer’s columns, minutes from board meetings, and other traces of daily work of organization members. Strategic decisions and discussions about resources, or lack of them, are also possible to find fragmentally in letters, notes and diaries, as

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well as in the organizations’ journals or in the press. However, here we are limited by what has been left to the archives. In the study of the FBA, access to resources, financial strategies and how the resources were used have been searched for in the annual reports with treasurer’s reports, minutes of the board, minutes of the executive board, general ledgers (huvudböcker), account books, and petitions from 1884–1925. More sporadic sources have also been used. Firstly, is the correspondence between Sophie Adlersparre and her friends and later on members of the FBA from 1877–1890. Secondly, we have used the official correspondence of the FBA, mainly 1887–1888. Finally, correspondence, minutes and other scattered reports on the periodical Dagny have also been used. For the first years of social democratic women’s organizing, we have used the committee minutes from 1907–1920 and their annual reports including their annual treasurer’s reports from 1907–1933. Unfortunately the printed treasurer’s reports are not complete for the period 1907–1919. This means we could only use the reports for 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1914– 19. The treasurer’s reports, for example 1914–16, include several years, as the congress was only held every third year, but this means also that it is very difficult to analyse single years during this period and makes them not comparable to the reports from the FBA. Another important source for the first years of organizing is Hulda Flood’s history on the organization. While Flood is writing openly about the difficult relationship with the party, she does not write about internal conflicts of the committees at all, although she also has used the minutes, which clearly show conflicts between the members. In contrast to the FBA, letters do not exist to the same extent for social democratic women, and this leaves us with fewer sources on the choice of strategies. The main source for discovering their use of monetary resources is accounting. The annual reports with treasurer’s reports are in both these cases printed. In most instances the accounting is placed at the end of the report, and its connections to the bulk of the report about what has been done and achieved, ideas, plans and goals were not remarked upon. They give a good overview of income and spending, and how assets and liabilities were held. When only balances were published and when a more detailed view is needed, general ledgers and account books provide the set of monetary resources and how they were used. The account material seems for the studied period to have been well kept and most of the transactions could be checked against the minutes. However, social democratic women had serious problems with their accountant during the 1930s. Because of this, there are no reliable records on the finances for the period after

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1933, which made it impossible to extend the studied period. In order to make the accounts comparable over time and between organizations and nations, we have chosen to deflate the amounts with the base year of 1914 and to convert them into USD.85 However, the treasurer’s bookkeeping does not give any information on explicit strategies, such as how the decisions were reached, who took the initiatives, and so on. To compensate for this, minutes and letters have been helpful. Letters have a special advantage of relating to involved persons, time and space. A letter is addressed to somebody, signed and usually dated, and has a place associated with it. In this way letters are an enormously rich source from which to get answers on how the work of the organization took its shape and which contacts were made, and they can also give some clues about the strategies of individual members. Yet an uninvited reader, such as the researcher, can have problems in reaching the meaning of the message sent in the letter that would have been obvious for the person to whom it was addressed. Another problem is of course that only written words are traced in this way, which means that it is just a small part of the historical present. Still even if the women were living in the same town, letters, small written cards and notes to each other were not unusual. What was formal or informal is impossible to separate in these letters. A personal address could be mixed with formal issues. However, correspondence reveals information on initial mobilization and strategies that is otherwise impossible to obtain. To get more information about the persons involved and their personal ‘resources’, for example family background, education and marital status, we have used biographic handbooks and biographies. The comparison with women’s organizations in Britain, Canada and Germany is mainly based on correspondence, annual reports and minutes.86 The ‘bourgeois’ organizations are represented by the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland (NCWGB), the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC), and the National Council of Women of Germany (Bund Deutscher Frauenverein, BDF). Together with the FBA, all these organizations took part early in the work of the ICW; this allows us to follow their histories during more or less the same timeframe and state of organization. The social democratic organizations are represented by the German social democratic women, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Canada, and the Women’s Labour League (WLL) in Great Britain.

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Disposition In this book we will focus on what kind of resources the organizations had access to, and the strategic use of them during the formative years of two Swedish women’s organizations. The two parts are constructed in parallel, trying to explore the same questions, but also leaving space for differences between the two studied organizations according to their different historical contexts, and differences between classes and organizational structure. The first part of the book deals with the FBA from the mid-1880s to 1925, and was researched and written by Pernilla Jonsson. In Chapter 1 is a presentation of the first national women’s organization in Sweden with emancipatory goals. It deals with how the organization was established, its leadership, ideology and goals. Chapter 2 explores the financial situation of the organization. In focus is what kind of income sources the organization had and how they varied over time, what outlays were prioritized, and financial strategies. Of special interest here is also how economic matters were discussed and what were discerned as ‘respectable’ ways of raising funds, and spending and investing money. In Chapter 3 the compensation of money or the possible exchange into other kinds of capital are discussed. It deals with the members’ human capital, friendship and access to politics, press and other organizations, and how the use varied over time. The second part of the book deals with the social democratic women’s organization in Sweden, and was researched and written by Silke Neunsinger. It explores the differences between the SAP and the SSKF, but also the differences between local, national and international levels, and tries to give some international outlook by comparing the Swedish development with the German social democratic women, the CCF in Canada and the WLL in Great Britain. Chapter 4 deals with a comparison between the development of the SAP and its women’s organization, but also with the development of social democratic women’s movements in other countries. In which ways was the organizational development in Sweden different from other countries? How did women mobilize consensus for a separate women’s movement? How did they frame this case? What was on the agenda? This chapter covers the period between the 1880s and the 1930s. Chapter 5 deals with the monetary resources, income and outlays, as well as financial strategies between 1907 and 1933. Chapter 6 is concerned with the development of access to human resources, both on a national and an international level. How could they be used to organize and to compensate for the lack of income?

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In the conclusion of the book the two movements are compared, trying to explore how gender, class and organizational structure mattered for the start-up of women’s organizations at the beginning of the twentieth century, in a more general way. Although we wish we could, this book does not offer any insight into how much money in detail mattered for single political activities of women. However, we hope that this is a start to reconsider the use of tangible and intangible resources in future studies on social movements.

Notes  1. We use Alice Kessler-Harris’s notion of economic citizenship, in the sense of economic autonomy for women, to capture how both legal economic inequality and the positioning of women within imaginary families categorically denied them full citizenship. See, e.g., A. Kessler-Harris. 2001. In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 5.   2. V.A. Zelizer. 1994. ‘The Creation of Domestic Currencies’, The American Economic Review 84(2), Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association; V.A. Zelizer. 1994. The Social Meaning of Money, New York: Basic Books; See also G. Dölle. 1997. Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes: Finanzierungsstrategien der bürgerlichen Frauenbewegung in Deutschland zwischen 1865 und 1933, Siegener Frauenforschungsreihe, Frankfurt am Main: dipa-Verl, 18–19; A.M. Boylan. 2002. The Orgins of Women‘s Activism: New York and Boston 1797–1840, Chapel Hill, London: The University of North Carolina Press, 186. 3. E.g., M.N. Zald and J.D. McCarthy. 1979. The Dynamics of Social Movements: Resource Mobilization, Social Control, and Tactics, Cambridge, MA: Winthrop; C. Tilly. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution, New York: Random House; J. Freeman. 1975. The Politics of Women’s Liberation: A Case Study of an Emerging Social Movement and its Relation to the Policy Process, New York: McKay; J. Freeman and V. Johnson. 1999. ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, in J. Freeman and V. Johnson (eds), Waves of Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties, Lanham, MD; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield; J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald. 1988. The Dynamics of Social Movements: Resource Mobilization, Social Control, and Tactics, Lanham: University Press of America; K.L. Schlozman and J.T. Tierney. 1985. Organized Interests and American Democracy, New York: Harper & Row; D. McAdam. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; L.A. Banaszak. 1996. Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, Culture, and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage, Princeton Studies in American Politics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 4. E.g., Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation studies the second wave American women’s movement; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes studies the middle-class liberal and conservative German women’s movement 1865–1933; Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism studies local women’s associations in Boston and New York in the early nineteenth century; Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail; H.J. McCammon et al. 2001. ‘How Movements Win: Gendered Opportunity Structures and U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movements, 1866 to 1919’, American Sociological Review 66(1) studies success in relation to resources, political opportunities and collective beliefs women’s suffrage movements; and L. Tetrault. 2010. ‘The Incorporation of American Feminism: Suffragists and the Postbellum Lyceum’, The Journal of American History 96(4). Marketing techniques and business management in the

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American suffrage movement has been recognized in M.M. Finnegan. 1999. Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture and Votes for Women, Popular cultures, everyday lives, New York: Columbia University Press. In Swedish research there are few studies addressing the use of resources and official reports on the economic resources of the women’s organizations in Sweden today: B. Björkenlid. 1982. Kvinnokrav i manssamhälle: rösträttskvinnorna och deras metoder som opinionsbildare och påtryckargrupp i Sverige 1902–21, Uppsala: Uppsala univ.; SOU 2000:18. Statligt stöd till kvinnoorganisationer och jämställdhetsarbete: slutbetänkande, Statens offentliga utredningar, Stockholm: Fritzes; SOU 2004: 59. Kvinnors organisering: betänkande, Statens offentliga utredningar, Stockholm: Fritzes. Resources in organizations during the early twentieth century more generally have been studied in S. Hollari. 2000. Barnens dags förening 1905–1925: de välgörande entreprenörerna?, Stockholm: Univ. Ekonomiskhistoriska institutionen; L.-E. Olsson. 1999. Från idé till handling: en sociologisk studie av frivilliga organisationers uppkomst och fallstudier av Noaks Ark, 5i12-rörelsen, Farsor och morsor på stan, Stockholm studies in sociology, N.S, 8, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International; F. Wijkström. 1996. Den svenska ideella sektorn och pengarna!, Research report – Ekonomiska forskningsinstitutet vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, Stockholm: EFI. Some historical studies on party financing to mention have been made by G. Gidlund. 1992. ‘From Popular Movement to Political Party: Development of the Social Democratic Labor Organization’, in K. Misgeld, K. Molin and K. Åmark (eds), Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 97–130; N. Stenlås. 1998. Den inre kretsen: den svenska ekonomiska elitens inflytande över partipolitik och opinionsbildning 1940–1949, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 48, Lund: Arkiv. 5. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 8; N.M. Robertson. 2005. ‘“The Disagreeable Experience of Handling Soiled Money”: Women and Banking in the Turn-of-the-20thcentury United States’, Thirteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Scripps College, Claremont, CA, 4. 6. Wendy Gamber states that scholars still unwittingly connect business with men or as genderless. Businesswomen are still absent or seen as exceptions. W. Gamber. 1998. ‘A Gendered Enterprise: Placing Nineteenth-Century Businesswomen in History’, Business History Review 72(Summer), 188–194. With regard to the metaphor of separate spheres more generally affecting what is selected by historians to study and how to report their findings, see L. Kerber. 1988. ‘Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman’s Place: The Retoric of Women’s History’, Journal of American History 75(June), 11.   7. B. Skeggs. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender. Becoming Respectable, Theory, Culture & Society, London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage.  8. S.G. Tarrow. 2005. The New Transnational Activism, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.   9. E.g., McAdam. Political Process, 41 and there referred studies. 10. J.C. Jenkins and C. Perrow. 1977. ‘Insurgency of the Powerless: Farm Worker Movements (1946–1972)’, American Sociological Review 42, 250. 11. E.g., A. Oberschall. 1973. Social Conflict and Social Movements, Prentice-Hall series in sociology, Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation; S. Tarrow. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 112; Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’; McCarthy and Zald, The Dynamics of Social Movements, 1216 (money, facilities, labour, and legetimacy); J. Freeman. 1979. ‘The Dynamics of Social Movements: Resource Mobilization, Social Control, and Tactics’, in M.N. Zald and J.D. McCarthy (eds), Dynamics of Social Movements, Cambridge, MA: Winthrop, 167–89, 172–5 (more detailed and separating tangible resources). 12. See e.g., Jenkins and Perrow, ‘Insurgency of the Powerless’, 264; S. Rokkan and B. Hagtvet. 1987. Stat, nasjon, klasse: essays i politisk sosiologi, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 206; Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, 396.

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13. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 96–97. 14. E.g., J.D. McCarthy and M. Zald. 1977. ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’, American Journal of Sociology 48; C.N. Degler. 1980. At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present, New York: Oxford University Press. 15. E.g., S.G. Tarrow. 1994. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; D. Snow et al. 1986. ‘Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation’, American Sociological Review 51. 16. D. Rucht. 1996. ‘The Impact of National Context on Social Movements Structures’, in D. McAdam, J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 185–204. 17. As expressed by H. Kriesi. 1996. ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, in D. McAdam, J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 177. 18. M.v.d. Linden. 2008. Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History, Studies in Global Social History, 1, Leiden: Brill, 235. 19. See e.g., discussion in McAdam. Political Process, 1930–1970, 27–35. 20. See e.g., Ibid, 40–44. 21. S. Tarrow. 1996. ‘States and Opportunities: The Political Structuring of Social Movements’, in J.D.M. Doug McAdam and Mayer N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspective on Social Movements. Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 42–61, 58–59. 22. J.D. McCarthy. 1996. ‘Constrains and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’, in D. McAdam, J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, xiv, 426, 141–3. 23. Rucht, ‘The Impact of National Context on Social Movements Structures’, 192–202; H.P. Kitchelt. 1986. ‘Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science 16, 57–85. 24. D. McAdam. 1999. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, xv. 25. See e.g., B. Klandermans. 1992. ‘The Social Construction of Protest and Multiorganizational Fields’, in A. Morris and C.M. Mueller (eds), Social Movement Theory, xii, 368; Tarrow, Power in Movement; W.A. Gamson and D.S. Meyer. 1996. ‘Framing Political Opportunity’, in D. McAdam, J.D. McCarthy and M.N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press; D. and D. McAdam. 1992. ‘Collective Identity and Activism: Networks, Choices, and the Life of a Movement’, in A.D. Morris and C.M. Mueller (eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, xii, 382; Snow et al., ‘Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation’; Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 96. 26. Rucht, ‘The Impact of National Context on Social Movements Structures’, 189–190. 27. E.S. Clemens. 1996. ‘Organizational Form as Frame’, in J.D.M. Doug McAdam and Mayer N. Zald (eds), Comparative Perspective on Social Movements. Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 205–26. For the concept habitus see P. Bourdieu and L.C. Clough. 1996. The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 101–2. 28. D.S. Cobble. 2003. The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America, Princeton, NJ; Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 1–2.

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29. S.E. Marshall. 1997. Splintered Sisterhood: Gender and Class in the Campaign against Woman Suffrage, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 12, who refers to studies on upperclass organizations. About charity work and gendered class positions effect on upper-class women’s behaviour see also T.J. Odendahl. 1990. Charity Begins at Home: Generosity and Self-Interest among the Philanthropic Elite, New York: Basic Books; A.K. Daniels. 1988. Invisible Careers: Women Civic Leaders from the Volunteer World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 30. R.J. Evans. 1977. The Feminists: Women’s Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840–1920, London, New York: Croom Helm; Harper & Row, see 184ff. (Swedish edition). 31. M.J. Boxer. 2007. ‘Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept “Bourgeois Feminism”’, American Historical Review 112(1). 32. For a debate on the need to historicize points of departures and concepts see M.W.B. Zimmermann. 2003. ‘Penser l‘histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivité’, Annales: histoire, science sociales 58(1), 30–32. M.W.B. Zimmermann. 2002. ‘Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung: der Ansatz der histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28(4), 609. 33. For a discussion of the German dominance in the Second International and its consequences for women’s organizing see J. Hannam and K. Hunt. 2002. Socialist Women: Britain, 1880s to 1920s, London: Routledge, 5f.; Boxer. ‘Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept “Bourgeois Feminism”’. 34. K. Canning. 1992. ‘Gender and the Politics of Class Formation: Rethinking German Labour History’, American Historical Review 97(3); A. Kessler-Harris. 2002. ‘Two Labour Histories or One?’, in L. Heerma van Voss and M.v.d. Linden (eds), Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Writing of European Labour History, New York: Berghahn Books, 250, 135. 35. For a discussion see Canning, ‘Gender and the Politics of Class Formation’; J.W. Scott. 1999. ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, Gender and The Politics of History. Revised Edition, New York; Chichester: Columbia University Press. 36. Skeggs, Formations of Class and Gender. See also U. Holgersson. 2008. ‘Hur ska vi förstå klass i historien och idag’, Arbetarhistoria 132(3–4). 37. The expression is borrowed from Tarrow, ‘States and opportunities’, 54, but he is only referring to the resource mobilizing theory. 38. D. Knoke. 1990. Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations, Social Institutions and Social Change, Hawthorne, NY: A. de Gruyter, 89–90; Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money. 39. McCammon et al., ‘How Movements Win’, 62–64; Banaszak. Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, Culture, and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage, 96–97. 40. Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, 396. 41. Ibid., 89. 42. A.J. Cigler and B.A. Loomis. 1998. Interest Group Politics, Washington, DC: CQ Press, 397; J.M. Hansen. 1991. Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919–1981, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 13. 43. Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, Chapter 7. See Stenlås, Den inre kretsen: den svenska ekonomiska elitens inflytande över partipolitik och opinionsbildning 1940–1949, for an example of monetary support from employers’ associations to political parties in Sweden. 44. K.W. Hula. 1999. Lobbying Together: Interest Group Coalitions in Legislative Politics, American Governance and Public Policy, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 117–8. 45. Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism, 75. 46. Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money, 2–5 and 201–8. 47. E.g., Ibid., 2–5 and 201–8; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 186.

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48. See chapter 1 and, e.g., Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 18–19 and Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 186. 49. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 9, 11, 47 and 49. 50. Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, 223; Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, 396. 51. Regarding the importance of allies in the case of women’s movements see Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 98ff. 52. McAdam, Political Process; Tarrow, Power in Movement, 123f.; Staggenborg, 1988, quoted in Kriesi, ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, 155; U. Wischermann. 2003. ‘Bewegungs(gegen)-öffentlichkeiten. Zur Geschichte der politischen Presse von Frauen’, Adriadne nov.(44), 22; S. Kinnebrock. 2003. ‘Pionerinnen der Öffentligkeitsarbeit. Das beispiel Anita Augsburg’, Adriadne nov.(44), 22. 53. Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, 223–7. 54. Knoke, Organizing for Collective Action, 54–55; Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, 224. 55. Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation, 232; Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, 224. 56. M. Glucksmann. 2000. Cottons and Casuals: The Gendered Organisation of Labour in Time and Space, Durham: Sociology Press. 57. Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’, 224. 58. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics, 80 and 131–2. Tarrow’s examples are drawn from the peasant movements of Poland 1970–80 and South American peasant movements. 59. Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, 91–93. 60. V.A. Zelizer. 1989. ‘The Social Meaning of Money: “Special Monies”’, American Journal of Sociology 95(2); Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money. 61. O. Husz. 2008. ‘Klass, människovärde och pengar’, Arbetarhistoria 127–128 (3–4). 62. An overview of the historiography of ‘separate spheres’ and pathbreaking studies are given by L.K. Kerber. 1980. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America, Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press. 63. S.G. Tarrow. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics series, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 233; Rucht. ‘The Impact of National Context on Social Movements Structures’, 189–90. 64. SOU 2000:18; SOU 2004:59. 65. H.-G. Haupt. 2007. ‘Comparative History: A Contested Method’, Historisk tidskrift (Stockholm) 127(4), 700; S. Neunsinger. 2010. ‘Cross-over!: om komparationer, transferanalyser, historie croisée och den metodologiska nationalismens problem’, Historisk tidskrift (Stockholm) 130(1). 66. L.J. Rupp. 1997. Worlds of Women: the Making of an International Women’s Movement, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; K.M. Offen. 2000. European Feminisms: 1700– 1950: A Political History, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; B.S. Anderson. 2000. Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830–1860, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press; M.H. McFadden. 1999. Golden Cables of Sympathy: The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth-Century Feminism, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky; S. Zimmermann. 2002. ‘Frauenbewegung, Transfer und Trans-Nationalität. Feministisches Denken und Streben im globalen und zentralosteuropäischen Kontext des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts’, in H. Kaelble, M. Kirsch and A. Schmidt-Gernig (eds), Transnationale Öffentlichkeiten und Identitäten im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt/Main/New York: Campus-

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Verlag, 263–302; U. Wikander et al. 1995. Protecting Women: Labor Legislation in Europe, the United States, and Australia, 1890–1920, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press; U. Wikander. 2006. Feminism, familj och medborgarskap: debatter på internationella kongresser om nattarbetsförbud för kvinnor 1889–1919, Göteborg: Makadam. See also ongoing research by, e.g., Eva Matthes, University of Augsburg, on the discourses within ICW and National Council of Women of Germany; and Susanne Schötz, TU Dresden, on ‘Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein’ and international communication. Most of the research concerns bourgeois women’s organizations as Zimmermann, ‘Frauenbewegung, Transfer und TransNationalität’, 263–302, 265 footnote 6 has pointed out. For exchange between socialist women see K. Hunt. 1996. Equivocal Feminists: The Social Democratic Federation and the Woman Question: 1884–1911, New York: Cambridge University Press, 63–70; C. Collette. 1998. The International Faith: Labour’s Attitude to European Socialism, 1918–39, Studies in Labour History, Aldershot: Ashgate. 67. Evans, The Feminists; A. Kloosterman and M. Bosch. 1990. Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902–1942, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1902–1942; U. Wikander, A. Kessler-Harris and J. Lewis. 1995. Protecting Women Labor Legislation in Europe, the United States, and Australia, 1880–1920, Urbana: University of Illinois Press; Rupp, Worlds of Women; G. Bock. 2000. Frauen in der europäischen Geschichte: vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, München: Beck; Zimmermann, ‘Frauenbewegung, Transfer und Trans-Nationalität’. 68. McCarthy, ‘Constrains and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’, 142. 69. On the importance of networks in the early mobilization, to create legitimacy and to survive, see e.g., Freeman. The Politics of Women’s Liberation, 7–8; M. Diani and D. McAdam. 2003. Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press; McCarthy. ‘Constrains and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’, 142; N. Rosenthal et al. 1985. ‘Social Movements and Network Analysis: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Reform in New York State’, American Journal of Sociology 90(5), 1022–54. 70. Kriesi. ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, 156. 71. Evans. The Feminists: Women’s Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840–1920, 69. 72. L. Sommestad. 1994. ‘Privat eller offentlig välfärd?: ett genusperspektiv på välfärdsstaternas historiska formering’, Historisk Tidskrift (Stockholm) 4, 611–29. 73. A. Maddison. 1982. Phases of Capitalist Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 44, Table 3.1. 74. L. Schön. 2000. En modern svensk ekonomisk historia: tillväxt och omvandling under två sekel, Stockholm: SNS förl, 220–6, 269, and 287–93. 75. K. Widerberg. 1978. Kvinnans rättsliga och sociala ställning i Sverige 1750–1976: Women’s Legal and Social Position in Sweden 1750–1976, Report series / Department of Sociology of Law, Lund University, Sweden, 1978:3, Lund; M. Ågren. 1999. ‘Fadern, systern och brodern: makt- och rättsförskjutningar genom 1800-talets egendomsreformer’, Historisk Tidskrift; G. Qvist. 1960. Kvinnofrågan i Sverige 1809–1846: studier rörande kvinnans näringsfrihet inom de borgerliga yrkena, Scandinavian university books, Göteborg; G. Qvist. 1978. Konsten att blifva en god flicka: opinioner i kvinnofrågan under 1800-talets förra hälft, Stockholm: Liber Förlag, 101 ff; U. Manns. 1997. Den sanna frigörelsen: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884–1921, Kulturhistoriskt bibliotek, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 42–45. 76. Widerberg, Kvinnans rättsliga och sociala ställning i Sverige 1750–1976. 77. L. Olsson and L. Ekdahl. 2002. Klass i rörelse: arbetarrörelsen i svensk samhällsutveckling, Arbetarhistoria, 2002:1/2, Stockholm: Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibl.: Arbetarnas kulturhistoriska sällsk, 74ff. 78. G. Heckscher. 1946. Staten och organisationerna, Stockholm: Kooperativa förbundets

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bokförlag, 140ff. and 230ff.; N. Elvander. 1969. Intresseorganisationerna i dagens Sverige, Lund: Gleerup, 24 and 46; N. Elvander. 1974. Näringslivets 900 organisationer, Studier och debatt, 1974:1, Stockholm: Studieförb. Näringsliv och samhälle, 16ff.; S. Lundkvist and H. Friman. 1977. Folkrörelserna i det svenska samhället 1850–1920, Stockholm: Sober, 222; B. Rothstein. 1992. Den korporativa staten: intresseorganisationer och statsförvaltning i svensk politik, Riksdagen och de organiserade intressena, 2, Stockholm: Norstedts juridik: Allmänna förl. distributör, 82f. and 88. 79. B. Schüllerqvist. 1992. Från kosackval till kohandel: SAP:s väg till makten (1928–33) Stockholm: Tiden. 80. Evans, The Feminists, 71ff. 81. Dorothy Sue Cobble has emphasized the need for looking at multiple feminism in order to move beyond an equal rights theology for the American contexts, in Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement, 7. 82. K. Melby et al. 2006. Inte ett ord om kärlek: äktenskap och politik i Norden ca 1850–1930, Centrum för Danmarksstudier, 11, Göteborg: Makadam i samarbete med Centrum för Danmarksstudier vid Lunds universitet, S. Neunsinger. 2001. Die Arbeit der Frauen – die Krise der Männer: die Erwerbstätigkeit verheirateter Frauen in Deutschland und Schweden 1919–1939, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 198, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 64–6. 83. Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen, 70. 84. After the election in 2006, of the 349 parliament members, 47 per cent (164) are women; the most gender-balanced parliament in the world at the moment is Rwanda, where 48.8 per cent of representatives are women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. http:// www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm [2010-04-07]. 85. To deflate the values into the real value of 1914 we have used G. Myrdal and S. Bouvin. 1933. Wages, Cost of Living and National Income in Sweden 1860–1930, Stockholm economic studies, 2, London, Stockholm: P.S. King; Norstedt ( distr. ). For the currence rate we have have used ‘Finans och monetära förhållanden’, Portalen för historisk statistik – historia i siffror, http://www.historia.se (22 June 2006). 86. Most of the results have been published before in P. Jonsson. 2007. ‘On the Women’s Account – Finances of ‘Bourgeois’ Women’s Organisations in Sweden, England, Germany and Canada, 1885–1924’, in J. Sangster, S. Neunsinger and P. Jonsson (eds), Crossing Boundaries – New Perspectives on Women’s Organizing in Europe and North America, Uppsala; P. Jonsson and L. af Peterséns. 2007. ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organisations’ Participation on the International Scene, 1885–1916’, in E. Schöck-Quinteros, et al. (eds), Politische Netzwerkerinnen: International Zusammenarbeit von Frauen 1830–1960, Berlin: Trafo, P. Jonsson and S. Neunsinger. 2005, unpublished. ‘Funding the Process of Initial Mobilizing: A Comparision of Socialist and Bourgeois Women’s Organizing in Sweden and Canada’, The Thirteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women 2005, Scripps College, Claremont, Califonia.

Chapter 1

The Fredrika Bremer Association 1884–1925

The Fredrika Bremer Association (Fredrika Bremer förbundet, FBA) was founded in December 1884, and took its name from the famous author and pioneer of women’s emancipation in Sweden. It was the first national women’s organization in Sweden and continues to exert political influence today, though it has lost members and power during the last three decades. The establishment of a Swedish women’s movement coincided with women’s organizing in other parts of Europe and North America. During the second half of the nineteenth century more formal national organizations were established around these ideas. As in many other countries, loose networks preceded formal women’s organizations in Sweden.1 Although the timing of political action could depend on a national schedule, the agenda was similar, such as the fight for women’s legal, economic and political rights, married women’s right to work, labour protection, and peace. However, the FBA until the turn of the century mainly focused on women’s economic citizenship rather than political citizenship. The FBA can be classified as a centralized and autonomous organization, mainly mobilizing middle- and upper-class women and men. The period 1884 to 1925 represents the start-up phase until the organization could be considered an influential and mature national organization with a formalized representation of the local clubs on the board and closer interaction between the centre and the periphery. As a pioneer in the history of the Swedish women’s movement and political history, the organization has been the focus of several studies. The FBA and one of its founders, the Baroness Sophie Adlersparre (neé Leijonhufvud), are thoroughly examined in Sigrid Leijonhufvud’s (1923) Notes for this chapter begin on page 34.

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biography of her aunt and Adlersparre’s literary life by Git Claesson Pipping (1997). The organization and its collaborators are also the topic of Sif Bokholm’s (2000, 2002) biography of the association’s second chairwoman, Agda Montelius. The aims and ideology of the organization have been thoroughly studied by Ulla Manns (1997, 2004) and Inger Hammar (1999). Helena Streijffert (1983) has focused on the organization at a local level but during the second half of the twentieth century. In addition there is a wide range of histories dealing with the organization and certain aspects of the early Swedish women’s movement.2 However, resources and financial strategies have not been the focus of earlier studies. Below, we will first turn to what kind of organization the FBA was, its mobilization structure and how it was established (Chapter 2). Thereafter we will turn to the income, outlays and investments of the organization (Chapter 3) as well as other means – the members, their abilities and networks – of the organization (Chapter 4).

The Start-up The FBA was a centralized and autonomous organization, mainly mobilizing middle- and upper-class women and men. The association emanated from a loose network of liberal women and men in Stockholm, with interests in social work, culture and women’s rights.3 Many of them had met before in their activities in other associations and projects.4 As in many other countries in the nineteenth century with circumscribed educational and political opportunities, Swedish women were dependent on gaining support from men in power in their striving for emancipation. Earlier, some support for female emancipation was expressed in literature by male and female authors, such as Carl Love Almqvist and Fredrika Bremer, and male liberal politicians worked for women’s emancipation in terms of legal reforms. At the centre of these networks was Sophie Adlersparre, who later took the initiative to found the FBA. She had close contact with authors and literary circles in Denmark and Norway. The constitution of the association was preceded by, and went along with, an exchange of ideas among renowned members of women’s and philanthropic organizations in the Nordic countries, England, France, Germany and Austria. In their letters, these women exchanged ideas on literature and reported on the women’s situation in their respective countries and on their experience with women’s clubs.5 A periodical was as in many other European countries a node in the emancipatory work.6 In 1859 Sophie Adlersparre and her friend Rosalie

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Olivercrona started the periodical, Tidskrift för hemmet (Home Journal), in support of the ‘Woman Question’. The goal was to ‘promote the advancement of the Swedish woman in the respect of moral, intellectual, and economic standards’.7 Tidskrift för hemmet still persisted in the early 1880s and the network around it consisted of many prominent names in the movement for women’s emancipation. Many of them took part in the founding of the FBA.8 Many of the women and men that gathered around the periodical had met in different kinds of associations. Some women also got to know each other when they took private courses for women, which later developed into a formal training college for women teachers.9 Some of the men also had their own homosocial common arena – they were members of the same order of Knights and of the Parliament. Thus, these women and men were connected both professionally and socially, but where some of the arenas were highly gendered.10 Organizations with emancipatory goals, such as the Association for Married Woman’s Property Rights (Föreningen för gift qvinnas eganderätt) and the FBA, were first established in the 1870s and 1880s.11 The establishment of the FBA was closely interwoven with the fate of the periodical. In 1879 the editor, Sophie Adlersparre, became a widow. In addition to her personal loss, her financial situation became more vulnerable. When the financial problems of the periodical became acute in the early 1880s, her private funds could not bear the losses; the idea of a women’s organization working for women’s rights in a broader sense was launched. The inaugural meeting of the new organization was held in December 1884.12 Thus, the step towards a more formalized organization was taken to achieve a more continuous inflow of means to maintain the ability to mobilize in the long run. As in many other countries in the nineteenth century, the Swedish women striving for emancipation were dependent on support from men in power. The Director-General of the National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet), Hans Hildebrandt, became the first chairman of the organization. He was a prominent person in associations and politics. By his side on the first board were twelve other distinguished men and sixteen women. Thus, the most prominent chair in the organization was held by a man, and women barely had a majority. Women’s cooperation with men could be interpreted as a strategic decision to legitimize the organization in a patriarchal and undemocratic society.13 In a society where education, professions and the political arena were still circumscribed for women, the arrangement, in addition to respectability, provided the FBA with channels into influential groups in Parliament (Riksdag), the press, and other arenas where women were prohibited from participating.

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The interpersonal relationships between older organizations and the later FBA were strong and provided opportunities to share information and utilize mobilization channels. Mobilizing before organizing could then be viewed as an example of how a problem was formulated in an informal and homogenous group of friends. Despite its claim to be a national organization, the board and most members were, during the initial decades, concentrated in Stockholm. However, it had a branch office in Malmö from 1887 to 1892. From the start there were local representatives, who kept contact with the central office. In 1906 local clubs were also founded, though these did not challenge the dominance of the office and board until 1921. In that year a leap was taken towards a more decentralized organization with formal structures for the representation of the local clubs on the board, and closer interaction between the centre and the periphery.14

Ideas and Agendas The association’s agenda included women’s rights to educate themselves, become self-supporting, influence their own and their families’ daily lives, and participate in politics.15 Even though some of the positions expressed were radical, the association worked for gradual reforms rather than a revolutionary transformation altering the existing gender order. The motto of the association was what was called ‘true emancipation’. The association was reacting against philosophical naturalism, which emphasized the biological side of human nature rather than humans as spiritual and cultural beings. The association’s goals were influenced by Natural Right and the Lutheran faith.16 Sophie Adlersparre cited the Bible in support of the emancipation of women: ‘God’s creation plan claimed that every individual, man or woman, should take part in society through their work during their life on earth’ (our translation).17 Thus, although a reformist approach was preferred, there was strong support for transformation and women’s emancipation. Regardless of gender, all individuals were considered to have the same capacity and purpose in life. The association’s goal was to end the subordination of women and it was based on a belief in gender equality; arguments that women were morally superior to men rarely occurred during the first decade.18 The philosophical naturalists’ eroticized idea of women was considered to be just a way to keep women subordinated.19 To fulfil its goals, the association had to transform them into concrete work. A variety of activities based on ‘a liberal idea of self-help and on altered attitudes towards gender’20 were carried out. The work was organized in committees. During the first years, women’s education had

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priority, as in many other European women’s movements at the time.21 The board started to plan a home study programme, aiming to reach women excluded from other educational opportunities. As early as December 1884, an advisory bureau opened. This partly served women by providing information on their legal and economic rights, as well as on educational matters. It also had contacts with members of Parliament and other authorities with the aim of strengthening the position of women in marriage and society. The bureau also served as an employment bureau for women, a health insurance office for teachers, and a pension fund for nurses. In the spirit of a self-help programme, a lending business was set up to make small loans to women for studies and starting up enterprises. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, committees were established to work for better health care in the countryside, better working conditions for women, and scholarship funds for female students.22 From the 1890s onwards, the FBA chose a less controversial line. It turned to more social concerns, which meant less criticism of gender concepts and a greater focus on practical reforms.23 From the 1890s, a more essential view, advocating gendered ideals about human nature, took hold of the organization. After intensive discussions in the women’s movement initiated by the social reformer Ellen Key, ‘women’s rights’ referred to women’s role as mothers and their higher moral standards. This was a shift also seen in women’s organizations in other countries the decades before 1900.24

New Leadership and New Directions The turn of the century meant not only a change in ideology, but also a new generation of leaders, following the death of the chairman, Hans Hildebrandt, and Sophie Adlersparre. Agda Montelius (neé Reuterskiöld), took over as chairwoman in 1903, having become a vice chair 1898. She was married to Oscar Montelius, who, interestingly, was Hans Hildebrandt’s successor as Director-General of the National Heritage Board. Montelius’s leadership contributed to the amalgamation of social reforms and a more gender complementary feminism in the ideology of the association.25 The association now added even more philanthropic work to its other fields of work such as scholarships, advice and employment bureau. Education and women’s occupational training became one of the main activities: a rural domestic school was established in 1907, a horticulture school in 1914, and a school for vocational training in sewing in 1917. However, the political and emancipatory work remained important. Around

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the turn of the twentieth century, activity intensified to campaign for the attainment of political franchise and equal status with men in marriage. Moral questions, women’s economic rights and their situation in the labour market were also on the agenda.26 In 1920 some of the main goals of the women’s movement were reached: women received suffrage in parliamentary elections and new marriage legislation gave husband and wife the same rights in marriage. To the FBA it meant reorganization. Lizinka Dyrssen became the new chairwoman of 1920, after the death of Agda Montelius. With her new position at the top, the shift was sealed from liberal to conservative forces dominating the FBA. In 1921 new statutes (rules) of the organization were passed. They gave the local clubs a stronger and more direct influence. Ulla Manns states that the new programme of the organization also had some important differences, compared to the previous one. The new programme emphasized women’s duties as citizens more and individual emancipation less. In addition, collaboration with men within the Association was no longer on the agenda.27 However, the early twentieth century also meant a changed position within the women’s movement. Several new women’s organizations had entered the scene and gathered large numbers of members. Among the new large organizations were for example the Housewife Association (Husmodersförbundet), the Social Democratic Women’s Federation, and the Women’s Trade Union.28 After Swedish women won the vote, married women’s right to work and social welfare to facilitate the combination of paid employment and family life were emphasized.29

Summary The FBA was the first national women’s organization in Sweden. It was established in December 1884, which more or less coincided with the founding of the first national Norwegian and Finnish women’s organizations. However, this was more than ten years after the equivalent organization in Denmark and several decades after the establishment of French, British, and American women’s emancipatory organizations.30 Until the early twentieth century the FBA could be regarded as the main force in the Swedish women’s movement. After this the suffrage movement and political women’s federations rapidly grew and the FBA lost its dominant position. Literacy feminism mobilized a loose network of liberal men and women to form the FBA. A women’s periodical was important in obtaining this mobilization, and in spreading the idea of women’s emancipation as in,

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for example, Britain, Germany, France and to some extent the Netherlands.31 Cooperation with men continued several decades after the initial phase with loose networks of individual forerunners – a pattern also seen in women’s organizing in other Scandinavian countries and in France.32 However, the need for having men on the board seems to have diminished over time, as women got access to more educational and professional opportunities. After women had achieved the vote no man was represented on the board. During the first decades the organization had, both through women’s social contacts and men in the Parliament on the board, close contact with liberal political circles and may have gained from the Liberal government in the early twentieth century.33 However, from the 1920s the FBA moved to the right, while Swedish politics turned to the left, with social democrats forming several minority governments and a majority Government in 1933. The goals of the FBA were similar to the agendas of most American and European women’s movements, with a focus on women’s education, employment, economic rights, and moral reform.34 However, until the 1890s the Swedish women’s movement did not emphasize women’s suffrage and the idea of equality dominated the discourse for women’s rights. It was not until the turn of the twentieth century that suffrage became one of the main issues. At the same time the arguments for gender differences were accentuated, such as women’s moral superiority to men and women’s special capacity as mothers of future generations. Thus, a more gender essential view took hold of the organization, which also was the case at international congresses and in, for example, the American women’s movement.35 During the 1910s and 1920s, the agenda turned from a focus on women’s economic citizenship and criticism of gender concepts to focus on women’s political citizenship. To conclude, the agenda and establishment of the FBA had many similarities with other liberal middle-class women’s movements in Europe and America, even if the timing of its development differed somewhat. The close cooperation with male cultural and political elites may have provided the Swedish pioneer women’s organization with opportunities to use both tangible and intangible resources otherwise inaccessible to women. Next, we will turn to the question of how funds and other kinds of resources were mobilized and used to achieve the goals of the organization, and to what extent this could have provided the organization with opportunities and restrictions in politics.

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Notes 1. K.M. Offen. 2004. ‘Challenging Male Hegemony: Feminist Criticism and the Context for Women’s Movements in the Age of European Revolutions and Counterrevolutions, 1789–1860’, in S. Paletschek and B. Pietrow-Ennker (eds), Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century. A European Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 11–30; S. Paletschek and B. Pietrow-Ennker. 2004. ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Conclusions’, in S. Paletschek and B. Pietrow-Ennker (eds), Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century. A European Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 308–9; Rupp. Worlds of Women: the Making of an International Women’s Movement; Anderson. Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830–1860. 2. About the Fredrika Bremer Association, see e.g., U. Manns. 2005. Upp systrar, väpnen er!: kön och politik i svensk 1800-talsfeminism, Stockholm: Atlas akademi; U. Manns. 2004. ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden: The Fredrika Bremer Association’, in S. Paletschek and B. Pietrow-Ennker (eds), Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century. A European Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; S. Bokholm. 2002. I vimlet: mötesplatser för kvinnosak och kultur kring sekelskiftet 1900; S. Bokholm. 2000. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, Monografier utgivna av Stockholms stad, 154, Stockholm: Stockholmia; I. Hammar. 1999. Emancipation och Religion: den svenska kvinnorörelsens pionjärer i debatt om kvinnans kallelse ca 1860–1900, Stockholm: Carlsson; Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen; G. Claesson Pipping. 1997. Qvinlighetens väsen: Sophie Adlersparres litteraturkritik och formandet av den svenska kvinnans litteratur, Eslöv: Östberg; S. Leijonhufvud. 1923. Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde): ett liv och en livsgärning, Stockholm: Norstedt. About the Swedish women’s movement, see e.g., C. Florin and P. Myrén. 2006. Kvinnor får röst: kön, känslor och politisk kultur i kvinnornas rösträttsrörelse, Stockholm: Atlas; C. Florin. 2004. ‘Män som strategi: rösträttskvinnornas informella vägar till det politiska medborgarskapet’; J. Rönnbäck. 2004. Politikens genusgränser: den kvinnliga rösträttsrörelsen och kampen för kvinnors politiska medborgarskap 1902–1921, Atlas akademi, Stockholm: Atlas; K. Östberg. 2004. ‘Först så går det upp...: Svensk kvinnorörelse i ett longitudinellt perspektiv’, in Y. Svanström and K. Östberg (eds), Än män då?: Kön och feminism i Sverige under 150 år, Stockholm: Atlas akademi; C. Florin and J. Rönnbäck. 2001. ‘Gamla och nya rum i politiken: kvinnorättsrörelsen som bildningsprojekt’; A. Göransson. 2000. ‘Kön, handling och auktoritet’, in I. Blom and A. Göransson (eds), Sekelskiften och kön: strukturella och kulturella övergångar år 1800, 1900 och 2000, Stockholm: Prisma, 97–124; H. Streijffert 1983, Studier i den svenska kvinnorörelsen. 3. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 47–48. 4. Ibid., 48–56; Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 34 and 317–25. 5. Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organisations’, 224–5. 6. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 47f.; Manns, Upp systrar, 72–99; Norlander, 85f.; Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde); In, e.g., Germany and Holland periodicals became importance nodes from where more formal organizations were established; see Gerhard, ‘The Women’s Movement in Germany in an International Context’, 107, respectively Bosch, ‘History and Historiography of First-Wave Feminism in the Netherlands, 1860–1922’, 56. 7. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 53. 8. Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden: The Fredrika Bremer Association’, 153. 9. In the 1860s Sophie Adlersparre was, together with the Hiertha sisters, daughters of the famous publicist and politician Lars Johan Hiertha, Fredrika Limnell and Anna Wallenberg, active in Stockholm’s Reading Room for women. In 1870 Anna Retzius-Hierta started together with Rosalie Olivercrona ‘The beehive’ in 1870, were women could get monetary subsidies by selling their handicraft. Anna Retzius-Hierta, her father Lars Johan Hiertha, and one of Sophie Adlersparres closes friends Ellen Ankarsvärd stood also behind the first organization for women’s rights in Sweden: ‘The Association for Married Women’s Prop-

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erty Right’ (Föreningen för gift qvinnas eganderätt). Many of the same names were also seen in other organization without non-emancipatory goals. Sophie Adlersparre, Rosalie Olivercrona and Fredrika Limnell were working together in the Red Cross’ lady committee, started 1875. Sophie Adlersparre, Molly Rothlieb, Hanna Winge, Ellen Ankarsvärd, Fredrika Limnell, Sophie Whitlock, Jenny Rossander and Anna Wallenberg were all on the board of The Friends of Handicraft (Handarbetets vänner), founded in 1874. Hans Hildebrandt was active in a parallel organization, the Swedish Handicraft Alliance (Svensk slöjdförening). Personal links also were interwoven with philanthropic organizations, e. g. the first chairman of the Fredrika Bremer Association, Hans Hildebrandt, his follower on the post Agda Montelius, and Ernst Beckman. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 221. 10. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 221. 11. Qvist, Konsten att blifva en god flicka, 106; Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 47f.; Manns, Upp systrar, 90–103. 12. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre, 69–71; Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 217; A. Nordenstam. 2003. ‘“Min älskade vän!”: Sophie Adlersparre och Rosalie Olivercronas brevväxling’, in P. Helgeson and A. Nordenstam (eds.), Brevkonst, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 255, [1], 86. 13. Manns, Den sanna frigörelse, 63f. 14. G. Langenheim. 1944. ‘Så växte kretsarna upp’, in M.v. Konow (ed.), I Fredrika Bremers spår: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884–1944, Stockholm, 73–77; RA, FBA head archive, FBA statutes 1885–1921. The first time the local clubs were mentioned in the statutes was 1910, §7, and related to the right of representatives or members to establish local clubs after permission from the board. First in the statutes of 1921, § 2, 4 and 5, the financial contribution to and the democratic representation of the local clubs were formalized. 15. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 66–69. 16. Hammar, Emancipation och religion, 122–26, 147, 191, and 210. For a similar ideological heritage also in the American liberal women’s movement see S.M. Marilley. 1996. Woman Suffrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in the United States, 1820–1920, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 6f., 159–61, and 168; A.S. Kraditor. 1965. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920, New York, Columbia University Press, 43; Kerber, Women of the Republic. 17. Hammar, Emancipation och religion, 126 (‘Guds skapelseplan krävde att varje individ under jordelivet med sitt arbete medverkade i samhällslivet’). 18. Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden: The Fredrika Bremer Association’, 154. 19. Ibid., 153 and 159–61. 20. Ibid., 156. 21. See, e.g., about Norway: I. Blom. 2004. ‘Modernity and the Norwegian Women’s Movement from the 1880s to 1914: Changes and Continuities’, in S. Paletschek and B. Pietrow-Ennker (eds), Women’s Emancipation Movements in the Nineteenth Century a European Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 133; and about the Netherlands: Bosch, ‘History and Historiography of First-Wave Feminism in the Netherlands, 1860–1922’, 55. 22. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 70–73. 23. Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden: The Fredrika Bremer Association’, 158f. 24. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 134–53. The same shift to essentialism could be seen to take hold in the American women’s movement some decades earlier and on the international arena at the turn of the century. Marilley, Woman Suffrage, 5–8 and 159–65; Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920; Kerber, Women of the Republic; Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap. 25. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället.

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26. Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden: The Fredrika Bremer Association’, 161; Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 185, 175f., and 215f. A view with less of an ideological and visionary loss is seen in Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhälle, 222–40. 27. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 212; Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism in Sweden’; K. Östberg, ’Först så går det upp-: svensk kvinnorörelse i ett longitudinellt perspektiv’, in Y. Svanström and K. Östberg (eds), Kön och feminism i Sverige under 150 år, Stockholm: Atlas Akademi, 143–66. 28. J. Rössel. 1950. Kvinnorna och kvinnorörelsen i Sverige 1850–1950, Stockholm: YSF:s förlag, 63–67; M. Micheletti. 1995. Civil Society and State Relations in Sweden, Aldershot: Avebury, 232; K. Östberg. 1997. Efter rösträtten: kvinnors utrymme efter det demokratiska genombrottet, Kulturhistoriskt bibliotek, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 60. About cooperation with women’s professional association see B. Nilsson. 1996. Kvinnor i statens tjänst – från biträden till tjänstemän: en aktörsinriktad undersökning av kvinnliga statstjänstemäns organisering, strategier och kamp under 1900-talets första hälft, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 179, Uppsala, Stockholm: Univ.; Almqvist & Wiksell International distributör, 53f., 62f., 98, and 101; T. Ericsson. 1983. Den andra fackföreningsrörelsen: tjänstemän och tjänstemannaorganisationer i Sverige före första världskriget, Forskningsrapporter från Historiska institutionen vid Umeå universitet, 2, Umeå: Historiska inst. Univ. 29. S. Hedenborg and U. Wikander. 2003. Makt och försörjning, Lund: Studentlitteratur, 152. 30. Evans. The Feminists: Women’s Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840–1920, 69–91; A.C. Agerholt. 1937, 1973. Den norske kvinnebevegelses historie, Oslo, 75ff. 31. B. Caine. 1982. ‘Feminism, Suffrage and the Nineteenth-century English Women’s Movement’, Women’s Studies International Forum 5(6), 539; Paletschek and Pietrow-Ennker. ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Conclusions’, 313; Bosch. ‘History and Historiography of First-Wave Feminism in the Netherlands, 1860–1922’, 56. 32. Evans, The Feminists, 69–91; Agerholt, Den norske kvinnebevegelses historie, 75ff.; Paletschek and Pietrow-Ennker, ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century’, 307f. and 317. 33. L.-A. Norborg. 1993. Sveriges historia under 1800- och 1900-talen: svensk samhällsutveckling 1809–1992, Scandinavian university books, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 287. E.g., Karl Staaf 1905–06, 1911–14, and Nils Edén 1917–20. 34. Paletschek and Pietrow-Ennker, ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Conclusions’, 318–24. 35. Marilley, Woman Suffrage, 5–8 and 159–65; The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920; Kerber, Women of the Republic; Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap.

Chapter 2

A ‘Bourgeois’ Pioneer’s Purse

Funds and how they were received could be crucial for a movement. This section will deal with access to monetary resources in the Fredrika Bremer Association (FBA) and whether the source of income restricted its use. As an organization of prominent citizens, it is to be expected that it had members with specialized resources useful for the organization and a personal financial situation allowing them to volunteer their services or contribute funds to the organization. Private donations rather than membership fees would be the main source of income for this kind of organization. However, the use of funds depended on power relations within the FBA that influenced which activities were prioritized.1 Further, norms within the organization, as well as in the surrounding society, affected what kinds of outlays could be legitimized.2 Women’s organizations were circumscribed by norms regarding how donations and membership fees could be spent and the kinds of activities that were regarded as appropriate for women activists. For the FBA’s success and survival it was important not only how but also how much of its money was spent.3 In this section the following questions will be raised: How much funding did the association have? How did they get funding and how was it used and invested? Which financial strategies and priorities were pursued, and to what extent could they be interpreted in terms of gender and class? Was money defined as a male sphere or were the early bourgeois feminists defining themselves as financial agents?

Notes for this chapter begin on page 73.

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Figure 2.1  The main types of income of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, in real value (base year 1914, in USD). Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Sources: RA, The Fredrika Bremer Association’s head archive, annual accounts, general ledgers accounts books, minutes 1885–1925. RA, The Fredrika Bremer Association’s head archive, account books (Huvudböcker) 1885–1925 (G1: 1–8). To deflate the values into the real value of 1914 we have used G. Myrdal and S. Bouvin. 1933. Wages, Cost of Living and National Income in Sweden 1860–1930, Stockholm Economic Studies, 2, London, Stockholm: P.S. King; Norstedt ( distr.). For the currency rate we have used ‘Finans och monetära förhållanden’, Portalen för historisk statistik – historia i siffror, http://www.historia.se (22 June 2006). Note: Observe that the donations to the school are included, while the rest of the school’s accountings were separately filed and are not shown in this presentation.

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Income Contrary to what could be expected from an ‘organization of prominent citizens’, the FBA did not rely mainly on donations, at least not initially. As Figure 2.1 shows, its main sources of income varied over time: from membership fees and fundraising sales to donations and later state subsidies. A shift towards donations and subsidies as the main income could be seen in the 1910s. Other major income sources were profits from the sale of its periodical and prints and fees paid for advice at the advisory bureau. These were activities connected with costs, which will be returned to when the expenses of the organization are discussed. Before that, however, we will discuss the other main income sources further: membership fees, bequests and donations, fundraising activities, and supporting allies.

Membership Fees As Figure 2.1 shows, annual membership fees were the most important source of income during the first decades of organizing. The membership of the FBA appears to have followed a similar trajectory to that of many other bourgeois organizations. Initially the number of members and therefore membership fees increased at a rapid pace, but when the organization had been running for some decades the mobilization of new members and membership fees ceased.4 Membership fees represented about a third of the total income during the first decades and as much as two-thirds during the first year, if lifetime patron fees are included. Certainly, mobilization was crucial and the main mechanism for generating income. However, initially mass mobilization does not seem to have been on the agenda. Instead, the FBA relied on a more restricted base of middle- and upper-class women. Evidence of a wealthy target group can be seen in the high membership fee and how this was paid. In the statute of 1885 the membership fee was stated to be one dollar annually, with the first year’s fee regarded as an entrance fee.5 By paying 10 USD one could become a lifetime member. Even the annual fee would have demanded two to three days’ work for a male agrarian labourer and nearly double that for female workers. That the target group was well off could also be seen in the fact that incremental payments of the annual fee were not allowed. Moreover, a tenth of the first members signed on as lifetime members, a share that had risen to a fifth by the turn of the century.6 The entrance fee and the lifetime membership fee were set by the first statute to ensure an annual cash flow for future needs. The creation of per-

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manent funding appears to characterize long-lived organizations.7 However, in the case of the FBA, it was strife under struggle. The problems of building funds and keeping membership fees ‘low’ were sources of complaints in the annual report as early as the end of 1885.8 And the problems continued. Mr Börtzell, court official (hovintendent) and member of the board, described the situation in 1889 in the following terms: ‘since outlays have not been defrayed, the annual income loans have been taken up from the lifetime and entrance fee funds. These loans could not possibly be paid back, because the organization is expanding its work which undoubtedly will soon require increased outlays.’9 (The author’s translation) The problem had to be solved. Nevertheless, the action undertaken was not radical. Lifetime membership fees continued to be invested for the future. In 1910 more sweeping changes were launched to save the financial situation; the entrance fees were now no longer funded, and just a third of the increased lifetime membership fees were funded.10 However, in spite of financial problems the FBA did not raise the annual membership fees until 1925. This could be interpreted as a sign of the priority now being given to ‘mass mobilize’ broader groups in society. In some sense, keeping the membership fee low resulted in a steadily growing number of members, which contributed to a rather steady flow of income until 1914. Thereafter inflation and a stagnating number of members contributed to a dramatic drop in income. (See Figure 2.1) The discussions about the increase of membership fees were animated. However, no explicit reasons or consequences for and against higher membership fees could be discerned in the minutes. Nevertheless, from reading between the lines it could be understood that the only way to obtain higher income was to mobilize more members, and this was a goal difficult to achieve if the fees were too high. In an attempt to raise the income from membership fees, a cost-of-living allowance was attempted in 1920 and 1921, but it failed. The lifetime membership fees also had to be lowered after reports that people could not afford them. Instead, a new kind of membership fee was introduced in 1923 – support membership, which meant an annual payment of 15 USD or 75 USD in a lump sum.11 With membership fees reduced in relation to wages, mass mobilization became possible. In addition, lifetime membership and support membership allowed the association to continue to harvest the fruits of mobilizing well-off people. This arrangement may be interpreted as an attempt to segment the ‘market’. The reformed membership fees were also accompanied by an attempt to mobilize more members by reorganizing. This included an attempt to merge with the Swedish Women’s Suffrage Association (Landsföreningen för kvinnans politiska rösträtt, LKPR) after Swedish women attained

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their vote in 1921. This attempt failed, however. Instead, the suffrage association was dissolved, but the FBA copied its organizational structure. This meant that local clubs obtained a more influential position in the organization than before.12 This strategy was in some ways successful, even if it did not solve the acute financial problems of the organization. The revenues from membership fees increased again and their share of the income turned upward in the early 1920s. However, the revenue did not reach the same level in real value as before the war. The time when membership fees could be the dominating income source had come to an end. This meant that alternative ways of obtaining enough funding had to be found. Other important income sources then appeared: bequests and donations, sales for fundraising, lotteries, and state subsidies.

Bequests and Donations Bequests and donations could be regarded as the defining feature of an ‘organization of prominent citizens’. Accordingly, as shown in Figure 2.1, the FBA received donations from the very beginning. An explicit effort to attract donations and permanent funds could be discerned as early as one of the first board meetings of the organization. In February 1885, Sophie Adlersparre raised the question of whether the association’s accounts should be consolidated to provide an opportunity to administer donations in the future.13 Initially these donations were rather small, however, and they also demanded some effort. Often they were a result of personal requests for money, especially to cover the costs of the periodical. The founder, Sophie Adlersparre, did not hesitate to ask for financial support for her different projects before and during her time in the FBA. The method may not have been approved of as being consistent with respectful behaviour. This was indicated by Adlersparre in a letter to her friend and co-worker Dr Ellen Fries in 1883, where she wrote: ‘Neither do I share the feeling of “fausse honte” [false shame], which captures some of us ladies at the thought of suggesting to our friends that they contribute a small sum of money for idealistic purposes’14 (The author’s translation). And it is obvious from her correspondence that she did not show any hesitation in her daily practice. For many decades the personal requests for monetary support were frequent. In this way the FBA could draw on Adlersparre’s wide and influential personal network: as nobility, earlier married to an influential politician, and with extensive contacts among upper- and middle-class people active in different organizations.

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An example of how Sophie Adlersparre assumed an obligation on the part of her rich friends to contribute funds to the FBA can be discerned in a letter to her friend Fredrika Limnell in 1885: ‘when so small a sum is lacking, it could be a reason to appeal to the women, which I otherwise have not considered necessary. Though, dear: a paltry 3000![Swedish crowns, about 990 USD] … Would it not be possible to find 6 rich women’15 (The author’s translation). She went on to declare that a contribution of 165 USD each would amount to no more than an annual sacrifice of 8 USD in interest, or in other words a dress or half a dozen gloves fewer each year.16 At least in the case of her friend Fredrika Limnell, this strategy could be regarded as successful – on several occasions Limnell contributed money to the FBA. The second chairwoman, Agda Montelius, continued this enthusiasm for seeking donations as well. Her correspondence bears witness to repeated requests to friends and influential people for financial support for the FBA.17 Agda Montelius and her husband contributed to the organization through close personal relations with influential and wealthy people. One of these, who carried a great amount of symbolic power, was the Crown Princess. Another was Amalia Wallenberg, married to one of the most influential contemporary financiers, Marcus Wallenberg.18 Personal requests were also undertaken to support the periodical Dagny and it seems as if this was a successful way to obtain larger sums of money.19 However, larger donations and bequests did not appear in the FBA’s accounts before the turn of the century (see Figure 2.1). The early 1920s were exceptionally good years. When women won the right to vote the organization received two larger donations.20 The earlier years of campaign work and mobilization of well-off people paid off, when it was time for the founders and their friends and relatives to make their wills. However, bequests and gifts are not the same as having a stable annual income. Firstly, the irregular arrival of donations makes it hard to plan the regular work of the organization. Secondly, donors tend to lay down special conditions attached to their donations and bequests. These conditional donations or bequests could be of different kinds. For example, the two donated estates, Apelryd and Rimforsa, were restricted to a specific activity: education. The Apelryd estate was intended to be a horticulture school and the will explicitly prohibited its use for dwellings and the like.21 Often the interest of the bequest was earmarked to the surviving spouse and children until their death. One example of this kind of restriction is Sophie Adlersparre’s will dedicated to a scholarship fund. Her will had even more restricting instructions than was usual. The ‘Lejonhufvud and Adlersparre scholarship fund’ was intended for women between 18–35 years old and in financial need. However, the interest of the fund

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was first dedicated to her brother’s and her husband’s family lines for three generations before it became a more general scholarship fund. As a result, recipients of the scholarship were narrowly circumscribed for decades.22 Obviously, there were problems involved in the process of receiving and administrating bequests and donations. These could be discerned in the thorough negotiations required before accepting them, for example, where the organization demanded permission to cover the administrative costs of the donations, and once even tried to refuse a donation.23 However, in the case of the FBA, many of the donations, such as the school estates, were well integrated with the goals of the organization, emphasizing women’s education, equal rights to employment, and the idea of self-help. During the harsh economic times from the mid-1910s to the early 1920s, people on the board, or close to it, often donated funds to cover the association’s losses.24 Between 1914 and 1923, more than 13,000 USD of the organization’s capital was used to cover the losses.25 (see Figure 2.2 on page 50). This left the organization with nearly no free donated funds left in the early 1920s. Therefore, the FBA had its sponsors, but sponsors that preferred conditional donations directed towards educational and philanthropic projects. In this way, bequests and donations both helped and tied the hands of the board of the organization.

Fundraising Sales As seen above, unanticipated bequests and donations were unreliable sources of income. To receive more funds that were confined to donations by a few wealthy people, the FBA took the initiative to broaden its fundraising base as well. From the few studies of how Swedish organizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries raised money, it appears that philanthropic organizations used donations, bazaars, fundraising parties, and lotteries. Often the fundraising was targeted at the middle classes.26 This was also mainly the case with the FBA. The initial strategy of the FBA seems to have been inherited from older associations where the founders had been active. The method was guarantee funds or individual subscriptions. The principle was to persuade wealthy people to pledge a certain amount of money, or the sale of a certain number of copies of the periodical, over a period of three to five years. This strategy was used especially for the earlier periodical, Tidskrift för hemmet, later Dagny, as well as the periodical Hemtrefvnad (Domestic Comfort). Guarantee funds, also used in other countries, seem to have been an established way of raising money for associations.27 Although used on several occasions, the guarantee funds were criticized: ‘it is a state

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economic blunder … to let a few sacrifice two thousand crowns annually to maintain a periodical for five or six hundred readers’.28 As in all instances in which guarantee funds were used, the action took place in an acute financial situation in order to avoid bankruptcy. The effort required to receive enough pledges, however, may have affected how radical a political position the organization dared to take. In an attempt to save Tidskrift för hemmet in 1883, Sophie Adlersparre was afraid that her claim for altered marital laws would make some guarantors withdraw.29 Later, she tried to convince Ellen Fries that if the periodical instead had her and the chair, Hans Hildebrandt, as the editors, it would be easier to raise funds than if the more controversial name of Sophie Adlersparre was on the front page.30 In the 1910s and early 1920s, fundraising drives were set up for more long-term and planned actions, such as a women’s centre (the Fredrika Bremer’s Årsta) and the schools Apelryd and Rimforsa.31 However, the target group was still the middle and upper classes. The first step towards launching a women’s centre was rebuilding ‘Fredrika Bremer’s Årsta’ as a women’s exhibition pavilion at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914. In this case as well, personal requests, as seen above, were considered to be the most appropriate way to raise money. However, to receive enough money, new ways of fundraising were undertaken. In cooperation with other women’s organizations, 16 November 1913 was proclaimed as a common ‘Pledge Day’ with the motto ‘one woman one crown’.32 The main target group was still the middle and upper classes, which was clearly seen in the choice of place and programme of the fundraising parties that were arranged along with the ‘Pledge Day’. The drive contributed about 13,000 USD, which helped to realize the exhibition pavilion.33 This success inspired the FBA to establish a more permanent ‘Women’s Club’, which would offer meeting premises for women’s organizations, as well as hotel rooms and a restaurant for women.34 Also for this project the fundraising attempts were planned with the middle classes as the main target group. To attract ‘men or women of money’ they discussed launching the project as an interest-bearing project in 1917. The discussion about starting the campaign in a time of war and food riots clearly shows what a well-situated group this project targeted. In line with this was also the statement in the minutes of the executive committee that: ‘at present there is a considerable amount of funds in the country, which are not always easy to invest’.35 Thus, the members of the board launched their fundraising project as something favourable not only to the organization but to others too. Nevertheless, the campaign had to wait.

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Instead, other fundraising projects were carried out. Of higher priority were the FBA’s schools. In this case new attempts to target broader groups were launched, for example, the plan to arrange a market in 1919 to raise money for the horticulture school at Apelryd, as well as more traditional appeals to local clubs to arrange fundraising parties to benefit the central organization.36 Hence, when the fundraising among the middle classes did not contribute enough money in the 1910s and 1920s, the target group was widened. The most radical and newest methods for obtaining its income were: lotteries, state subsidies, and supporting organizations.

Lotteries The first idea and discussion about lotteries can be traced to the minutes of 1913. At that time the board did not find a lottery either appropriate or consistent with the aim and tradition of the FBA. Lotteries with cash prizes were extremely popular, but were questioned on moral grounds. Lotteries had been discussed several times in Parliament. Earlier, in the 1880s, lotteries with cash prizes had been prohibited. However, after 1896 exceptions were made from the prohibition in order to save different commendable projects from bankruptcy. Over time lotteries even became the main source of income for some philanthropic organizations.37 The FBA’s resistance to lotteries ended in 1917, after a couple of years of inflation and financial deficit (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The time was ripe for lotteries. When the decision was taken to apply for a lottery concession, the main goal was to collect money for its schools (Rimforsa, Apelryd), administration, and the Women’s Club (‘Årsta klubben’). The organization’s application was accepted in 1918. The concession to run a lottery was given by the Ministry of Civil Service Affairs and could thus be considered as a kind of state support. However, arranging a lottery to yield enough profit was not an easy task. In order to do this, the organization hired an external person to run the lottery, against a share of 19 per cent of the profit. The process of establishing the lottery was long. In the meantime the plan for a lottery with prizes of goods was reconsidered. In a new application to the Ministry of Civil Service Affairs in 1920 it was stated: During the last years the popularity of lotteries with goods as prizes has fallen, which could be a result of the permanent surplus of lotteries, or of the depreciation of the value of money, which makes the prizes less tempting than before … The declining interest can be seen in the increasing costs of marketing the lottery.38 (The author’s translation)

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The result was a new license, this time for a raffle organized together with some other smaller, mainly Stockholm-based, philanthropic organizations. After several discussions within the organizations and correspondence with the ministry, the lottery started in 1921.39 The lottery gave the FBA about 15,000 USD, of which a third went to the rural domestic school, Rimforsa, and two-thirds to the horticulture school, Apelryd.40 Obviously the lottery was successful, but subsidies were not approved for the planned Women’s Club or the daily work of the association.41 In 1923 the idea of a lottery was raised again. A year later, the FBA applied for both a state lottery with cash prizes and a raffle in cooperation with other organizations. In the application it emphasized the ‘idealistic’ work of the organization with its aim to change laws affecting women and children, as well as its ‘practical’ social work, such as scholarships, health insurance, schools, and the periodical. This time, too, its application was approved. 42 Hence, lotteries could make substantial contributions to the coffers. They could also be used between disbursements; at least once lottery concessions were given as security for taking up loans.43 However, the lotteries could not serve as the final solution to the financial problems of either the schools or the daily work of the Association.

State Subsidies and Supporting Organizations In the 1910s, the FBA could draw on an opportunity created by the corporative cooperation between the state and associations in Swedish society: state subsidies. Corporative cooperation was not a new phenomenon; invitations to take part in governmental committees had occurred since the second half of the nineteenth century but were mainly limited to trade associations. Early on, there were discussions on governmental financial contributions to organizations working for the common weal. State subsidies were approved to a few organizations doing social, educational (bildningsverksamhet) or nationalistic work before the turn of the twentieth century. Around 1910, the base for cooperation broadened. Popular movements, such as the labour, temperance and revivalist movements, were now invited to participate in more of the political decisions.44 This broadened corporatism also meant lobbying for state subsidies spilling over to other organizations.45 The subsidies increased and were made available to a wider range of organizations.46 In the second half of the 1910s, this societal development coincided with financial difficulties for the FBA. The Association had to obtain a more permanent income source to maintain its activities. And they managed to do so successfully, to the extent that state subsidies became the

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most important income source towards the end of the 1910s and the first half of the 1920s. Hence, the FBA managed to receive some compensation from the losses due to inflation during the First World War and after. However, it seems as if the new income source to some extent affected the work of the association. The association received state subsidies for the first time in 1907. The purpose was to facilitate the publication of Dagny, the association’s voice. Later, the FBA applied for grants to send representatives to an international congress in Toronto in June 1909 (the ICW Congress). In 1911, an application for subsidies was written in order to obtain support for the establishment of its rural domestic school at Rimforsa.47 When the FBA in 1914 started a new periodical, Hertha, the organization referred to earlier subsidies in its application.48 Over time, the organization also obtained annual subsidies for its rural domestic school, its horticulture school, and other vocational training for women.49 In 1920, when the FBA had endured several years of financial difficulties, an attempt was made to find a source of funds for daily administrative work as well. The office was the nerve centre of the organization, but there were difficulties in obtaining donations.50 In its application for state subsidies, special activities such as health insurance, schools, and the periodical already supported by the government were mentioned. Moreover, ongoing efforts to mobilize more paying members and attempts to raise the membership fee were mentioned. When explaining why the organization also needed support for its daily work, the board claimed: ‘Even practising the strictest economy, it is in the nature of the question whether activities of this character, which include the daily work of the organization, could be maintained without large expenses.’51 (The author’s translation). The examples given in the application were: the need for larger premises and skilled employees, the high cost of meetings, and the cost of managing the many different activities of the association. Hence, the board stated that a large organization with many members and a broad field of work involved costs. However, on the application the organization did not mention the high costs due to the new organizational structure and mobilization campaigns, which had been emphasized in the organization’s internal correspondence.52 Instead, the application focused on the external economic reasons why the organization needed a state subsidy for its daily work: The [Fredrika Bremer] Association has suffered fatal financial losses from the depreciation of the value of money due to the World War. The income has only partly succeeded in covering the outlays. The Association has then, during these years, been forced to consume a considerable amount of its own capital.53 (The author’s translation)

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This attempt to get more state subsidies did not succeed immediately. The application was rejected, based on the argument that state subsidies were only approved for specialized services in society and not for propaganda work. However, it is clear that the ministry did appreciate the work of the organization. In the reply sent to the FBA, some other parts of the work of the organization were mentioned as the potential recipients of state subsidies, including the employment agency. Yet the bookkeeping of the association was criticized. In the account books it was impossible to separate the activities that could receive state subsidies (service in society, education) from ‘propaganda’, since both were undertaken by the office employees.54 This did not, however, discourage the board of the FBA. Instead they tried to turn what could be regarded as ‘propaganda’ and ‘special interest’ into public interest. In a letter from the organization to the Minister of Health and Social Affairs it was stated that: ‘It could probably be characterized as a direct harm to the welfare, if its work [of the Fredrika Bremer Association] were to be foiled by the financial hardship of the association.’55 (The author’s translation). This time the attempt succeeded. By agreeing to have a separate accountant appointed by the government in 1921, the FBA managed to achieve support for some of its administrative work as well, and, by the early 1920s, state subsidies had become the main source of income, exceeding the income from membership fees by four times (see Figure 2.1).56 However, the support for administration and daily work was just an isolated case. The state subsidies continued to be earmarked for practical social work and education, leaving few means for administration and political work. In this way financial sources could be one factor that contributed to a change in the direction of the association in the 1910s. Agda Montelius, who, as Manns (1997) points out was a less theoretical and visionary leader, had entered the scene. However, the change in activities could also be due to the harshness of the economic times. Fewer resources were left for ideological work, since this did not receive funds from either the state or donors. Another source of income was gained through cooperation with other organizations, but this was marginal. Early on, the association applied for a grant from the Larénska foundation in support of an investigation into the working conditions of shop assistants and office workers, which was intended to be the basis for writing petitions to Parliament. On different occasions they also applied for and received grants from the Patriotic Society (Patriotiska sällskapet) and other organizations.57 The FBA also applied for funds for its schools from regional agricultural societies (hushållningsällskap).58 After the death of the Crown Princess in May 1920, some women active in different women’s organizations started to raise

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money for a foundation in memory of her, and the total soon reached nearly 146,000 USD. Agda Montelius, who was also the chairwoman of the FBA, was chosen as its chair.59 She only held the position until August 1920, just a few months before her own death. After this change, the organization continued to receive loans and funds for its schools, but the terms do not seem to have been regarded as favourable.60 Sponsorship from companies could also help to offset the costs of the organization, but only in a marginal way. The Bell telephone company sponsored a line for the office in 1887, and railway companies offered reduced fares.61

Outlays Before we start to analyze the expenses of the FBA, we will examine its annual results. In contrast to businesses, non-profit organizations, such as the FBA, should be expected to strive to attain an annual zero balance. However, it is interesting to examine more closely the spending patterns of women’s organizations in relation to the gendered concept of an ‘economic agent’. In later work inspired by resource mobilization theory, there has been an emphasis on the strategy for using resources rather than just the amount. Underspending, if not invested for future funds, could be evidence of a strategy that did not fully utilize the possibilities for action and mobilization.62 Hence, both the share that was spent and what was given priority ought to be considered. The creation of permanent funds to produce reliable yearly cash flows appears to characterize long-lived organizations.63 The share invested in mobilizing new members and the recruitment tactics also affect the result of an organization, as well as future income. In addition, the decision to have a professional administration or not could be crucial. Aggressive lobbying, with petitions to legislative bodies and individual politicians, has been discerned as a highly successful strategy for the achievement goal, but it was expensive.64 Thrift as a financial strategy, which has been discerned within some of the European and Canadian women’s organizations at that time, was not prioritized in the FBA.65 As shown in Figure 2.2, the organization had a rather expansive spending pattern. The first decades more or less yielded a zero result, which should be expected from a non-profit organization. During the last years of the century, the FBA had difficulties in covering its costs. Then the economy stabilized until the 1910s, when it plunged. The financial difficulties in the mid-1910s were due to depressed money value, lowered revenues and a rather stable spending pattern. Despite the

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Figure 2.2  The annual financial result of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, in real value (base year 1914, in 1,000 USD). Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Sources: RA, Fredrika Bremer Association’s head archive, Annual reports, general legers (huvudböcker), and account books 1884–1925.

red figures, the organization did not cut its costs to meet its revenues; its expenditures continued to exceed income for many years. This raises two interesting questions: firstly, the importance of power in the FBA, or rather who had the power to make financial priorities to determine its future; and secondly, how outlays were discussed and allocated. We will take our point of departure from the latter. What kind of outlays did the board of the organization prioritize, and what was questioned? Figure 2.3 shows that the FBA had two main expenses: its office and periodicals. Both gave revenues as well, as seen above, but they did not always cover their costs. In the statutes, the goals of the FBA were to be achieved by an office providing service to its members, ‘the printing press’, and scholarship foundations.66 Below we will discuss these main expenses.

Premises Physical space is important to organizations. Board meetings, public meetings and the voicing of opinions all demand somewhere to gather. From the beginning the organization’s own premises seem to have been an important asset. Before the FBA was founded, people in the loose network around the ‘Woman Question’ gathered in the home of Sophie Adlersparre and Stockholm’s Reading Room (Stockholms läsesalong).

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Figure 2.3  The main expenses for the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1925, excluding the schools, in real value (base year 1914, in USD). Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Sources: See Figure 2.2 Note: The costs of the school are in a separate account and are not included in this presentation. It should also be observed that only opinion meetings, social gatherings and annual meetings were charged to the ‘meeting’ account. Board meeting costs, and cost in relation to campaigning and travelling to mobilize new members, were referred to as general expenses.

When, after her husband’s death, Sophie Adlersparre could no longer afford to keep a big flat, she occupied a corner of the Friends of Needlework’s (Handarbetets vänner) office where she could hold meetings.67 The inheritance from and contact with older organizations could also serve the FBA in other ways. The first constitutional meeting was held on the premises of the Medical Scientific Association (Läkarf) in Stockholm. During the first months, the Handicraft Association (Slöjdföreningen) let the new organization use its office for free.68 Beside physical space as such, the FBA could use some of its infrastructure, such as notepaper or a mailbox. As early as April 1885, the FBA moved into its own ‘bureau’ (the office). This consisted of two rooms and a kitchen, and was situated in the central part of Stockholm. The rent was 160 USD a year.69 However, the association grew out of its two rooms. In 1912 the organization rented

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a more ‘up-to-date’ office, with eight rooms, a kitchen, and electricity in some of the rooms. To be able to afford the cost, about 525 USD,70 the bureau had to cooperate with other parts of the FBA, such as the periodical, the scholarship foundation and the health insurance fund, as well as with other institutions, such as the Swedish Nurses’ Pension Association (Svenska sjuksköterskornas pensionsförening). The editorial staff of Dagny were not pleased with the move, and argued against a less central location, mentioning longer distances to postal services and printers. However, even to them the desire to keep the organization’s different activities together was a priority.71 A larger office brought higher fixed costs. To cover these, the FBA emphasized in applications for state subsidies its need for ‘enough space’ to be able to keep the general activities of the organization running.72 As we will see below, an office does not only involve costs, but having its own premises could be an asset as well in interactions with other organizations (see ‘Feminist and philanthropic cooperation …’). There was a growing wish for the association to obtain its own premises for larger meetings. The same trend could be discerned in both the labour movement as well as in ‘bourgeois’ organizations. The labour movement built ‘People’s Houses’ (Folkets hus) and ‘bourgeois’ organizations also had ambitions to launch ‘clubhouses’. The first idea of a clubhouse for women was raised as early as 1907, as a joint project with the women’s suffrage movement and the women’s temperance movement. At that time the project remained a wish.73 However, the idea was revitalized in 1914, after the Baltic Exhibition and the women’s pavilion. This had grown into a women’s centre – ‘the Årsta Club’ – with meeting rooms, rooms for social gatherings, rooms for resting, and lodgings for visitors, as well as a restaurant for women. The idea of the Årsta Club was realized, but not until 1927 and then in a slimmed-down version. The general problem of premises could also be discerned in other organizations’ offers to join in clubhouse projects.74

Meetings As seen in Figure 2.3, the cost of meetings was kept low. This was, to some extent, a consequence of the association having its own premises containing the FBA’s headquarters, its administrative office, and an advice bureau. However, it should be noted that only opinion meetings, social gatherings, and annual meetings were charged to the meetings account. A large part of what could be considered as meetings related to mobilization, such as campaign meetings and travel to establish new local clubs, was entered as general expenses.75

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Board meetings also were not charged to the meetings account. The cost for these was low. The meetings during the first years were held at the office on average eight times a year. The executive committee met more often. When all representatives were concentrated in Stockholm, travel costs were not any problem. However, when local clubs received the right to be represented on the board in 1921, the situation totally changed. Travel costs were covered only for those employed at the office and some of the delegates. Other representatives had to cover their own costs or obtain support from their local clubs.76 When a larger share of the board members lived outside Stockholm, the meetings were reduced to twice a year to keep the travel costs down. One meeting was held in connection with the annual meeting and the other in Stockholm. Although it was a stated aim, the FBA did not cover the travel costs to Stockholm for its board members until 1925. The travel costs affected the democratic process within the organization. Because of the reduced number of board meetings, the power of the Stockholm-based executive committee increased. Member meetings were, on the other hand, mostly held outside its own premises. The annual member meetings could take place in schools or, when finances allowed, in more fashionable places, such as the restaurant Rosenbad, Hotel Anglais, and Grand Hotel.77 The latter clearly addressed the expected social position of the members of the FBA. Other meetings that gathered larger crowds were opinion meetings. These could be held in Stockholm or in other towns all around Sweden. In the beginning, member meetings were seen as social evenings with supper, music and speeches. The costs of the meetings were borne by the entrance fee, which restricted who could afford to participate. However, this strategy, with rather expensive meetings focused on entertaining, was questioned in 1898. Instead a decision was made to arrange less expensive meetings. Meetings were to highlight a special political issue, and people or groups with a special interest in the issue were invited. After the meetings a cheap supper was offered at cost.78 Nevertheless, the expenses for opinion meetings increased over time. The main reason was more and larger joint activities for mobilization on special issues in cooperation with other organizations. In the 1920s, campaign meetings outside Stockholm, to stimulate mobilization and the establishment of local clubs (kretsar), were also intensified. For example, in early 1920s, three people undertook a ‘lecture tour’ from the very south to the very north of Sweden to get more members. These costs varied from about 25 USD to ten times as much.79 Hence, meetings held outside the FBA’s own premises did cost money and the cost grew with the ambitions to cooperate with other organizations in the 1910s and 1920s. Also international congresses were expensive to attend. To manage costs, the organization followed four strategies:

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delegates paying for themselves, donations, state subsidies, or using people living in the place where the congress was to be held. In one case, when they could not afford to cover any travel costs, they searched for members who had ‘planned to spend the spring in Italy’.80 Hence, the private purse had a great influence in the international work of the organization. This was the case in other organizations and countries as well. Yet it seems as if the FBA may have managed to diminish the dependence on individual members’ contributions fairly early by, for example, state subsidies.81

Administration, Political Work and Enlightenment Meetings were just one activity that took place on the association’s premises, which also hosted several others: administration, political work, and enlightenment (mainly as an advisory bureau). Mobilization could be considered as interwoven in all of these three main areas of activity. This work was prioritized from the beginning. The expenses overrode the income of the office, but in a rather stable way until the mid-1910s. Then the costs of the office increased. In the 1920s the losses rose to nearly 2,600 USD in real value annually.82 This meant that a large share of the organization’s capital was used to cover the losses. (See Figures 2.2 and 2.3) To keep the office running, the FBA hired staff members. Only during the first year was the head of the office a volunteer. After 1886 the head, Gertrud Adelborg, and two or three office assistants were paid. Over time, salaries became the main cost of the office beside rent.83 Professionalized administration could also be seen in other Swedish organizations. For example, trade associations and a philanthropic organization such as the Charity Organization Society (Fattigvårdsförbundet, FVF) had employees. Yet when a woman – Agda Montelius, later the chairwoman of the FBA – took over the paid position in the FVF, she chose, in contrast to her male forerunners, not to charge any salary.84 This could be interpreted as if earning a salary was less acceptable for women than men. In the FBA, however, there was no such discourse.85 In contrast to the philanthropic organization mentioned above, self-sacrifice does not seem to have been a desirable virtue among the women working for the ‘women’s cause’. However, the real wage of the employees in the FBA rose somewhat more slowly than in other groups in Sweden. The head of the office earned 340 USD in 1886 and 500 USD in 1907, but by 1920 she earned only 240 USD, including an extra cost-of-living allowance.86 In the application for state subsidies for administration in 1920, the low wages of the organization’s employees were mentioned as an acute problem and the

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need for self-sacrifice was described as negative: ‘It is necessary to raise the wages of the employees at the bureau and periodical. For the moment the salaries are very low, which takes for granted a spirit of self-sacrifice among the employees.’87 (The author’s translation). Higher salaries were also prioritized when the finances improved. In 1921 the salaries were raised to the level of the 1890s. With a special cost-of-living allowance due to the economic crisis, the real wage was even higher.88 The self-sacrifice of the employees was neither desired nor necessary any longer. The employees at the office dealt with all parts of the work, which made it difficult to separate the costs of administration, political work, and education. As the association expanded, administration grew in importance. An archive and a library became more important, petitions and circulars had to be written, and the different activities of the FBA had to be coordinated. The latter was explicitly used as an argument in the application for a state subsidy in 1920.89 However, the interwoven character of the work of the office rendered difficulties in receiving subsidies. On the one hand, the government denied subsidies for political work. This could include the employees in the office involved in the writing of petitions, which was a growing activity in the 1910s and 1920s. The FBA was then serving as a governmental body as well, but this became more common after 1925. Organizing opinion meetings, campaigning, and writing articles could also be regarded as political work well integrated into the daily work of the office. On the other hand, the advice bureau could receive state subsidies for its social and enlightenment work. At the bureau, advice was given to women on legal, educational, and career matters, as well as on how to use their vote at the local and regional levels. Moreover, the organization had an employment agency office with its own employees. The educational work of the organization included courses in hygiene and the upbringing of children.90 The service was geographically concentrated in Stockholm, with a few exceptions: first a short-lived branch in Malmö, later an employment agency for nurses in several Swedish towns.91 However, some parts of the advice bureau became less important over time and were transferred to other institutions outside the FBA. In 1914, the employment agency was questioned due to reduced ‘interest’ from employers and reduced receipts. This time the employment agency was saved. The head of the office, Gertrude Adelborg, advocated the agency both because of women’s need for it and because of the association’s reputation: ‘during these days of depression and unemployment, which is expected to rise, the employment agency of our association could be especially useful. Further, the public might take a sceptical attitude towards cuts or closure of the employment agency during these particular circumstances.’92 (The

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author’s translation). By 1916 it was, however, time to reduce the work of the agency and in 1922 it was closed down completely, even though the unemployment rate was extremely high at the time. When public employment agencies were established, the association let its work, except the employment agency for nurses, be incorporated into these institutions.93 The advisory actions of the FBA could be looked at in a broader context of educational and emancipatory projects: opinion and information meetings, travelling speakers, reports on different issues serving the government and other organizations, the periodicals and the schools. At the same time these activities could be used for mobilization for the ‘women’s cause’. The total costs of these activities are not possible to estimate, but it is obvious that from the beginning the FBA invested an impressive amount in its educational and emancipatory projects.

The Voice of the Organization In relation to priorities and power, it is interesting to note that, despite the high losses and deficits, the cost of the office was put under pressure by the board. On the other hand the periodical – Dagny, later Hertha – was repeatedly questioned. In Sweden, as in some other European countries, a periodical was an important platform in the initial organizing of the women’s movement.94 In the case of the FBA, the periodical Tidskrift för hemmet preceded it. Tidskrift för hemmet was started in 1859 by Sophie Adlersparre and a friend of hers, Rosalie Olivercrona. The latter was, as well, the main financer of the project. After 1867, when a schism in the editorial board occurred, Sophie Adlersparre remained the sole editor. When she married her husband, Axel Adlersparre, funds became a new and important source of income contributing to the survival of the periodical.95 In 1879, when she became a widow, the financial problems of the periodical again became serious. The periodical had difficulties gaining enough subscribers in a more competitive journal and newspaper market.96 The problem of covering the costs of the periodical could be regarded as one trigger for the establishment of an organization. A formalized organization became a way to save the existence of the periodical by membership fees after earlier recurrent attempts to raise guarantee funds.97 When an association was established, one of the main activities mentioned in the statutes was to run a periodical. The FBA took over Tidskrift för hemmet. After 1886 it was distributed under a new name, Dagny, but with the same editor, Sophie Adlersparre.98 The periodical was very important to the FBA. As was seen in Figure 2.3, it also took a main share

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of the association’s expenses even though it generated income as well. Included in the outlays are also other kinds of printing produced by the organization to be sold or handed out, such as leaflets, circulars, official reports, annual reports, and other printed matter. The total annual cost for these was usually less than 35 USD, but the cost varied greatly from year to year, increasing in the 1920s. Accordingly, the cost of the periodical continued to be emphasized in the financial discussions year after year. Obviously it was hard to get good returns on an emancipatory women’s journal.99 The first step undertaken, when the organization received the economic responsibility of the Tidskrift för hemmet, was an attempt to consolidate its finances. The earlier periodical donated 170 USD of its remaining funds. Individuals supporting the cause, mostly friends of Sophie Adlersparre, donated about 660 USD.100 In addition, a guarantee fund had nearly the same amount. This secured the existence of the periodical for a while.101 Under the new name, Dagny, the periodical had a print run of about a thousand copies for each edition. One half of the costs covered the editor’s salary and remunerations, the other the costs of printing and distribution. The income came from subscription fees and advertisements.102 Yet these could not fully cover the expenses. To keep the periodical running, donations, and later state subsidies, were needed as well.103 Despite repeated financial difficulties, the periodical survived. The cost of running the periodical was about the same or somewhat less than the cost of the office, but it returned a higher income. Yet the periodical was frequently the cause of disputes on the board.104 In 1887 the board decided to let the publication continue but under restricted conditions; only if the periodical received donations could the size exceed sixteen sheets.105 Alternative solutions were discussed, such as running the publication cooperatively together with other organizations.106 The dispute was not only a question of money, but was also used in the struggle for power within the FBA. As early as December 1884, Sophie Adlersparre had tried to replace herself with new editors that would make it easier to receive donations to run the periodical.107 She was afraid that her radical standpoint on gender and moral issues would affect the periodical’s finances negatively. Later, it was the board of the organization that found Sophie Adlersparre too radical as an editor and accused her of producing too expensive a periodical. The reasons for the complaints were both her unwillingness to compromise and cooperate on the layout and content of the periodical, and her statement on the controversial ‘morality question’. Her standpoint, no sexual relations outside marriage for either sex, was a controversial position outside as well as within the FBA at the time, and the chairman, Hans Hildebrand, and some others of the board

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members opposed it.108 Nevertheless, Adlersparre decided to attach a text by Elisabeth Grundtvig to the periodical holding the controversial view and arguing against prostitution. As a result, in February 1888 it was declared that all articles in Dagny had to be approved before publishing, either by the board of the FBA or by the office. In the margin in the minutes from 29 February 1888, it is put as: ‘The executive committee suggested that the editor [Sophie Adlersparre] should be checked up – concerning smaller short paragraphs by Mrs Whitlock, concerning the essential content of every issue by the whole board.109 (The author’s translation). In this fight Sophie Adlersparre claimed her freedom as an editor.110 She based some of her arguments for this freedom on her successful fundraising in support of the periodical. She made it clear that she and ‘her friends’ had donated a considerable share of the funds and that this should provide her with a position to decide what would be published or not. Moreover, she stated that the article on the morality issue was the actual reason why the periodical had received two new donations.111 As a last resort, she declared that, if the association did not want to contribute annual grants to the periodical, she could finance it herself, if she was allowed to keep her freedom as an editor. However, the chairman, Hans Hildebrand, took the proposed donations as evidence of the need to cut the cost of the periodical even more so that it covered its own costs.112 Adlersparre’s conditions were not found acceptable, and she was defeated by the male representative that she some years before had recommended as a chairman.113 As a result, she withdrew as the editor of Dagny. This time the power of her purse was not strong enough to buy her a position to decide the official ideology of the organization. Dagny continued to be published, but with a new editor, Lotten Dahlgren. However, even with a new editor, the results of the periodical were mostly in the red.114 In 1892 the need for annual grants from the association was stressed again. This time the problems of the periodical were pointed out as: on the one hand, competition from other periodicals, and, on the other hand, a subscription fee for members that was too low.115 To save the periodical, Sophie Adlersparre acted. This time she was successful in convincing the board that her suggested way would be the best for Dagny. In her letter to the board she compared the periodical with the office: As important as more space for the bureau is to the association, is the need for space to develop its principles, the spiritual cohabitation with its members, and the same way of thinking as in other countries. Dagny was founded with help of substantial gifts, acquired by her first editor [Sophie Adlersparre]. Its circulation is likely to be greater than most other Swedish periodicals … It has until last year served the association without oppressing it with any considerable outlays.116 (The author’s translation)

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The periodical continued to be published as before, but now with the commitment to attract more subscribers and advertisers. After a few years of struggle, the board turned its earlier thoughts of running the periodical as a cooperative into practice. In 1907 the FBA managed to achieve a large partner to cooperate with: the LKPR. It was an organization with which the FBA had many interpersonal contacts and shared common goals. Dagny became a cooperative project, with Ellen Kleman as the new editor. The cooperation strengthened the periodical’s financial situation and made it possible to turn it into a weekly publication. Despite the new arrangements, the periodical had difficulties. During the period 1908–1913, the periodical struggled with repeated financial losses and had to call for guarantors not once but twice.117 As well as this, the cooperation with the suffrage movement suffered from friction of political origin, which we will return to in Chapter 4, ‘Agendas and Strategies ’. The political disagreements and continuous financial problems ended with a split in 1913. Again, the FBA alone had full responsibility for the periodical. This time the organization found a new ally. The takeover was made possible by state subsidies covering about 20 per cent of the annual costs.118 This was, however, not enough to make the financial situation of the periodical secure. Again more subscribers and advertisers had to be attracted and the subscriber fees had to be raised. To reach its financial goals, extensive actions were taken. Advertisement agents were paid as well, who marketed the periodical and managed to get five new subscribers to sign on.119 In 1914 all members who had not answered a circular asking them if they opposed obligatory subscription automatically became subscribers.120 The members of the FBA were not the only targets. Free copies were sent to larger local newspapers of different political colours and to other organizations, which were offered a 25 per cent reduction of the subscription fee if they signed on.121 To cut costs and secure the revenue in 1914, subscribers had to pay the postage themselves and pay their subscriptions in advance.122 The subscription fee, as well, was increased, first in 1914 and again in 1919.123 Yet an expensive periodical with a limited edition was not an attractive alternative, either for potential members or advertisers. The long-term solution became a subscription fee included in the membership fee and obligatory for all members. After years of discussion, the step was taken in 1925. The decision that had had to wait for so long was now advocated with the motivation: ‘With a more widespread circulation the obtaining of advertisers would be facilitated, but the real advantage of alternative I [subscription included in the membership fee] is its stronger connection between the different press organs of the association and the members.’124 (The author’s translation).

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Efforts to improve the financial terms of the periodical were thus a repeated theme. However, one part of the efforts over time seems to have been less disappointing: income from advertisements. The association seems to have been conscious of developments in the publishing sector, where advertisements were becoming a growing income source.125 In 1886 this accounted for a sixth of the income of the periodical. In 1916 the income from advertisements had risen to a fifth and a decade later to as much as two-thirds. The FBA seems to have been successful in selling advertisement space. A contemporary American emancipatory journal, Women’s Journal, which was run in a businesslike manner, obtained only a tenth of its revenues from advertisements in 1909.126 However, the attraction of weekly instead of monthly publishing for advertisers could not be discerned.127 Since the income from advertisements was important, advertisements were also central in negotiations with printers. In 1913 the printer claimed the revenue from advertisements, with a maximum ceiling at the same level as the state subsidies, and with the right of the organization to control what kind of advertisers were allowed in the periodical.128 The FBA did not agree to these terms; it wanted a larger share of the revenue. The organization took over full responsibility for the sale of advertisements. However, to obtain higher revenues and to attract new advertisers, the organization hired one person in 1914.129 The strategy seems to have been successful enough to avoid accelerating losses. However, the periodical still did not manage to carry its own costs; instead the annual loss was about 225 USD in real value during the 1920s. However, the burden of the periodical on the association’s account could be considered as an investment for mobilization. Dagny, later Hertha, had the mission to mobilize and enlighten. As stated in the statutes of the FBA, the periodical could be viewed as the voice of the ‘Woman Question’. Articles on the condition of women’s legal status, social problems, literature, and information about meetings of the FBA and other organizations were published. The periodical was strategically used to put an issue on the political agenda, as well as maintain commitment within the organization. The publication of articles was timed to coincide with discussions on the topic in Parliament. Sometimes offprints were handed out to Members of Parliament.130 Over time, the periodical changed in character to contain fewer ideological and political analyses and discussions, and more internal reports on meetings within the FBA and other women’s organizations.131 This development could be interpreted as a turn from mobilizing new groups to reinforcing the internal organizational structure.

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A Periodical as a Philanthropic Project Despite the continuous financial problems and discussions about the periodical Dagny, and later Hertha, the association did not hesitate to run another periodical. At least, there is no trace of hesitation in the minutes. The periodical Hemtrefnad (Domestic Comfort), was said to be a ‘periodical for women of the people’, or more precisely servants, working-class women and other women with ‘the same educational level’. Later, the focus was said to be on smallholders’ wives. The purpose of the periodical could not be regarded as very emancipatory; it was stated to be an ‘attempt to improve the moral and intellectual level of their readers and an adviser in their performance as housewives and educators of children’.132 In this way the periodical could be viewed as a philanthropic and paternalistic enlightening project rather than a mobilizing voice of the association. Hemtrefnad was started in 1898. Members of the association initiated the idea, but the board of the FBA agreed to support it and set up a committee for the periodical.133 In 1905 the organization took over full responsibility for it; this was approved by a unanimous board motivated by ‘the association’s desire to gain a direct link to women of the people’.134 To serve this purpose it was stated that the subscription fee should be kept low. As well, the content should be mixed. The periodical contained articles about healthy cooking, patterns for women’s and children’s clothes, and information about education, legal changes and parliamentary discussions concerning female labour. The ‘good’ short stories and biographies published in the periodical should also serve as a counterbalance to ‘dime novels’.135 However, this periodical also had problems in bearing its own costs. To get enough funds, similar strategies were undertaken as used in the association’s other publishing project: guarantors and donations. In particular, the Patriotic Society (Patriotiska sällskapet) subsidized Hemtrefnad by paying for five to seven hundred exemplars of the periodical and their distribution in the northern parts of Sweden. Contrary to the case with Dagny, the financial problems did not give rise to conflicts. Instead, the board confined itself to suggesting to the editor of Hemtrefnad that she should try to mobilize some more subscribers or guarantors.136 More precise claims on action were first addressed in 1908. To attract more subscribers, the periodical committee and the board of the FBA advocated informal contacts. For example, to encourage female estate owners to subscribe for their female employees, the periodical wrote personal letters and offered reduced subscription fees on larger requisitions. As well as this, a circular was attached to the periodical, in which the subscribers were requested to sign-on friends who might be interested in receiving a

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free sample of the periodical. Connections with other organizations were also used. For example, a sample was attached to an issue of the periodical of the Swedish Association for Temperance and People’s Education (Svenska Sällskapet för Nykterhet och Folkuppfostran).137 Yet the financial problems continued and new steps to increase revenues had to be taken. In 1909 some friends of the cause offered donations to support the periodical. In contrast to other parts of the central organization, the editor, Mrs J. Jolin, now decided to give her work for free if the organization covered her travelling costs. To increase income, previous year’s issues were sold at a bargain price and the subscription fee was increased as well.138 A new guarantors fund was another solution to the serious financial situation during the 1910s.139 However, this did not offer a long-term solution. In 1921 the first evidence of an evaluation of the benefits and drawbacks of having two periodicals could be discerned within the FBA: In relation to the achievement of Hertha in the enlightening work of the association there was a discussion about the possibility of running two publications, Hertha and Hemtrefnad. In the debate, wishes were expressed both to close down Hemtrefnad, when it was considered difficult to work for two periodicals, and to let Hemtrefnad more than hitherto deal with social and women issues with the purpose to represent the interest of the association and reach a broader audience.140 (The author’s translation)

The latter could be interpreted as a shift from a more philanthropic to a more mobilizing aim with the periodical Hemtrefnad. However, the periodical survived just one more year, and only because of an offer made by one of the editorial staff to cover the annual loss with her private funds.141

Manifestations The FBA paid attention to and celebrated anniversaries of other women’s organizations, in Sweden and in other countries. As well as this, anniversaries or funerals of prominent people supporting the ‘woman’s cause’ in organizations, politics and the court were remembered. A very small share of the outlays included in ‘general expenses’ could be referred to as these kinds of ‘manifestations’. Yet these mailed greetings, attendance or gifts served the association in several ways. Firstly, they could be interpreted as a manifestation of the FBA’s appreciation of the receiver. Secondly, they could be interpreted as a way of strengthening the feeling of internal friendship and sisterhood within the association and a broader community of women’s movements. Thirdly, they could be seen as a way

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for the organization to be visible on different occasions, thus as a form of marketing or branding.

Assets and Liabilities As seen above, the financial situation, as well as the chosen financial strategies, changed over time and affected the relation between assets and liabilities, and how they were held. From the beginning the FBA managed to attract donations. A large share of these were for future needs, to provide an annual income through interest. Figure 2.4 shows that the assets and liabilities during the initial years reached about 4,000 USD in real value, or twenty times the approximate annual income of a male agricultural worker at the time.142 In less than a decade, the assets had more than doubled and by the turn of the twentieth century they exceeded 15,000 USD.143 The association continued to increase its assets until the mid1910s. Then, wartime inflation and negative financial results eroded the value of its means substantially, and a large share of the capital had to be used to cover the organization’s annual losses. In just a few years, the value of the assets of the FBA had shrunk to the same level as at the dawn of the twentieth century, but the value rose again through three large donations. Conditional donations, with restrictions placed on both their use and time horizon, often left the FBA as an administrator. Yet these donations could contribute some positive side effects as well as the purpose for which they were reserved. As seen in Figure 2.4, external debts, such as contractor debts and loans from a few individuals and banks, could be kept low.144 The administration of donations and bequests provided the organization with an opportunity to grant itself loans at interest, but still with somewhat better conditions than bank loans. Donated funds could also be used as security when the FBA applied for external loans.145 The result was that board members no longer had to use their private estate or shares as security.146 Other advantages were the publicity and the reward scholarships provided to the organization, which could serve to mobilize new members. How, then did the association hold and invest its financial resources? During the first years, when means did not reach any impressive amount, they were held in a bank account. Over time several different bank companies were simultaneously used for savings, and the holding of assets became more differentiated as well (see Figure 2.5). Below we will take some of them into closer consideration.

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Figure 2.4  The value of assets and liabilities of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885– 1925, in real value (base year 1914, in 1,000 USD). Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Sources: RA, the Fredrika Bremer Associations head archive, Annual reports and General ledgers (Huvudböcker) 1885–1925.

Loan Funds Figure 2.5 shows that during the initial decades the most common way for the FBA to hold its assets was loan funds. In 1889 the organization decided to provide loans to women for activities that could help them to earn their living and become self-supporting.147 The loan fund could be considered a way to put into practice the FBA’s political demands on women’s economic and educational rights. This kind of lending business also had been done in other countries. For example, in Germany a women’s organization, the Lette-Verein, had a bank ‘where women may make on easy terms small loans, with which to commerce or enlarge their business, or to buy sewing machines’.148 This example was presented in Theodore Stanton’s The Woman Question in Europe published in 1884, in which Sophie Adlersparre’s friend Rosalie Olivercrona also had published a text on the Swedish women’s movement. Loan funds and previous ideas of women’s pension funds and saving banks, launched by some Swedish pioneers of ‘the Woman Question’ and other close friends of Adlesparre, might have inspired as well.149 In Sweden, beginning in 1880, a self-help project was run by an organization against prostitution. The organization offered women small loans, from 1 to 10 USD, to be repaid within one year without any interest.150

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Figure 2.5  Holdings of assets of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1920, in per cent. Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Note: Investment of donations has also been included here. 1925 is missing since the different kinds of investments cannot be separated in the accounts of this year.

These kinds of ‘small loans’ could be interpreted as a variant of loan funds and foundations directed towards groups otherwise excluded from the formal financial market. Loan funds and foundations directed to the poor had a large share of the lending market in Sweden, as well as in some other countries, until the late nineteenth century.151 The initiative to start women’s banking and women’s loans at this time may be considered as some kind of response to a failure of market institutions to meet women’s financial demands.152 In contrast to other loan funds and saving banks in Sweden in the late nineteenth century, the loans of the FBA did not require mortgage in real estate or in bonds and shares.153 Instead the organization granted loans against a personal guarantee at interest. The loans granted ranged from about 30 to 900 USD, and had to be repaid in five years. According to the small loans and their purposes, the organization appears to have been targeting women with rather small means, but still the amounts were much higher than the loans targeting women in prostitution.154 Initially, women in the committee of the FBA guaranteed some of the loans from the loan fund.155 Thus, the loans seem to have been directed at young women already known. Later, women and men of the lower-middle classes, such as masters, teachers and shopkeepers, from the very south to the

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very north of Sweden, served as guarantors.156 Sometimes the guarantee was not accepted, but instead of a rejection the applicant often received an alternative proposal to add one or two more guarantors.157 To solve the problem of liability of the lenders, a special committee was set up to administer the loans and to do check-ups on guarantors before the applications were approved.158 Local representatives provided the organization with good information about potential borrowers and guarantors, as well as opportunities to enforce repayment through social pressure.159 The loans were so prominent in the activity of the organization that more or less every board meeting during the period 1889 to 1914 involved some loan applications or questions about respite for paying off loans. Despite the good intentions, the project was not only launched as a philanthropic project. The purpose was also to provide a good return on the funds of the organization. The loans were proudly presented in the FBA’s annual report in 1892: … no slight share of the resources of the association has been used for mortgage loans for women. With these it has been intended and won the double benefit to support women, who for their progress in life for some time had to take up loans, and to obtain higher returns on the association’s invested means … It would be desirable if the association could invest more resources in this activity, which has been of so much advantage.160 (The author’s translation)

As mentioned above, the interest from the lending activity became one of the main income sources in the early twentieth century (see Figure 2.2). The interest rate charged by the organization was often the same as favourable bank loans or better.161 During the initial years the interest rate was 4½ per cent. In 1892 the interest rate was raised to 5 per cent, and in 1908 again to 5½ per cent.162 By 1921 the lending rate was 6 per cent. Hence, the organization’s interest rate followed the discount rate rather well until the First World War.163 The conditions for approval or rejection of loans were not formalized but can still illuminate patterns in what was considered a good debtor: the rather poor young ‘bourgeois’ woman heading for a professional career. Applications concerning short practical courses, the last year of teacher’s training college or other vocational training, study tours abroad, and academic studies seem to have been the main purposes accepted. In practice, loans were also approved to women for initiating businesses such as poultry keeping, a food shop or a newspaper agency, though these were less common.164 On the other hand, applications concerning studies with an exam far in the future were not accepted.165 Neither were loans for General certificates of education or finishing scientific works.166 Other pur-

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poses not believed to be in line with the aims of the organization were, for example: paying off other kinds of study loans, buying furniture for renting out rooms, or repairing one’s own home.167 Once, a loan application was rejected because the applicant was supposed to be in a social position that gave her an opportunity to receive conventional bank loans or loans from other sources. In the board’s explanation it was stressed that the funds of the organization should be ‘reserved for individuals, who hardly would receive loans from other sources’.168 More often a lack of funds of the FBA was emphasized as a reason not to approve loan applications.169 Sometimes the board was split, for example, when the women on the board did not think it was acceptable to approve a loan to a tradeswoman for paying a debt so she could continue her business, while the men on the board thought it was acceptable.170 Although administration of loans – checking up on guarantors’ financial situations, following up postponements of payments and so on – must have taken plenty of time, no problems with the lending business were mentioned in the minutes. Instead of looking at the amount of administrative work, the double win was mentioned over and over again. The risk level of the FBA seems to have been low despite the fact that the borrowers were scattered all around Sweden. In the minutes only one example can be found in which the guarantor had to take over a loan from the borrower.171 Moreover, the only loss on the loans entered into the books was less than 25 USD. So either the organization chose good borrowers or it blacked out losses from its lending operations. Yet the extensive lending business of the FBA came to a halt. In 1914 no loans to women were approved; the motivation was the harsh financial times.172 In 1915, the organization negotiated with new donors to achieve permission to use their bequests for loans to women since their own capital was running out.173 However, no new loans were granted until 1921, and then women’s loans seem to have lost a good deal of their interest.174 Had conventional saving banks and private banks opened up their lending business for women as well?175

Bonds, Real Estate and Shares The FBA used also other options to invest its funds: bonds, real estate, and shares. This diversified portfolio was rather similar to early American women’s organizations in New York and Boston, where businesswomen dominated the leadership and applied their knowledge in escaping boomand-burst by buying estates as well as stocks of bank, insurance, and transport companies.176 Investments in bonds occurred in German and

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Swedish national councils of women too, at least during the early twentieth century.177 Figure 2.5 shows that bonds became more and more important to the FBA over time. During the first decade of the twentieth century, bonds were the most common way of holding the organization’s assets. Most of the bonds were bought with donations. Yet decisions to invest money in bonds were made.178 The bonds of the organization were actively managed; bonds with lower interest were sold and bonds with higher interest were bought. The revenue ranged from 3½ to 6 per cent, but was mostly 4 to 5 per cent.179 Thus, the average rate was the same or a little bit less than the interest the organization was charging its lenders. From the mid-1910s the FBA required real estate with the donation of properties intended for schools, that is to say the rural domestic school (Rimforsa) and the horticulture school (Apelryd). Later the organization received a small cottage in the countryside as well. Some shares in railways and companies were also endowed as donations, but the organization did not actively invest in shares itself.180

Summarizing Conclusion While financial matters have obtained a minor interest in the historiography of the women’s movement, money was an often repeated theme in the minutes and correspondence of the FBA. The sources and uses of money could be regarded as highly affected by class, and to a lesser degree by gender. Yet fundraising could, to some extent, be regarded as gendered. ‘Respectable women’ did not raise money in public, and the fundraising activities were mainly targeting their own group of people, even though in the 1910s fundraising lotteries broke with this earlier pattern. The cultural and social contexts of the upper- and middle-class women and men in the movement with experience from associations and professional and philanthropic work set, as expected, the pattern of how to obtain funds. It is obvious that the organization inherited the same strategies for fundraising as older male bourgeois associations in Sweden, which were similar to middle-class women’s organizations in other countries, for example, the United States: persuading friends or husbands to contribute funds, a variety of membership fees, guarantee funds (individual ‘subscriptions’ of a yearly pledge), and fundraising fairs.181 However, a high share of income from membership fees, interest, revenues from the sale of publications and fees received at the advisory bureau left the FBA with a high degree of autonomy and dependence on the mass of members until 1910s. During the initial two decades, donations and bequests occurred, but reached an average of just a fifth or less of the total annual income.

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Thus, the Swedish organization was less dependent on individual activists financing its costs than expected. Instead, membership fees were the most important income source initially. In the very first years, these even exceeded two-thirds of the income, if lifetime patron fees were included. Later, they covered about a third or less of the income. Initially the annual membership fee was rather high, which bears witness to a wealthy target group. However, the fee was not raised until 1925, with the explicit aim of being able to mobilize more members. The FBA was not extreme. Other ‘bourgeois’ women’s organizations also seem to have been rather dependent on membership fees, especially during the initial phase of organizing. As can be discerned from Table 2.1, this was a matter of fact in organizations such as the National Council of Women of Great Britain during its initial decades and German bourgeois women’s associations. The Swiss suffrage movement was even more dependent on membership fees than the Swedish one. On the other hand, donations totally dominated as the income source of the National Council of Women of Canada.182 The Swedish organization also obtained a high share of revenue from interest, mainly from small loans offered to women. This concept was also put into practice in the early German women’s movement.183 During the first decades, the FBA’s revenues from interests varied between 10 and 20 per cent. Interest was even one of the main income sources during the period 1905–1915. Although being an organization of prominent citizens and mobilizing mainly aristocracy and middle-class women, the Swedish supporters were not rich enough to maintain a stable economy of the organization in the long run. When the mobilization of new members stagnated and the organization was hit hard by the wartime inflation, new income sources had to be found. To achieve enough funds, a progression took place that could be interpreted as a development from taking urgent measures with the middle classes to planned fundraising with a broader class base. However, this progression could be discerned in other organizations as well. State subsidies became the saviour. By framing its goals as non-political and ‘philanthropic’, or itself as serving a common weal, the organization managed to obtain state subsidies. Around 1920, state subsidies covered between a third and a half of the annual income, and even more if the income of concessions for lotteries is considered as a kind of state support. Nevertheless, the strategy adopted by the FBA, in which a great deal of effort was put into writing and lobbying for state subsidies, could be interpreted as a successful cooptation of state resources as have been recognized in the movements of the 1960s and 1970s.184 This new source of

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70

Printings & press

Bureau

Donations

State subsidies

Interests

Total incomes (US $)

Total assets after debts (US $)

Assets free of use (%)

1885/87 1891/93 1899/00 1913/15 1923/24

49 40 16 13 5

25 23 31 13 3

6 25 23 9 4

18 6 20 42 48

0 0 0 5 35

2 6 10 18 5

9,700 7,300 6,400 7,000 15,000*

7,600 10,400 13,700 23,300 26,300

73 79 66 62 3

NCWGB 1891/93 1899/00 1923/24

79 54 49

0 10 31

0 0 0

21 35 18

0 0 0

0 0 1

300 5,000 3,500

1,500 1,400

100 88

NCWC** 1893 1899/00 1913/15 1923

26 43 10 16

0 18 20 1

0 0 0 0

73 39 69 82

0 0 0 0

0 0 1 2

490 1,300 2,300 1,200

490 1,300 2,300 1,200

100 100 100 100

BDF

1896

100

0

0

0

0

0

200

1914/15 1924

86 81

0 15

0 0

3 4

0 0

11 0

In US $

Member-ship fees

Table 2.1  Incomes and assets of the Fredrika Bremer Association and the National Councils of Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1924, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914). Created by Pernilla Jonsson.

FBA

400 5,200 2,000 (n) (n) 0*** (n) 43 (n)

100 100

Sources: RA, the Fredrika Bremer Associations head archive, Annual reports and General ledgers (Huvudböcker) 1885–1925; P. Jonsson, 2007. ‘On the Women’s Account – Finances of ‘Bourgeois’ Women’s Organizations in Sweden, England, Germany and Canada, 1885–1924’, in J. Sangster, S. Neunsinger and P. Jonsson (eds), Crossing Boundaries – New Perspectives on Women’s Organizing in Europe and North America, Uppsala; Jonsson (2007), Table 1, p. 164.

income may have been the result of the political opportunities that opened up with the liberal and Social Democratic government of the late 1910s and early 1920s operating in a political context characterized by unstable alignments. However, this could also be interpreted as a cooptation of women’s movement at a time when the male political elite was threatened by the vote for Parliament gained by women.

A ‘Bourgeois’ Pioneer’s Purse

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A high share of state subsidies has not been noted in other contemporary women’s organizations outside Scandinavia, in the few studies that have been done on the topic.185 However, women’s loans and women’s banks were concepts taken into practice in, for example, the early German women’s movement.186 As well, government’s involvement may have been overlooked in the formation of national women’s organizations.187 The state as a supporting ally could be regarded as a way to fulfil the goals of the organization. This meant less autonomy, which in the long run could have weakened the organization.188 Legal restrictions on contracts and agreements, such as wills and state subsidies, also had an influence on the spending patterns and thus its activities: more funds to schools and philanthropic work and less to the organization’s daily administrative and political work. The financial strategies of the FBA seem to have been more affected by class than by gender. As in many other ‘male’ organizations at the time, the administration was professional. Even though women had less access to formal education, both men and women on the board contributed to funds being skilfully and actively invested. The minutes of the organization reveal a leadership familiar with the modern commercial and financial world, dealing with bank accounts, bonds, lending business, and shares.189 In addition, restrictions due to social norms on the ‘value’ or use of money have been hard to trace. However, despite the financial difficulties, the FBA managed to raise its income considerably and rather quickly, by extensive mobilization of new members and coalitions with individual activists and the state. These opened up an expansion of activities and fields of work: mobilization, enlightenment, political work, and later also more ‘philanthrophic work’ that received support from donors and the state. Hence, rather than cut the coat according to its cloth, the FBA fought to expand its income sources. It even took up bank loans. In contrast to underspending, as has been noticed in studies of German and Swiss women’s movements as well as socialist women’s organizations, the FBA had a rather expansive spending pattern, especially in the financially harsh years of the late 1910s and early 1920s.190 Due to the Swedish women’s economic situation – in a rather poor country often in need of earning their own living – the FBA expressed that only paid staff could provide efficient mobilization and lobbying. A professional administration may also have served as a message of reliability and responsibility to the public, attracting potential supporters to trust the organization with donations.191 From the beginning, the organization had employed staff in its office and run an advisory bureau and a periodical. How common this priority of the budget was in women’s organizations in other countries is difficult

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72

Table 2.2  Expenses of the Fredrika Bremer Association and the National Councils of Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1924, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914) Office, Total bureau, Meeting & Printings & Interest & expenditures & salaries travel costs press taxes (US $)

In US $ FBA

NCWGB

NCWC

BDF

1885/87

48

3

46

0

5,900

1891/93

63

2

33

2

6,400

1899/00

58

1

37

4

6,800

1913/15

51

1

35

12

5,400

1923/24

61

3

21

15

4,500

1891/93

11

65

24

0

300

1899/00

68

3

29

0

4,600

1923/24

76

1

22

0

4,500

1893

39

31

29

0

50

1899/00

46

2

44

9

600

1913/15

68

7

25

0

2,700

1923

69

16

15

0

3,700

1896

—

—

—

—

200

1914/15

91

5

4

0

4,100 (n)

1924

54

23

22

0

0* (n)

Sources: RA, the Fredrika Bremer Associations head archive, Annual reports and General ledgers (Huvudböcker) 1885–1925; Jonsson (2007), Table 2, p. 175.

A ‘Bourgeois’ Pioneer’s Purse

73

to say. However, in Germany and Canada paid staff had to wait for several years (see Table 2.2). This was also the case in Switzerland. The priorities made by the FBA could be considered more similar to the expansive American and British women’s organizations.192 The decision to use available resources for salaries gave them the potential for professional lobbying, several publishing projects, extensive educational programmes, and, thus, both external and internal mobilizing.

Notes 1. Knoke, Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations, 56f. 2. Zelizer, ‘The Social Meaning of Money: “Special Monies”’, 348–50. 3. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 73–80. 4. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 177. 5. 3 SEK in nominal value. 6. FBA Annual report 1885–1925; RA, FBA head archive, General Ledgers 1885–1890 (G1: 1–8). 7. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 78. 8. FBA Annual report 1885, 9. For the statute see FBA Annual report 1885, 11ff. 9. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 20 May 1889, and attached letter from A. Börtzell to the board dated 26 March 1889. 10. RA, FBA head archive Statutes (FIa: 1) §3 1885, §3 1889, §3 1910. 11. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1885–1925 and Statutes 1885–1936. See, e.g., Minutes (Committee board, A2) 10 June 1913 §3, 4 November 1913 §3, 11 June 1923 §4, 22 April 1924 §3, 9 March 1920 §5, 2 December 1920 attachment I, 12 June 1922 §4, 6 March 1923 §2, and 24 October 1925 §2; Minutes of the executive committee (A3) 4 October 1923, and 8 November 1923 §2. It meant an annual payment of 100 SEK or 500 SEK in nominal value. 12. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 16 March §4 and 15 January 1920 §2; Minutes (Committee board) 29 January 1920 §3, 9 March 1920 §5 and 22 April 1924 §3. About the organization structure of the Swedish Women’s Suffrage Movement see Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 61ff. 13. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 23 February 1885 §5. 14. KB, Correspondence from Sophie Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 3 October 1883 (‘The Esselde Collection’ Ia7a: 1–4). 15. KB, Correspondence from Sophie Adlersparre to Fredrika Limnell, 6 December 1885. 16. A scarify of 500 SEK in annual value. 17. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 278f. 18. Ibid., 278–80. 19. RA, FBA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, Minutes 5 March 1913 §4. 20. FBA. Minutes and account book 1921. Donations from, e.g.: the chairwoman Agda Montelius’s husband, Hilma Svedbom (married to Vilhelm Svedbom, son of Fredrika Limnell, one of Sophie Adlersparre’s closest friends, and also member of the board of the Fredrika Bremer Association) SMK (1942). A large income from gifts and donations in 1923 descended from lottery that we will turn to below. 21. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 11 March 1914, attachment II ‘Deed of gift’ §5. 22. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 October 1892 §4 attachment II. 23. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes e.g. 17 May 1915 §3 and 2 September 1915 §6.

74

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24. E.g., Agda Montelius gave money for covering the losses, and some anonymous donor gave money for those employed in the bureau run by the Fredrika Bremer Association. RA, FBA head archive, Account books 1885–1921. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 15 April 1912 §18 and 3 January 1914 §21. 25. About 50,000 SEK in nominal value. 26. K.W. Sander. 1999. Bazaars and Fair Ladies: The History of the American Fundraising Fair, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press; Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 173–86. Examples of how different Swedish philanthropic and charity organizations worked with fundraising are found in, e.g., M. Taussi Sjöberg and T. Vammen. 1995. På tröskeln till välfärden: välgörenhetsformer och arenor i Norden 1800–1930, Stockholm: Carlsson; Hollari, Barnens dags förening 1905–1925; Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället. 27. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 33; Manns, Upp systrar, 59. About ‘individual subscriptions’ in associations in Boston and New York during the first decades of the nineteenth century see Boylan, The Origins of Women’s Activism, 177. 28. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Fredrika Limnell 6 October 1880. 29. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 3 October 1883. 30. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 12 December 1884. 31. About Årsta see for example RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 13 May 1913 §5, 10 June 1913 §8, 10 July 1913 §1, 20 February 1919 §5 and 5 December 1919; Minutes of the executive committee 6 February 1917 §1. About the struggle for a ‘women’s house’ at the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914 and later a women’s centre see also Bokholm. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, 298–304. About the school see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 19 May 1919 §6. People could sign on for giving 1000 SEK in nominal value during a period of 5 years. 32. RA, FBA head archive, e.g., Minutes 13 May 1913 §5, 22 June 1914 §1. 33. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 299. It was about 50,000 SEK in nominal value. 34. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 6 February 1914 §1. 35. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 6 February 1917 §1: ‘för närvarande inom landet funnes avsevärda kapital, vilka icke alltid vore lätt placerbara. Man hade nämligen tänkt sig Årsta klubben som ett räntebärande företag för vilka man skulle söka intressera penningstarka personer att teckna andelar.’ 36. RA, FBA head archive, Minute 12 June 1922 §2; Minute 27 May 1919 §4; FBA Annual report 1920, 5. 37. O. Husz. 1999. Lotterifeber: om lotterikritik och lotteridrömmar under tidigt 1900-tal; Hollari, Barnens dags förening 1905–1925, 97–99. 38. RA, FBA head archive, Minute 7 January 1920 attachment Ia, ‘Under de senaste åren har allt starkare nedsättning i allmänhetens intresse för varulotterier kunnat konstateras, vilken nedsättning torde ha framkallats, dels av marknadens permanenta översvämning av lotter och dels av att på grund av penningväsendets fall de hittills högsta vinsterna icke längre utöva lika stor lockelse som förut … Det avtagande intresset kan direkt avläsas i de efter hand stegrade reklamkostnaderna för lotterierna.’ 39. RA, FBA, Minutes of the executive committee 6 February, 8 May 1917 §4, 7 August 1917 §3 and 10 October 1921 §4; Minutes (Committee board), e.g., 20 February 1919 §2, 10 March 1919 §7, 7 November 1919 §2, 7 January 1920 §2, 20 April 1920 §1, 2 February 1921 §3, 6 March 1923 §2 and 11 June 1923 §2. 40. About application for lottery in support for the daily work and the schools see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 April 1920 §1, and 10 October 1921 §4. For the outcome see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 December 1922 §6 and Account book 1923. The lottery yielded 100,000 SEK in nominal value. 41. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 28 May 1924 §3.

A ‘Bourgeois’ Pioneer’s Purse

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42. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 30 August 1924 §1. See also for lottery applications, Minutes of the executive committee 7 November 1924 §5 and 2 January 1925 §1; FBA Annual reports 1923–25. 43. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 2 November 1922 §2. 44. Heckscher, Staten och organisationerna, 140ff.; Elvander, Intresseorganisationerna i dagens Sverige, 24; Lundkvist and Friman, Folkrörelserna i det svenska samhället 1850–1920, 222; Rothstein, Den korporativa staten: intresseorganisationer och statsförvaltning i svensk politik, 82f. and 88. 45. In 1920 state subsidies were approved to more than 20 associations, especially for social work or public lectures (e.g., the Swedish Runic Association (Svenska fornskriftssällskapet) and the Charity Organization Society (Fattigvårdsförbundet)). The subsidy reached from 2,000 SEK, for publishing support, to 1,472,000 SEK, for ammunition to shootings clubs. Parliament printings (Riksdagstryck), register 1920, search word: name of associations. 46. See Micheletti, Civil Society and State Relations in Sweden, 204–6. 47. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 October 1906, 26 February 1909 §3, and 6 February 1911 §11. 48. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes14 October 1914 §5, attachment I. 49. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 October 1906, 14 October 1914 §5, 1 October 1919 §7, 11 November 1919 §5, 7 January 1920 §30, 27 August 1920 §3, and 15 October 1920 §4 attachment IV. 50. FBA Annual report 1922, 2. 51. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 August 1920 §3, ‘Det ligger i sakens natur, att ett arbete av det slag, som innefattas i förbundets allmänna verksamhet, även med iakttagande av den största sparsamhet icke kan upprätthållas utan att draga betydande kostnader…’. 52. FBA Annual report 1922, 2. 53. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 August 1920 §3, ‘Förbundets ekonomi har lidit ett ödesdigert avbräck genom penningvärdets fall till följd av världskriget. Inkomsterna har endast delvis kunnat täcka utgifterna. Förbundet har därför varit nödsakat att under dessa senare år tillsätta betydande delar av sitt kapital’. 54. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 15 October 1920 §4. 55. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 16 December 1920 §34 attachment IV, ‘Det torde med skäl kunna betecknas som en direkt skada ur välfärdssynpunkt, om denna verksamhet skulle stäckas genom förbundets egna ekonomiska svårighet.’ 56. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 10 November 1921 §12. 57. FBA Annual reports 1889, 17; RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 25 May 1898 §12, 17 November 1898 §2, 23 November 1910 §6, 16 December 1911 §2 and 19 November 1914 §9. 58. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 23 February 1910 §17 and 24 October 1911 §3. 59. 1.5 million SEK in nominal value. 60. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 25–26 November §6 1921; Minutes of the executive committee 20 September 1922 §2 and 4 October §1. 61. About the Bell company see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 28 May 1887 §6. About fare reductions see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 18 March 1898 §5, and 22 June 1914 §5. Fare reductions on railroads seem not to have been an exception. In the arrangement of the second International Women’s Congress in Washington in 1888, extensive negotiations to obtain reduced fares on different railway and steamboat companies had been undertaken. 62. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 73–80. 63. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 178. 64. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 132–57. 65. Ibid., 79f. and 96; Jonsson, ‘On the Women’s Account’. Studies of German, Canadian and Swiss women’s organizations show that less than 90 per cent of the annual budget was spent, while the National American Women’s Suffrage Association had a more expansive

76

Gendered Money

spending pattern. See also businesswomen’s risk aversion E. Sparks. 2006. Capital Intentions: Female Proprietors in San Francisco, 1850–1920, Luther H. Hodges, Jr. and Luther H. Hodges, Sr. Series on Business, Society, & The State, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 84 and 90. 66. In 1921 ‘by the printing press’ was changed into ‘running a periodical’. RA, FBA head archive, FBA statutes 1885 §2 and 1921; Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 71–73 and 78. 67. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre, 69, 105 and 125. 68. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 24 December 1884 §1 and 5 January 1885 §4, ‘Adlersparre hittat lokal (två rum) för 500 kr/år åt byrån nr 19 Lilla Vattugatan och H Hildebrant meddelat at interimslokaler jan–mars kan ordnas hos Slöjdföreningen gratis beslut uppsköts eftersom kassaförvaltare inte närvarande’. In the American women’s movement the importance of earlier organizations’ premises have been addressed by J. Freeman and V. Johnson. 1999. Waves of Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties, People, Passions, and Power, Lanham, MD; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 223. 69. 500 SEK a year in nominal value. 70. 2,000 SEK annual in nominal value. 71. RA, Dagny and the Dagny association u.p.a archive, vol. I, Minutes 19 April 1912 §4; FBA head archive, Minutes 30 May 1912 §7 and 17 October 1912 §4 , ‘Byrån fått i uppgift att skaffa en tidsenligare lokal – nu hittat no 48 Klarabergsgatan … hvarvid det beräknats att byråns utgifter för hyran skulle belöpa sig till 950 kronor i det att Dagny skulle erlägga 500 kronor (jämte någon ersättning till städerskan), Svenska sjuksköterskornas pensionsförening 500 kr, stipendieinstitutionen 100 kronor och sjukkassan 150 kronor’. 72. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 August 1920 attachment III. 73. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 15 April 1907 §13. Bokholm. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, 304. 74. E.g., see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 22 June 1914 §1; Minutes of the executive committee 6 February 1917 §1, and 19 January 1922 §8. 75. RA, FBA head archive, General ledgers and account books (huvudböcker och kassaböcker) 1885–1925. 76. RA, FBA head archive, Accounts books (kassaböcker) 1885–1925. 77. E.g., see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the Annual meetings 1910–1926. See also Minutes of the executive committee 18 November 1886 §1. 78. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 January 1898 §5. 79. RA, FBA head archive, Account books 1920–25. 80. E.g., see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 22 May 1889 §11, 14 September 1896 §2, 15 January 1902 §5, and 6 March 1923 §11; Minutes of the executive committee 2 November 1922 §5. See also Jonsson and af Peterséns. ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’ Participation on the International Scene, 1885–1916’. 81. Ibid.; Jonsson. ‘On the Women’s Account – Finances of “Bourgeois” Women’s Organizations in Sweden, England, Germany and Canada, 1885–1924’. 82. RA, FBA head archive, General ledgers 1885–1915. 83. The first head of the office, Minna Forsell, volunteered the first year. FBA Annual report 1885; RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 24 March 1886; Account books, 1885–1925. 84. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhälle, 79. 85. Compare with the discussions within the ICW described in Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap, 173. 86. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 5 May 1886 §7, January 1907 §4, and 27 August 1920 attachment III; Account books 1885–1920; all at 1914-equivalent values. 87. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 August 1920 attachment III, ‘Särskilt torde det bli nödvändigt att höja avlöningarna för å byrån och tidskriften Herthas redaktion anställda.

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För närvarande äro dessa avlöningar mycket låga och förutsätta ett offervilligt intresse å de anställdas sida.’ 88. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 22 April 1921 §3. 89. See, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minute 27 August 1920 §3, attachment III. 90. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 25–26 November 1921 §7, 11 June 1923 §2 and §13, and 8 June 1925 §10; Minutes of the executive committee 28 February 1885 §2, 27 September 1916 §4, and 10 November 1921 §6. 91. FBA Annual reports 1885–1925. Also, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 April 1892 §6, and 11 June 1923 §10; Minutes of the executive committee 15 March 1921 §3, and 2 April 1921 §29–30. 92. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 4 November 1914, §2, ‘… dels att under de förnärvarande tryckta förhållandena med väntade större arbetslöshet förbundets platsförmedling kunde vara till särskilt gagn. Dels att det säkerligen skulle väcka undran utåt om förbundet under nuvarande förhållanden vidtoge åtgärder för platsförmedlingens inskränkande eller nedläggande… .’. 93. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 September 1916 §4, 25–26 November 1921 §7; Minutes of the executive committee 10 November 1921 §6, and 19 December 1921 §4. 94. About Germany and Holland see: Gerhard. ‘The Women’s Movement in Germany in an International Context’, 107; and Bosch, ‘History and Historiography of First-Wave Feminism in the Netherlands, 1860–1922’, 56. 95. Nordenstam, ‘Min älskade vän’, 86. 96. D. Nordmark. 2001. Liberalernas segertåg (1830–1858), Den svenska pressens historia, Stockholm: Ekelids förlag. 97. RA, FBA archive, Tidskrift för hemmet archive vol. 1; KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Fredrika Limnell 6 October 1880, Ellen Fries 3 October, no. 131 Circular 1 October 1883; Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 118. 98. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 5 December 1884 §8; Minutes of the executive committee 23 February 1885 §3, and 12 November 1885 §3. 99. For a good description of the difficulties in running a women’s movement journal with a business surplus see Finnegan, Selling Suffrage, 141–2. 100. The Home Journal donated 500 SEK and other donations reached more than 2,000 SEK in nominal value. 101. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 5 December 1884 §8, and 12 November 1885 §3 and §5; Minutes of the executive committee 30 October 1885 §5, 12 November 1885 §2, 19 November 1885 §3, 5 December 1885 §1, and 2 January 1886 §1. 102. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 2 January 1886 §3, 18 November 1886 §3; Minutes 21 November 1899 §3. 103. RA, FBA head archive, account books 1885–1906. About advertisements see, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 18 November §3. 104. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 October 1886 §8. 105. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 19 November 1886 §2. 106. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 16 December 1897 §2. 107. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries 12 December 1884. 108. About the morality issue see Manns, ‘Gender and Feminism’, 155f.; Paletschek and Pietrow-Ennker. ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Conclusions’, 323–24. 109. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 February 1888, ‘Förvaltningsutskottet föreslog nämnd att Redaktrisen skulle kontrolleras – med afseende på smärre notiser af Fru Whitlock, med afseende på det väsenteligare innehållet af hvarje häfte af hela styrelsen’. 110. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, Correspondence vol. 2 letter from Hans Hildebrandt to Sophie Adlersparre, Stockholm, 31 October 1887 (rewritten); Sophie Adlersparre (rewritten, have not signed) to Dr Sjöberg, Stockholm, 10 November 1887.

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Both are kept in the folder ‘Från Hans Hildebrandt till Förvaltningsutskottet…’. See also Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 81f. 111. RA, FBA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive (vol. 2), Correspondence from Sophie Adlersparre to Dr. Gustaf Sjöberg, 10 November 1887. 112. FBA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive (vol. 2), Correspondence from Hans Hildebrandt to Sophie Adlersparre, 31 October 1887. 113. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 30 November 1887 §1, attached letter from So phie Adlersparre dated 30 December 1887, 29 February 1888 written in the margin, 26 October 1888 §2; Minutes of the executive committee 10 October 1887 §10 and §14, and 26 October 1888 §5. 114. The new editor 1888–1890 was Amanda Kersfeldt. 115. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 23 May 1892 attachment IV, ‘… I enlighet med de upplysningar komitén varit i tillfälle att inhemta utgör damtidningen Iduns utgifvningskonto 80 á 90,000 kr årligen. I författararvorden för originalartiklar utbetalar samma tidning 1,300 kr om året, redaktionspersonalen utgörs af 5 personer och uppgår lönebeloppet för hvar månad till 800 kr. För att nu möjliggöra en konkurrens med en så märklig medtäfvlare fordras således, att Dagny till så väl utstyrsel som innehåll vore densamma öfverlägsen…’. 116. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, 19 November 1892 §2 and attachment II, ‘Liksom förbundet behöfver ökadt utrymme för sin expedition, lika väl behöfver det ökadt utrymme för utveckling af sina grundsatser och för det andliga samlifvet med sina medlemmar och med liktänkande i andra länder. Dagny grundlades med hjelp af betydliga gåfvor, anskaffade af hennes första redaktris. Hennes spridning lär vara större än de flesta andra svenska tidskrifters – … Hon har sålunda intill förlidet år, egnat förbundet sin tjenst utan att betunga den samma med några nämnvärda utgifter’. 117. RA, FBA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a archive, Minutes 1907–1914. 118. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 10 June 1913 §3, 12 September 1913 §3, 14 October §5 and attachment 1, ‘…ett nödvändigt led i förbundets verksamhet sedan veckotidningen Dagny ett gemensamt organ för kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, med 1913 års utgång upphörde. Med hänsyn till att i Tidskriftens plan även ingår publicerandet av utredningar rörande kvinnoarbetet och därmed sammanhängande frågor bör tidskriften vara till gagn ej blott för Fredrika Bremer förbundet utan även för de allmänna verk’. Account books 1913–1925. 119. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a, archive, Minutes 12 October 1912 §4, Annual report 20 April 1909. 120. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 12 January 1914 §2, ‘Diskuterades åtskilliga åtgärder angående tidskriften Herthas pridning och antogs förslag om att för hvarje nummer en innehållsförteckning skulle tillsändas de större dagliga tidningarne. Vidare beslöt utskottet att alla de medlemmar, som med ja besvarat fråganangående den obligatoriska prenumerationen på Hertha vore utan vidare att anse som prenumeranter. Till dem, som icke efter den 2dra cirkuläret anmält sig som prenumerant å Hertha, beslöts skicka häfte no 2 med vidfäst meddelande om, att de medlemmar, som icke nu yttrade en motsatt önskan, härefter kommer att antecknas såsom prenumeranter.’ 121. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 12 January 1914 §2. 122. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 12 January 1914 §2. 123. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 October 1914 §5 and 7 November 1919 §3. 124. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 8 June 1925 §12, ‘Genom den större upplagan skulle därjemte annonsanskaffningen mycket underlättas, men största fördelen med alternativ I vore dock att härigenom skulle en starkare kontakt mellan förbundets olika organ och förbundsmedlemmarna uppnås’. 125. About advertisement in the American Women’s Journal see Finnegan, Selling Suffrage, 142–5. 126. Ibid., 144.

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127. RA, FBA head archive, Account books 1885–1925; FBA, Dagny and the association of Dagny u.p.a. archive, Annual reports 1908–1914. 128. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 1 November 1913 §2. 129. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 October 1914 §5. Ida Plomgren got a salary of 200 SEK a year to be responsible for the obtaining of advertisements. 130. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 4 April 1891 §2, 3 February 1894 §5, and 11 December 1906 §13; however, articles were not always seen as suitable to use for this purpose, see Minutes 9 March §2 1908. 131. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 69f. 132. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 November 1898 §2. 133. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 November 1898 §2, 24 November 1898 §3 and 5 December 1898 §3. The suggestion was signed by Julia Jolin, Amanda Kersfeldt and Elin Cederblom. 134. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 November 1898 §2, and 16 November 1905 §2. 135. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 November 1898 §2, 19 November 1909 §2, and 24 October 1911 §3. 136. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 9 June 1898 §4, 17 November 1898 §2, 23 February 1910 §18, 23 November 1910 §6, 23 September 1911 §9, 24 October 1911 §3, and 19 November 1914 §9. 137. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 19 November 1908 §3. 138. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 September 1911 §9, 24 October 1911 §3, 25 January 1912 §26, 10 October 1912 §9, and 2 October 1913 §8. 139. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 September 1911 §9, 24 October 1911 §3, 10 October 1912 §9, 2 October 1913 §8, 7 November 1919, and 16 December 1920 §4. 140. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 25–26 November 1921 §5, ‘I anslutning till frågan om Herthas insats i förbundets upplysningsarbete uppstod en diskussion om möjligheten av ett fortsatt upprätthållande av tvänne förbundspublikationer, Hertha och Hemtrevnad. Under debatten framfördes önskvärdheten av dels nedläggning av Hemtrevnad, då det ansågs svårt att samtidigt arbeta för två tidningar, dels att Hemtrevnad mer än hittills inriktade sig på sociala och kvinnofrågor för att kunna företräda förbundets intressen för en vidare publik’. 141. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 November 1921 §13. 142. It was about 8,000 SEK in nominal value. 143. In 1902 James Carnegie donated 10,000 SEK while Hilma and Emilie Zander donated 14,000 SEK in nominal value. The deed of gift of James Carnegie arrived 9 January 1891, RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 9 January 1891 §2, but the donation is not seen in the account books until 1902. 144. Mrs S. Whitlock, bank director Letterström, Director-General of the National Heritage Board Oscar Montelius, and Mrs Lizinka Dyrssen. 145. See for example RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 September 1911 §4, 19 January 1915 §5–6, 25 January 1915, 9 June 1915 §3, and 27 May 1919 §5; Minutes of the executive committee 16 March 1918 §5. It seems as if the interest was from the market interest to 1–1½ per cent less than Bank lending rate. 146. See for example mortgage for Mrs Whilock’s house at 4½ per cent interest and Mrs Dryssen offering shares in security. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 13 March 1897 §8, 1 October 1909 §7, and 3 April 1914 §2. 147. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 16 February 1889 §3, ‘Bestämdes, på hemställan från kassaförvaltaren att förbundets medel må utlånas till förlags- och lånesökande qvinna mot betryggande säkerhet; i de fall då kassaförvaltaren jemte två dertill utsedda personer… Revisionssekreterare Rothlieb och fru S. Whitlock utsågs att jemte kassaförvaltaren pröfva de lånesökandes säkerhet.’ 148. A. Schepeler-Leffe and J. Hirsch. 1884; 1974. ‘Germany’, in T. Stanton (ed.), The Woman Question in Europe, New York: MSS Information Corporation, 104. Later, in 1908, even

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special women’s banks were established in Germany as a part of the women’s movement. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 193–220. 149. Manns, Upp systrar, 56–57. E.g., Fredrika Limnell had been involved in a project as early as 1855. 150. Dagny no. 9/10 1887, 240. 151. K. Lilja. 2004. Marknad och hushåll: sparande och krediter i Falun 1820–1910 utifrån ett livscykelperspektiv, Uppsala studies in economic history, 71, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Univ.-bibl. distributör, 47. 152. See A. Hollis. 2001. ‘Women and Micro-Credit in History: Gender in the Irish Loan Funds’, in R. Pearson, B. Lemire and G. Campbell (eds), Women and Credit: Researching the Past, Refiguring the Future, Oxford: Berg; A. Hollis and A. Sweetman. 1998. ‘Microcredit in Prefamine Ireland’, Explorations in Economic History 35(4), 361–62, and 369. 153. Lilja, Marknad och hushåll, 145 Table 6.8; Finanskommittén. 1863. Underdånigt betänkande angående Sveriges ekonomiska och finansiella utveckling under åren 1834–1860, Stockholm: Nordstedt & söner, 77f. 154. Hollis, ‘Women and Micro-Credit in History: Gender in the Irish Loan Funds’, 77. 155. About Mrs S. Whitlock as guarantor, see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 December 1898 §9, and 27 February 1890 §6. The loans ranged from about 100 SEK to 3,000 SEK in nominal value. 156. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1885–1925. 157. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 12 April 1895 §2, 1 October 1897 §5, 27 September 1898 §4, 1 October 1897 §5, 27 September 1898 §4, 29 April 1910 §12, 23 November 1910 §3, 30 March 1911 §6, and 25 January 1912 §4. 158. Sometimes the annual incomes of guarantors have been written in pencil, and on a few occasions one more guarantor has been requested explicitly due to too low an income of the guarantors mentioned in the application. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., October 1897 §5, 27 September 1898 §4, 29 April 1910 §12, 30 March 1911 §6, 25 January 1912 §4, and 26 April 1913 §5. In loan funds in Ireland with paid staff, the average administrative cost per loan was estimated at 1.2 per cent of the face value of the loan: Hollis and Sweetman, ‘Microcredit in Prefamine Ireland’, 364. 159. See example from Ireland in Ibid., 371–6. 160. FBA Annual report 1892, 22, ‘…icke ringa del af förbundets medel användts till förlagslån åt kvinnor. Härmed har afsetts och vunnits det dubbla ändamålet att verksamt gagna antalet kvinnor, som för sin fortkomst i lifvet under någon tid behöfva anlita förlagslån, dels ock å andra sidan att vinna något ökad afkastning å utlånade medel.--- Önskligt vore om förbundet finge större tillgångar att användas för denna del af sin verksamhet, som medfört så mycket gagn’. 161. Compared to the alternative return of interest, if its assets were held at a bank account, the profit was about 1 per cent except in the 1920s when it was just above ½ per cent or rather close to the return of its bonds. RA, FBA head archive, account books 1900–1925, ‘bonds’. See, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 September 1911 §4, 19 January 1915 §5–6, 25 January 1915 §4, and 16 December 1920 §38, for interest rate on loans from scholarship foundations and banks. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 22 April 1921 §2. 162. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 16 February 1889 §3. About interest rate see, e.g., 6 May 1890 §7, 26 April 1892, 2 September 1893, 5 June 1897 §3, 9 March 1908 §5, and 19 February 1914 §5. 163. Statistiska centralbyrån. 1960. Historisk statistik för Sverige, Örebro; Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån (SCB), 96 table 74. 164. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1889–1925. For the exceptions poultry, shop and news agency see, e.g., 27 April 1895 §2, 9 May 1899 §9, and 9 January 1905 §5.

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165. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 September 1896 §3, 9 May 1899 §9, 4 November 1913, and 19 February 1914 §5. 166. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 February 1905, 1 October 1909 §6, and 14 October 1925 §6. 167. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 September 1896 §3, 21 April 1906 §2 and attachment V, 8 September 1906 §6, and 4 November 1913 §4. 168. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 May 1908 §7. 169. RA, FBA head archive, e.g., Minutes 25 September 1891 §2, and 23 February 1910 §7. 170. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 9 May 1899 §9. 171. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 9 March 1908 §7. 172. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 10 August 1914, §3. The break seems to have been looked on as temporary since a new committee was elected for the coming year in the Minutes 29 December 1914 §4. 173. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 6 February 1917 §6, and 18 March 1921 §1. 174. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1914–1925; Minutes of the executive committee 1914– 1925. The first loan after the stop during the war was 1921, Minutes of the executive committee 22 April 1921 §2. 175. Women became a new target group for financial institutions in America and also in Germany during the 1910s and 1920s. See Sparks, Capital Intention, 94; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 193f.; Robertson, ‘The Disagreeable Experience of Handling Soiled Money’. 176. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 174 and 188f. 177. Jonsson. ‘On the Women’s Account’; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 112; L. af Peterséns. 2006. Formering för offentlighet: Kvinnokonferenser och Svenska Kvinnornas Nationalförbund kring sekelskiftet 1900, Stockholm: Stockholm University, 68. 178. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 12 June §5 1897. In this case the board asked Miss Wahrolin to place 5,000 SEK from a bank account in bonds of Stora Kopparberg or Billesholm. 179. RA, FBA head archive, Account books 1885–1925, e.g., 1909, 1911, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918. 180. About Apelryd, see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 7 March 1914; Minutes (Committee board) 11 March 1914 §1 and attachment I and II. 181. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 173–83. 182. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 77–78; Jonsson, ‘On the Women’s Account’; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 100. 183. About women’s loans and women’s banking see, e.g., Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 193–220. 184. See overview of mobilized resources J.C. Jenkins. 1985. ‘Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements’, Annual Review of Sociology 9, 533, and there referred studies. 185. For example from other countries see Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes; Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism; Jonsson. ‘On the Women’s Account’. 186. About women’s loans and women’s banking see, e.g., Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 193–220. 187. An interest for federal and state bodies supporting and sponsoring, e.g., women’s conferences in the second wave of women’s organizing, have however been raised by Freeman, The Politics of Women’s Liberation, 52f., and G. Duerst-Lathi. 1989. ‘The Government’s Role in Building the Women’s Movement’, Political Science Quarterly 104(2). 188. Kriesi, ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, 155f.

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189. For a comparison with American women’s association see also Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 187–8. 190. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 75; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 101. 191. Knoke, Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations, 105. 192. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 81; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 221; Jonsson. ‘On the Women’s Account’.

Chapter 3

Human Resources in the Fredrika Bremer Association

Of course not only monetary resources were important for organizing. Framing and culture have been suggested as being just as important and could provide revenues as well; those who frame an aim have the potential to both mass-mobilize and create coalitions with resource-rich organizations and individuals.1 Below, some human resources used by the Fredrika Bremer Association (FBA), and how they varied over time, will be discussed.

Mobilizing – the Value of Members In the previous chapter it was shown that membership fees were one of the main income sources of the FBA. Since Sweden was sparsely populated and mass movements were just about to take form, few associations in the 1880s had more than a few thousand members. In that perspective, the FBA could be regarded as fairly successful. In only one year it had mobilized over 800 members, within a decade the number had doubled, and by 1910 it had reached 2,500 members (see Figure 3.1 below). To mobilize new members nationally, local representatives, the periodical, and travelling lecturers were used. The first members and the board of the FBA were mainly concentrated in Stockholm. However, from the beginning Sophie Adlersparre was working for a national organization, and local representatives were a part of this plan.2 To get local representatives a network of friends was used. The periodical and opinion meetings were other channels they used to Notes for this chapter begin on page 101.

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address potential members. As well, advertisements in local newspapers were used to spread information about the organization, its goals and activities, the advisory bureau, and its scholarship foundations.3 In 1887 the FBA already had thirty local representatives, from the very south of Sweden to Sundsvall in the north.4 However, the organization had problems in keeping the commitment up and local representatives had a high turnover rate during the initial years. In some cases the turnover was regarded as healthy. In a letter in 1887 to the office in Stockholm, Mathilda Silow, head of the bureau in Malmö, stated: ‘The representatives, who [at the turn of the year] have not been in touch with us about the scholarship-matters or worked for the association in other ways should in my opinion be discharge in a good way and be replaced with young blood.5 (The author’s translation). The local representatives were regarded as one of the most important links to mobilize more members. To maintain and strengthen this link, however, the interplay with the office in Stockholm was crucial.6 Yet more formalized interaction had to wait for decades. In 1905 the question of setting up a committee dealing with the interaction with the provinces was discussed, and local clubs replaced local representatives.7 In its attempts to mobilize more members, the new organization had support from other organizations. Older organizations could contribute with an already existing mobilization structure. Another more direct way was the first feminist organization in Sweden, the Association for Married Woman’s Property Rights, merging with the FBA in 1895. In this way new members were added to the organization.8 However, during the 1910s the number of members stagnated. This was noticed as a double problem: a financial problem, as seen above, and a problem of the legitimacy of the association as such. The decreasing interest in the organization resulted in recurrent calls for special actions for mobilizing more members in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Several different strategies to achieve more members were used. In 1920 when the financial situation was acute, the executive board gave some suggestions on how to attract more members: to send agitators to spread the knowledge of the association and its activities, and to call upon all members to recruit new members. It was also regarded as appropriate to contact the board of female professional associations to suggest that their members join the [Fredrika Bremer] association.9 (The author’s translation)

In 1921 another step in order to mobilize more members was taken: decentralization. The revised statutes of the organization gave the local clubs their own representatives on the board. As well, to intensify the com-

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Figure 3.1  The number of members of the Fredrika Bremer Association 1885–1930. Created by Pernilla Jonsson. Sources: FBA, Annual reports 1885–1930 and RA, FBA head archive, ‘Lotten Dahlgren’s statement’.

munication within the organization all proposals were to be circulated to the local clubs for comments. The model could be an influence from the cooperation with the LKPR and an attempt to convince the representatives of the member-rich suffrage movement to merge with the FBA.10 However, a formal merger of the organization suffrage movement and the FBA did not take place, although secret negotiations were undertaken in 1920. Instead the suffrage movement reorganized into a separate organization in 1921: The Swedish Women’s Citizen Alliance (Svenska kvinnors medborgarförbund).11 This was a drawback, and the FBA intensified its efforts to mobilize new members. To obtain its goal a special committee was set up to take care of the mobilization.12 Whether a result of the efforts or not, the number of members increased steadily during the 1920s (see Figure 3.1). Despite the usual view of the 1920s and 1930s as decades of a stagnating women’s movement, the FBA gained more members. In contrast to socialist organizations and newer social movements, the power of the members’ bodies as such was less important.13 During the initial years the meetings of the FBA had the character of bourgeois social intercourse such as soirées and dinners. Later, after internal criticism in 1895, the meetings had less entertainment and more enlightenment, such

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as opinion meetings and lectures focusing on specific issues.14 Still the gatherings did not break with the picture of a ‘respectable woman’. Demonstrations were not held, though, at the time, this was the case in other Swedish women’s organizations as well. The demonstrations and violations of the law by British, American and, to some extent, French women’s movements were condemned by a large share of the organized middle-class women, and the Swedish suffrage movement organized just one demonstration: in Gothenburg in 1918.15 Yet the absence of street demonstrations did not mean that the women in the FBA did not act in public. Women’s congresses, like the Scandinavian Women’s Conference held in Stockholm in 1897, were public demonstrations – but in a different way. The women attending took their class-based social practices into the public sphere in the form of speeches, processions, standards and flags. Even though there was no street demonstration for women’s rights, the delegates were exposed in the streets and the press during the conferences.16 Also on other occasions the members of the FBA acted in public or semi-public spheres. Leaflets were handed out to Members of Parliament. Representatives were talking at official meetings. Articles were written. However, rather than public-exposed bodies, the main role of members still was their financial contributions, as well as their ‘human resources’ and legitimizing function.

Giving their Time, Commitment and Skills The FBA was from the beginning mobilizing middle-class men and women. It could be assumed that its class base would imply members contributing their time to the organization without payment. However, the possibility for women to serve the organization for free was dependent on whether husbands or male relatives could support them financially and whether voluntary work competed with a professional career.17 Their choice could, as well, be a result of the understanding of time and the relation between access to time and waged work. ‘Housewives’ could more freely offer their time than employees, but with a blurred line between work and leisure. Fundraising work, such as baking a cake or doing needlework, could more easily be carried out along with women’s own domestic tasks. For employees the line between paid work and leisure was more strictly defined, and their concept of time was more ‘commodified’.18 In the FBA, as in the case of Swedish socialist women, a pattern of paid labour at the national level and unpaid labour at the local level could be discerned. As mentioned above, from the initial years the FBA had em-

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ployees at the bureau, and gave remunerations to authors and some others working for the organization. The need for women working for the organization to earn their income was explicitly expressed in several ways. Earlier Sophie Adlersparre was paid as the editor of the periodical Tidskrift för hemmet (Home Journal). After the FBA had been formally established, it was stated that she needed her salary for her living. In her biography it is pointed out that she was dependent on an income since her husband’s pension was not ‘enough to live on’.19 Sophie Adlersparre was, however, not the only one short of either time or income, even though the organization mainly mobilized upper- and middle-class women and men. In 1885, concerning the organization’s home study classes (hemstudieprogram), Adlersparre wrote: ‘those who could take upon themselves the responsibility are lacking the time and those who could offer their time lacked the knowledge’.20 The same year, the same problem, the need for commitment, skills and wages, was mentioned in discussions on recruiting the right people to work for the organization in the very south of Sweden. The head of the advisory bureau in Malmö, Mathilda Silow, wrote to the head of the office in Stockholm, Gertrud Adelborg: They who want and are suitable have not the time, but it would not be impossible to light the spirit and find a person, if we could guarantee 150 or 200 crowns … One person in Malmö and one person in Lund could be suitable; but the same thing is valid for them; they cannot give their labour for free.21 (The author’s translation)

Even though salaries and remunerations were paid more or less from the beginning, it might not have been totally acceptable, at least not by wellto-do women. However, no evidence of such an opposing discourse on women’s wages and women as breadwinners can be seen in the minutes of the organization, as was the case within the international women’s movement at the time.22 Neither was it stated that an organization should not use its funds for administration. Yet both in the correspondence of Sophie Adlersparre and in her biography, some statements could be interpreted as if women living off the organization were not fully accepted. For example, in 1880 Adlersparre expressed that she was afraid of negative effects of a guarantee fund for the periodical Tidskrift för hemmet; it could be viewed as alms to her personally, since she got her income from it.23 As well, in the first annual report of the FBA, waged labour was mentioned only in passing.24 Waged labour did not hinder counting on, or emphasizing, commitment of the people working for the organization. The employees seem to have accepted working for low wages in harsh financial times, as seen above.

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Except at the office and periodical, most worked for the organization as volunteers. Attempts to show commitment could also be discerned in the correspondence of the active women; they frequently referred to their poor health.25 On the other hand, the repeated references to health in the beginning of the letters may be interpreted as a way of writing themselves into a common culture, or as a manifestation of more personal friendship.26 Paid or not paid, the members’ resources were welcomed in the work of the organization. When Sophie Adlersparre made her plans to establish a national women’s organization, she explicitly mentioned resources individual members could contribute. These resources could be interpreted as both cultural and social capital, in Bourdieu’s definition. Adlersparre seems deliberately to have strived for educated people with well-established social networks in different spheres of society. As a result, the first board had channels into several important arenas: political decision makers, the press, and other organizations. The FBA gathered, as well, some of the best-educated women in Sweden. Amongst those who were invited to the constitutive meeting of the organization were, besides Sophie Adlersparre, many well-known names. Many had met in their work with the Tidskrift för hemmet and in other organizations. It was, however, not only representatives from the cultural elite and liberal circles in Stockholm that were invited. Adlersparre advocated the importance of including bank representatives in the inner circle as well.27 It seems as if she was successful; two bank managers became members of the first board.28 The initiators’ experiences from earlier organizational work contributed networks and knowledge of administration. Later, the organization explicitly mentioned the special need for skilled employees in its applications for state subsidies. In 1920, special knowledge in keeping libraries and archives, producing printed matter, and arranging meetings were emphasized.29 Other skills highly valued within the FBA seem to have been knowledge in economics, health and pedagogic matters, as well as legal affairs. Male members were important in the organization from the beginning, when women’s participation to a large extent was restricted in these fields of the society due to lack of education and certain legal obstacles. The board of the FBA had very active strategies for fundraising and investments (See ‘Assets and Liabilities’ in chapter 2), which demanded knowledge in financial matters. However, Swedish women had few opportunities to learn financial management skills, a feature they shared with women in other countries.30 As a consequence it seems as if the economy, even in a women’s organization was highly male-dominated. The first treasurer of the FBA was a man, the politician Dr Carl Nyström, who served the organization between 1884 and 1898. Obviously, being a

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woman and treasurer was no longer a problem at the turn of the century. As well, bank managers – all men – had been actively recruited to the first board. Nevertheless, how the funds of the organization were managed was a question on the board and women took an active part in the discussions.31 Sophie Adlersparre and Sophie Whitlock seem to have played an especially active role in the financial decisions of the organization. Both had their own experiences running businesses: Sophie Adlersparre running a periodical and Sophie Whitlock being a businesswoman as well as a member of the board of directors of a bank.32 These activities undertaken by the women in the FBA are not fully in line with the concept of money as male gendered and nothing a ‘real’ woman would soil her hands with. Instead it points to women fully taking part as economic agents and using the modern financial strategies of the time. The need for men may rather have been a need for legitimacy. However, men on the board disappeared over time. After 1898 the FBA had only female treasurers, and from the first decades of the twentieth century no men were on the board. Also in other ways it seems as if cooperation with men was more important during the first years of organizing, especially men in Parliament when women qualified for neither eligibility nor the vote.

Useful Contacts in Parliament and Government You don’t know how powerful the women’s party is here. They have capital and they have connections to those in power.33 (The author’s translation)

These words were written about the Swedish women’s movement in a letter from the author Victoria Benedictsson to a friend in Norway in the 1880s. And she seems to have been right in her statement. Sophie Adlersparre’s correspondence bears witness to a broad personal network with the economic, political and cultural elites in Sweden in the late nineteenth century.34 As a noble lady and editor of a periodical who was active in several associations, she was rich in social as well as symbolic capital that could be utilized for the advantage of the FBA. This close contact with the elites of the society was kept during later leadership too.35 Sophie Adlersparre was well informed about the political debates. Her husband, Captain Axel Adlersparre, was a representative on the town council of Stockholm from 1866 and in Parliament from 1867 to his death in 1879.36 Their home was a meeting place for those in Parliament who shared their opinions, such as the well-known publicist and industrialist Lars Johan Hiertha and the banker A.O. Wallenberg. Other famous dinner guests were the archbishop and the speaker in Parliament.37 The first board of the FBA contributed direct political contacts as well. Of the

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thirteen men on the board, at least four had direct links into the national political centre.38 The accessible information was actually used. In a letter in 1884, Sophie Adlersparre suggested that Dr Ellen Fries write something about the bills introduced in Parliament with the following words: ‘Have you noticed it is no less than seven bills on the woman question introduced in Parliament? When you, as I, easily could glance behind the scenes, it is so much more remarkable.’39 (The author’s translation). However, the FBA did not only use informal contacts with members of Parliament and government. Employed staff had an opportunity to work as professional lobbyists, and these kinds of activities increased over time. Early on, the organization had representatives on committees and worked as a body to which a proposed legislative measure was referred for consideration. In November 1885, Sophie Adlersparre and Hilda Casselli, also a member of the FBA, were the first women on a Swedish legislative committee.40 In other fields such as the Women’s Night Work Prohibition, the FBA, as well as other women’s organizations, was invited to take part in discussions and board meetings.41 How to make an opinion on a political issue was, especially from the early 1900s, a well developed skill in the organization. Its minutes bear witness to repeated contacts with cabinet ministers on different questions.42 An example is the negotiations that took place before the FBA’s school in Rimforsa was established. In its minutes from December 1906 it was announced that: ‘some subsidies could be counted upon from baron Adelsvärd at Åtvidaberg and that the Minister of Agriculture thought he was able to give some assistance through remaining governmental funds.’43 (The author’s translation). Visits to the governmental rooms were frequent. Before acting on a matter, often meetings with ministers or visits to the ministry were undertaken.44 More often, however, official letters and petitions were written to Members of Parliament and cabinet ministers – a pattern also seen in women’s organizations in other countries. A handful of petitions were sent during the 1880s and 1890s. In the following decades, this activity was intensified. An average of two petitions addressed to government, governmental committees, civil service departments or the municipal government were written per year between 1899 and 1914. In the mid-1910s and the early 1920s, an average of three to four petitions were written per year. Interestingly, compared to women’s organizations in other countries, the theme was mainly related to women’s situation in the labour market, such as women’s right to work, equal wages, working conditions, and pensions. Other, but less common, themes were women’s education, suffrage,

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and equal rights in the marriage legislative. Later, the financial state of the organization itself, as seen above, occurred as well.45 Often petitions were just one step in a row of actions. The impetus could be a member of the board informing about an issue or someone outside the organization highlighting a problem. Mostly women’s professionals addressed the FBA to put an issue on the agenda. Then the organization undertook an investigation to gather basic data. The writing of a petition could be accompanied by contacts with other organizations, public meetings, or a delegation to the ministries in question. The press could also be contacted.

Publicity Social movements are heavily dependent on publicity, both positive and negative. In order to receive publicity one needs to draw the attention of the press either by spectacular action or by personal contacts.46 From the very beginning, the press was used strategically by the FBA. Advertisements were used to announce the existence and activities of the new organization, such as the advisory bureau, competitions, scholarships and the periodical. In addition the press was employed to mobilize and put an issue on the agenda. Assisting this was the fact that Ernst Beckman, the editorial manager of one of the larger newspapers in Stockholm (Stockholms Dagblad), was a member of the first board and friend of Sophie Adlersparre. In early 1885 a vital task of the organization was to achieve publicity for its work. One way was to publish a circular in the larger newspapers. This time Adlersparre asked Beckman in a letter to use his influence to get the circular published in his newspaper for free.47 In the same letter she reminded Beckman of an earlier promise he had made to offer the FBA reduced rates on advertisements. Her appeal for support went even further when she asked him to write something ‘good and liberal’ about the girls’ school reforms, before this matter was discussed in Parliament, and even provided him with some examples of what she wanted to be written.48 Other ways to start an opinion were to send circulars, the FBA periodical, or offprint and official letters to news editors of the bigger newspapers in Stockholm, the provinces, and abroad.49 Also the earlier periodical, Tidskrift för hemmet (Home Journal), had been sent out to a long list of local newspapers from the very south of Sweden to Sundsvall in the north, as well as newspapers in other Scandinavian and European cities.50

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To be able to keep the costs of the opinion work down, Sophie Adlersparre had plans for cooperation with newspapers. She wrote to Dr Ellen Fries in October 1884: My proposal is that the periodical … should make an agreement with a newspaper, positive to the ‘woman question’, to take in notices we do not have space for … I prefer the newspaper Dagbladet [Stockholms Dagblad] as the most read, but we might ask the newspaper Aftonbladet first. Fees should be paid by the newspaper.51 (The author’s translation)

It might not have been a realistic plan, but it is a good example of the attention Adlersparre paid to press relations. Later, she tried to use the press in other ways. In a letter from her to the head of the office, Gertrud Adelborg, it could be discerned how the distribution of Dagny to newspapers all over Sweden could be combined with a campaign journey: ‘It would be advantageous if I could receive a list with the provincial newspapers we distribute Dagny to, since I could convince one or another editor to pay attention to her [the periodical].’52 (The author’s translation). The press was used strategically; however, there was not always consensus on the board on how to use it. And it is obvious that Sophie Adlersparre regarded herself as the organization’s expert in press relations. To explain why the plan in 1888 to circulate information on the organization to local newspapers was not good, she wrote in a letter to Mr Rohtlieb: It is really not easy to publish notices in the press and I know that if we send them too much at a time, the editors will get annoyed and then reject all further attempts. I have this summer been consulting famous newspaper editors …

And she adds as a footnote: What could be won with caution and wisdom are best shown in how I this summer procured two daily newspapers to not only take in notices about our Association but also provide our branch [the advisory bureau in Malmö] with free advertisements.53 (The author’s translation)

Yet the conflicting wills did not hinder continued use of local newspapers in the work for the FBA.54 Thus, the organization had, especially during the initial decades, a clear strategy for its press relations. The organization used its personal networks, which again were found in liberal circles, and these networks mainly consisted of men as a result of women’s less prominent position in the press during this period. Few women were journalists and those who were let into the newspaper offices had circumscribed subjects on their lot.55 This made good relations with men necessary. However, over time the contact with the press became more formal, such as distribution of circulars, periodicals and offprints to newspapers.

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Feminist and Philanthropic Networks within Sweden Being the first Swedish national women’s organization placed the FBA in a very special position. The position was used as a catalyst for creating new organizations for women’s emancipation and later for cooperation or joint actions. As mentioned above, the FBA emerged from a loose network of cultural and liberal men and women around a periodical and the baroness Sophie Adlersparre. Many of the active men and women had previously been working together in different associations and philanthropic or emancipatory projects in Stockholm, such as evening courses for girls, a reading room for women, the Friends of Handicraft (Handarbetets vänner), the Swedish Handicraft Alliance (Svensk slöjdförening), and the Red Cross. 56 When the FBA was established, more formal cooperation around the ‘Woman Question’ took place. The Swedish pioneer women’s organization – the Association for Married Women’s Property Rights – was the first organization to be involved in joint actions, for example, listing women in Stockholm with the right to vote in the municipal election and urging them to use their votes.57 During the first decades the catalyst function did not act to expand the number of women’s organizations. Instead both the Association for Married Women’s Property Rights and the Dress Reform Association chose to be incorporated into the FBA.58 However, around 1900 the FBA was taking an active part in the establishment of new women’s organizations. One example was the National Council of Women of Sweden established in 1896 to endorse both participation on the international scene and cooperation on the national scene.59 Other examples are women professional’s associations that the FBA helped to establish. They continued to cooperate on actions for the same right to employment and wages for women as for men.60 This cooperation gave the FBA a broader base for legitimacy, and the new women’s trade unions respectability. In 1903 the FBA, as well as social democratic and other women on the political left, took part in the establishment of the first Swedish women’s suffrage club in Stockholm. No matter who took the initiative, the organization and liberal women required the most powerful positions on the board, even though two-thirds of the women at the meeting were from the political left.61 This close personal interrelationship with the suffrage movement led to a formal cooperation between the FBA and the LKPR around the periodical Dagny from 1907 to 1913.62 This cooperation was, however, not without friction. The difficulties were of both political and economic

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character. The periodical had difficulties keeping their subscribers and the situation became acute in 1913 when the LKPR decided to start a competing periodical. The background was the growing tension within the women’s suffrage movement between right- and left-wing suffragists. The left-wing members had in 1911 raised protest within the Swedish women’s suffrage movement, according to problems with getting articles with the ‘right’ content into the periodical Dagny, for example, articles with a proposal to follow the English suffrage movement’s tactic.63 The tension heightened even more when the Swedish women’s suffrage movement took the decision to only support political parties having women’s suffrage on their agenda. The reaction was strong among conservative women within the FBA.64 However, in the minutes of the FBA it was problems of an economic rather than a political nature that were mentioned.65 Yet the schism was apparent in circulars to Dagny’s subscribers in 1912, where the same reform was to be presented. In letters addressing members of the FBA, the possibility of covering more issues was emphasized: Dagny will of course continue to deal lively with the suffrage issue but less detailed … and due to this more space and concern could from now on be left to other important woman questions.66

The tone was somewhat different in letters addressing members of the Swedish women’s suffrage movement: Dagny no less than before feels it her duty, with the actuality of a weekly published periodical, to follow the suffrage issue in its varied stages.67 (The author’s translation)

Another sign of the tension, as well as the lack of popularity of the influential members of the FBA on the board, could be discerned in the signature. The first letter was signed by the chairwoman of the FBA, Agda Montelius, and ‘the Board’. The other letter was signed by just ‘the Board’. The cooperation around Dagny ceased, but it did not put an end to cooperation among Swedish women’s organizations. In the 1910s, when more women’s associations were established, cooperation within the Swedish women’s movement was intensified.68 Mostly, the FBA sent out requests to sign petitions to other organizations. Coorganized opinion meetings were arranged as well, such as in 1911 together with social democratic women, Christian women’s associations, the LKPR and the Council of Women of Sweden on reforms of the marital legislative.69 Communication was enhanced by representatives from the FBA sitting on the board of other organizations, such as the Central Association for Social Work, the National Council of Women of Sweden, and the Swedish Nurses’ Pension Fund.

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The initiative to cooperate could be taken within the FBA or come from other organizations, mainly women’s professional associations.70 Sometimes the proposals were rejected, claiming that ‘the time was not suitable’. Sometimes the FBA undertook an investigation before acting. At other times it reacted immediately and petitions were written to Parliament or other authorities with power of decision in the matter. Often a broad coalition of women from the conservative and Christian right to Social democratic women, and sometimes even communist women, was obtained to sign the petitions. These joint actions became more common during the 1910s.71 The FBA could serve other organizations with its resources – skilled employees and physical space. Premises of its own provided an opportunity to hold joint meetings or let other organizations borrow them.72 In some cases the organization used its funds to pay for other organizations to achieve a broad representation in joint actions, for example paying for other organizations’ circulars and meetings.73 An example of financial support from the FBA was the cooperation around a ‘women’s house’ in the Baltic exhibition in 1914. Other invited women’s organizations hesitated to bear the financial risk of the project. To get the project launched, the FBA offered to carry the risk alone. The board was convinced of its ability to receive private donations to cover the expenses, which it also managed.74 In exchange for its financial contribution, the FBA wanted an exhibition in accordance with its programme and without propaganda from political parties or religious communities.75 Thus, being one of the pioneers and rather rich meant a capability to achieve supporting troops or legitimizing actions in exchange for its financial and administrative resources. However, from the early 1920s it was obvious that the FBA was not ‘the one and only’ any longer. Petitions and invitations started to come from other directions. One organization with many members competing for the initiative was the Swedish Women’s Citizen Alliance (Svenska kvinnors medborgar-förbund, earlier the LKPR). After unsuccessful secret negotiations to merge, the minutes bear witness to the FBA not being happy about a situation in which its dominating position was being challenged.76 In the 1920s also other women’s organizations in Sweden were established and grew in members; this left the FBA as just one organization among others.

Feminist Networks outside Sweden From the start the FBA was involved in several international ‘feminist’ networks. Establishment and maintenance of these relations demanded resources.

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It is striking that members of the first board were well equipped with cultural capital. They had good knowledge in language and seem to have been rather experienced in the ways of the world. Swedish was a small language and since English had not received the hegemonic position it has today, educated men and women had to master both French and German as well.77 Several of them had been on study tours, for example, in Europe and in the USA. Sophie Adlersparre had, during her work with Tidskrift för hemmet, been in close contact with authors and literary circles in Denmark and Norway. In her first hint of a Swedish association for the ‘Woman Question’ in Tidskrift för hemmet in 1884, she referred to the advantage won by the establishment of women’s associations in Denmark, Finland, Germany, France and England.78 Even though Sophie Adlersparre did not have any close contact with the most famous women on the transatlantic scene, her correspondence, and later also the FBA’s, bears witness to well-established European and American networks. These were in the form of either friends exchanging information and small talk, or more formal contacts in which organizations exchanged periodicals, honours or questionnaires.79 In the exchange of information and contacts in other countries, periodicals for the ‘Women’s cause’ were crucial. More or less every issue of Dagny referred to the development of women’s rights in other countries and women’s organizations; much of the information was collected from periodicals and literature received from sister organizations and friends abroad.80 Swedish women did not participate in international congresses until the ‘Congres des Oeuvres et Institutions des France’ on the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. Ellen Fries represented the FBA.81 Earlier financial matters had put a spoke in the wheel for the organization’s participation in the second women’s conference in Washington, DC, in 1888, which gave birth to the International Council of Women (ICW). The founder of the FBA – Sophie Adlersparre­– was personally invited to the conference in Washington but could not afford to go. Travel was at the time neither common for a woman to undertake alone nor within economic reach for many. Travel was very expensive even though only one representative was to be sent; the cost for a transatlantic tour could be more or less equal to half a teacher’s annual income. Participation in international congresses did, as well, demand other resources, such as committed and educated representatives with good knowledge of languages.82 Participation affected organizing on the national scene. The formation of the ICW, the more formal international organization of women, contributed to a more formal organization for transnational cooperation in Sweden as well.

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A need for a national council of women in Sweden was motivated by the advantage of getting full participation within the ICW, where the right to vote at the congresses was mentioned. The aim of the ICW was to create an arena for women around the world, initially mainly the Western world, to discuss women’s educational and legal rights, as well as social and moral questions.83 These were issues on the liberal woman’s movement’s agenda in Sweden as well as in other countries. In Sweden, Ellen Fries, who had attended several international congresses, took the initiative to establish a national council after a request from the ICW.84 An attempt to not be left behind or regarded as peripheral after missing the first conferences, or a need to find a way to pool resources for future participation, might have spurred the initiative. At a board meeting in March 1895, Fries argued: ‘It is disadvantageous when a country is not represented in an international women’s congress, shown by the negotiations at the congress in Washington [1888] where no Swedish delegate was present. Due to this the opinion was expressed that in Sweden women probably do not take part in social and philanthropic activities.’85 (The author’s translation). She stressed that only broad-based international organizations led by influential personalities, such as the ICW, with Lady Ishbel Aberdeen as its president, had a future. By establishing a national council, Fries continued, the Swedish women would get access to more information and the right to take part in the discussions of the ICW. A national council would certainly be somewhat costly, but if many organizations joined, the burden would be light.86 Ellen Fries’ remarks met a favourable response in the FBA. In April 1895, representatives from Swedish women’s organizations met in the FBA’s office. This meeting resulted in the establishment of the National Council of Women of Sweden in 1896, an umbrella organization of bourgeois philanthropic, temperance and social organizations.87 In this way Sweden established a national council affiliated with the ICW very early compared to other European countries. At that point the only National Councils of Women established were the ones in the US (1888), Canada (1893), England (1895), and Germany (1895).88 However, the ICW was not the only mode for international cooperation. Parallel exchange of information between the office of the FBA and employment bureaus and similar bureaus in England and France occurred in the late 1890s.89 As well, Nordic women’s conferences and the International Suffrage Alliance Congresses were attended.90 Acting on the international scene gave an influential position that was also able to be utilized in the national context. International invitations and issues on the international organizations’ agenda gave the organization incentive to cooperate with other women’s organizations. One exam-

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ple was the peace issue. This was controversial, but in the mid-1910s the FBA met with other women’s associations, such as the Temperance Organization – the ‘White Ribbon’ – and the Swedish Suffrage Organization. Together they established a Swedish women’s cooperation (samorganisation) in the Nordic Women’s Collaboration in 1916, which the Swedish National Council also took part in. However, this position as a mediator between international and national arenas could also be used for exclusion, for example, of political women’s organizations.91 Requests from other international organizations to get proposals for Swedish speakers, key figures and organizations to invite provided the FBA with influence and symbolic values as well.92 Participation on the international scene could, as well, be used to mobilize monetary resources nationally. Participation in international congresses was expensive, and personal contributions to conference trips seem to have become customary, complemented by donations. Another way of handling the high costs was to keep the travelling cost down by, for example, asking Swedish women living in the town of the congress to be delegates, or by applying for state subsidies.93 The first attempt to get a state subsidy can be traced to 1896, but it was turned down.94 However, over time the organization managed to make participation on the international scene a question of common weal. In an application to the Minister of Public Administration in 1909, the FBA emphasized the positive effects of its participation in international congresses: The Association should not only achieve possibilities to assimilate the new impulses to useful work and instructive experiences … it would also obtain strengthened relations with other similar associations all over the world, which would be of uncountable benefit for our continuous successful work.95 (The author’s translation)

The strategy was successful and the new opportunity made the FBA less dependent on private means or rich friends. This might have facilitated the organization’s ability to take an active part on the international scene which otherwise would have been hard to achieve.

Summarizing Conclusions For collective action, mobilizing is crucial. In the minutes of the FBA, how to achieve more members was a recurrent theme, intensified in the financially harsh years of the late 1910s and early 1920s. To mobilize, several strategies were applied. The most important were local representatives and the periodical. However, the employees at the central office were

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also sent out on ‘mobilizing tours’ all around the country. Special campaigns to mobilize members to get friends, or members of other women’s associations, to sign up were employed too. In 1920, the main argument to let local clubs obtain a more formal influence within the organization was that they could serve as a way to mobilize more members. The financial contribution of the members was especially emphasized in the minutes. However, the legitimizing effect on the organization’s actions and political claims would have been no less important. In contrast to most social movements, bodies as such seem not to have been important, since street demonstrations were not considered ‘respectable’. Nevertheless, delegates on the streets at women’s congresses were a powerful manifestation not to be underestimated. In addition, public speeches, press debates, as well as actions to hand out leaflets to Members of Parliament broke with the concept of the respectable ‘bourgeois’ woman not acting in public.96 During the first year of organizing, lack of funds seems to have been compensated for with intangible resources, such as the cultural and social capital of members and especially board members. The organization’s need for special human resources, such as certain skills or national and international networks, was explicitly discussed and requested. On the first board of the organization, some of the best-educated women in Sweden were gathered together with men with personal ties to Parliament, the press, the financial word or bourgeois associations. Skills appreciated within the organization were knowledge in financial, health and pedagogic matters as well as legal affairs. Initially, the financial matters could be discerned as highly male-dominated. On the first board, a man held the post as treasurer, which also was the case in, for example, German women’s organizations. Even in the late nineteenth century, men were common on advisory boards for investments and building projects.97 This might have been a result of differences in access to education and experiences. However, with their lack of formal education, the women on the board had to rely on, as in the case of the early American women’s movement, their own business experience or their husbands’ businesses. Yet it is evident that some of the women, with their own experience running businesses, had proposals and took responsibility for financial matters and investments within the organization. Male chairmen and treasurers would then better be interpreted, during the first decades of organizing, as a matter of legitimacy. Both women and men on the board had well-developed social networks contributing direct or indirect channels, such as husbands or family members, into important arenas: political decision makers, the press, and other organizations. On the first board, cooperation with men and

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informal contacts with Members of Parliament or the press were especially pronounced. Before formal organizations for the ‘Woman Question’, in Sweden, as in the rest of Europe, personal connections to literary circles were established.98 The founder of the FBA, Sophie Adlersparre, had close contact with authors and debaters advocating women’s emancipation in Scandinavia. Influences from abroad seem to have been important even if the founder herself did not take part outside the Scandinavian scene, and she seems to have lacked personal relations with the most influential women on the international scene at the time. The establishment of the FBA coincided with, or followed, women’s organizing in Scandinavia. Exchanges with sister organizations took place from the beginning, while participation in international congresses had to wait until 1889.99 Thus, the organization took part in transnational networks rather early and these were prioritized despite their high costs.100 To cover travel expenses, personal contributions seem to have been an established custom. In addition donations from rich friends, most often within the organization or even on its board, helped out. However, over time state subsidies assisted the organization in being less dependent on those who had their own means or rich friends in its choice of representatives, and freer to let the democratic process elect who to represent the organization at international congresses. As emphasized in many studies of the early women’s movement, the personal connections were close to earlier organizations, from needlework and Christian associations to philanthropic or temperance associations.101 Hence, the interpersonal connections between older organizations and the FBA were strong. Mobilizing before organizing could then be viewed as an example of how a problem was formulated in an informal and homogenous group of friends.102 The dense network in the nineteenth century women’s movement could also be evidence of still being an isolated group in society.103 Many of the ties in the network were strong, created by personal friendship, and women as well as men being influential in several organizations. The FBA took an active part in strengthening its network. It assisted new organizations in establishing women’s professional organizations. Cooperation with the women’s suffrage movement, and other women’s and philanthropic organizations, was intensified in the 1910s and seems to have gone beyond personal relations more often than earlier. The networks were used for both communication with diverse publics and exchange of resources. During the first decades it was mainly a flow of resources from the wealthier FBA to other organizations. It served other organizations with funds, skilled employees and premises to attain legitimacy and a broader support for the women’s cause in exchange. However, from the early 1920s it is obvious that the Fredrika Bremer Association was not ‘the one and only’ any longer. While many

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other women’s organizations had been established and grown strong in membership, the funds of the Fredrika Bremer Association had run short. The initiative for actions then began to come from other organizations. Thus, over time personal ties became less obvious, and formalized contacts more common. This could be interpreted as a stronger need for compensation for lack of funds during the first years of organizing. More funds as well as a democratization of the Swedish society may have reduced the necessity of personal relations. As well, with more resources to spend on administration, the organization could develop into a professional lobbyist.

Notes 1. To be able to mobilize, the goals have to be known and to be believed in, and the chosen ways to achieve them need to be regarded as acceptable. D. McAdam. 1989. ‘Micro-Mobilization: Contexts and Recruitment to Activism’, in B. Klandermans (ed.), From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research Across Cultures, London: JAI, xii, 368, 175–8; Snow et al, ‘Frame Alignment Processes’; Tarrow, Power in Movements. 2. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 24 December 1884 §2. 3. RA, FBA head archive, e.g., Minutes of the executive committee 19 January 1885 §8; Minutes 29 January 1920 §3. 4. FBA Annual report 1887, 9. See also RA, FBA head archive, received correspondence to the Bureau from Mathilda Silow, undated 1887 with the head ‘P.M.’. 5. RA, FBA head archive, received correspondence to the Bureau from Mathilda Silow, undated note from 1887 with the head ‘P.M.’, ‘De ombud som ej då [vid slutet av året] ej hörts utaf hvarken för stipendiesaken eller förbundet i sin helhet bör då enligt min tanke på fint sätt afskedas och vi försöka få in unga krafter’. 6. RA, FBA head archive, received correspondence to the Bureau from Mathilda Silow, 29 February 1888. 7. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 9 January 1905 §6, 22 October 1908 §2; Minutes 14 February 1905 §3, 19 April 1905 §1, and 16 November 1905 §5. 8. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 19 November 1895 §2. 9. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 15 January 1920 §2: ‘dels att utsända resetalare för att söka sprida större kännedom om förbundet och dess verksamhet, dels att anmoda var och en av de nuvarande medlemmarna att söka förvärva minst en ny medlem. Även avsågs lämpligt rådgöra med de kvinnliga kårsammanslutningarnas styrelser om deras medlemmar skulle vara villiga att ingå i förbundet.’ See also Minutes 29 January 1920 §3. 10. About plans of merge see also Rönnbäck. Politikens genusgränser, 74, and Bokholm. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, 263f. 11. Manns. Den sanna frigörelsen: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884–1921, 211f. 12. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 January 1920 §3, and 22 April 1924 §2; Minutes of the executive committee 29 December 1922 §7. 13. Knoke. Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations, 54–55. 14. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 January 1894 §5. 15. The only demonstration arranged by the LKPR (Swedish suffrage movement) took place in Gothenburg on 2 June 1918. Björkenlid. Kvinnokrav i manssamhälle: rösträttskvinnorna och deras metoder som opinionsbildare och påtryckargrupp i Sverige 1902–21, 143 and 145. A change in was condemned as ‘respectable’ could, however, be seen in the French women’s

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movement. S.C. Hause and A.R. Kenney. 1981. ‘The Limits of Suffragist Behavior: Legalism and Militancy in France, 1876–1922’, American Historical Review 86(4), 791 and 794. 16. af Peterséns. Formering för offentlighet: Kvinnokonferenser och Svenska Kvinnornas Nationalförbund kring sekelskiftet 1900, 137 and 187; Jonsson and af Peterséns. ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’ Participation on the International Scene, 1885–1916’. 17. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 22 and 28. She has shown that for German ‘bourgeois’ women unpaid work in organizations was seen as an outspoken duty. A change of attitude in this question appeared in Germany when higher education and professional employments opened up for women. This change also caused conflicts between a younger skilled generation used to earning their living pleading for monetary remuneration, and an older generation regarding the younger as greedy. 18. See chapter 1. 19. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 70; KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 3 October 1883; RA, FBA head archive, General Ledgers 1885–1888, ‘Dagny’. 20. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ernst Beckman, 20 January 1885. 21. RA, FBA head archive, Correspondence to the organization, from Mathilda Silow to Gertrud Adelborg 1 January 1888: ‘De som hafva tid vilja och passa ej. De som vilja och passa hafva ej tid, deremot torde det ej vara omöjligt att både väcka vilja och finna person, om I kunde garantera 150 a 200 kronor till ersättning … Möjligen finnes i Malmö en och i Lund en person som skulle duga, men samma sak ärmed dem båda; att de ej kunna gifva sitt arbete gratis’. See also KB, Correspondance from Sophie Adlersparre to Ernst Beckman, 20 January 1885’. 22. Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap, 173, who, e.g., refers to Ann Yon Lampérières speech at the International Women’s Congress during the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900. 23. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Fredrika Limnell, 6 October 1880. 24. Tidskrift för Hemmet 6 (1885) attachment; NA, FBA Annual Report 1885 (Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundets Berättelse för första året af dess verksamhet 1885), 4. 25. There are several examples of how women activists working for the ‘Woman Cause’ offered their health, with recurrent depressions and hospital visits in tow. See, e.g., Florin and Myrén, Kvinnor får röst, 272–76. 26. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre, the correspondence with Ellen Fries. See also Y. Hasselberg. 1999. ‘Letters, Social Networks and the Embedded Economy in Sweden: Some Remarks on the Swedish Bourgeoisie, 1800–1850’, in R. Earle (ed.), Epistolary Selves, Aldershot: Ashgate. 27. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 21 November 1884. 28. The bank managers on the board were J.H. Palme and A. Norman. FBA Annual reports 1885. 29. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 27 August 1920 attachment III. 30. For women’s difficulties in getting financial education see, e.g., Sparks, Capital Intentions, 148f.; E. Larsen. 2006. ‘Kjønnskonservatismens reproduksjon’, Nytt norsk tidsskrift. 33(3). In Sweden economic education in a more formal way was established at the turn of the nineteenth century, but there were some opportunities for women before that such as private education at Schartau’s Business Institutes (Schartaus Handels Institut) in Stockholm and Gothenburg from 1886. Dagny no. 6/7 1886, 232. See also I. Larsson. 2005. Handelsstudentskan: kvinnor inskrivna vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm 1909–1939, Stockholm: Institutet för ekonomisk historisk forskning, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm. 31. Investments and bank accounts were on the agenda, and had a paragraph in the minutes at least for information, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 23 February 1885 §4; Minutes 13 March 1897 §8, 12 June 1897 §5, and 27 February 1898 §2.

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32. E.g., during the first decades of the organization Mrs Sophie Whitlock rendered her estate as security for loans, gave suggestions for buying and selling bonds, and undertook financial investigations of borrowers and guarantors of loans. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 27 September 1898 §3, 16 February 1889 §3, and 24 January 1918 §2. Mrs Whitlock was elected a member of the board of Stockholms Folkbank in 1886. Dagny no. 1, 1886, 29. 33. Hammar, Emancipation och Religion, 229, who quotes Gunnar Ahlström (1947), ‘Det moderna genombrottet i Nordens litteratur’, 425. 34. This was also the case within the first feminist organization in Sweden, the Association of Married Women’s Property Right. Ibid., e.g., 97, 116, 221, 147 and 229. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 3f. and 193f. 35. Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället. 36. SBL. 1918. J.A. Almquist, B. Borthius and B. Hildebrand (eds), Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, Stockholm: Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, 1 optisk skiva. 37. Hammar, Emancipation och Religion, 97; Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 3f. 38. Of the men on the board, three had seats in Parliament, four in the town council, and one worked in the Ministry of Finance. 39. KB, Correspondence from Sophie Adlersparre to Ellen Fries 29 January 1884, ’Du har väl sett att ej mindre än 7 motioner ingifvits till kamrarne I qvinnofrågan. När man, som jag, lätt kan kasta en liten blick bakom kulisserna, är det så mycket märkligare’. See also Correspondence from Sophie Adlersparre to Ernst Beckman 2 March 1885. 40. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 71f.; Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 158f. 41. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 18 October 1907 §6; here it was a committee concerning female polices where, together with the FBA, other organizations were also invited (FVF, Vita Bandet and Kvinnoklubben). 42. E.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 29 December 1899 §3, 14 February 1905 §5, 1 December 1906 §13, 18 October 1907 §4, 7 November 1919 §4, and 2 April 1921 §31. 43. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1 December 1906 §2 ‘…meddelades att något bidrag skulle kunna påräknas af baron Adelsvärd vid Åtvidaberg samt att jordbruksministern trodde [överstruket ansetts] sig kunna utlofva hjälp af besparade statsmedel…’. 44. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 29 December 1899 §3, 29 December 1899 §3, 18 October 1907 §4, 18 November 1907 §9, 28 February 1911 §2, 7 November 1919 §4, and 2 April 1921 §31. See also Bokholm. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, 256f. and 315. 45. FBA Annual report 1885–1925; RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1885–1925. E.g., 4 April 1891 §2, 23 January 1899 §3, 21 November 1899 §5, 11 December 1905 §2, 13 November 1906 §2, 29 October 1906 §4, 23 March 1910 §4, 28 February 1911 §6, 15 April 1912 §2, 10 April 1913 §2, 19 November 1914 §2, 10 March 1919 §10, 4 February 1920 §2, 2 February 1921 §4, 11 June 1923 §14, and 22 April 1924 attachment II; Official letters (B4: 1). 46. Freeman and Johnson, Waves of Protest, 224; Björkenlid, Kvinnokrav i manssamhälle, 34, 40 and 149. 47. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ernst Beckman, 2 March 1885. 48. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ernst Beckman, 2 March 1885, ‘Skrif en af era goda, klokt frisinnade art. rörande flickskolereformerna! och gör det snart innan dessa [riksdagsmotioner] komma under behandling. Särskild uppmärksamhet förtjenar i min tanke Hedins yrkan på tillträde för flickor i lägre goss-skolor med få lärlingar, samt motionen om en utredning af flickskolefrågan’. 49. RA, FBA head archive, e.g., Minutes of the executive committee 23 May 1885, 26 February 1887 §5, 13 April 1887 §7, 11 February 1889 §6 and §8, and 12 April 1889 §4; Minutes 11 December 1906, 23 February 1910 §2. See also how the chairwoman, Agda Montelius, 1903–1920, used the press in Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 254 and 270.

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50. RA, FBA, ‘Tidskrift för Hemmets’ archive, Vol. 1; FBA head archive, Minutes 2 January 1886 §1; FBA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, ‘Subscriber lists’, vol. 4–5, 1886–1900. 51. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to Ellen Fries, 8 October 1884, ‘Mitt förslag i detta afseende är att tidskr:n (hoc est i framtiden Förbundet) skulle uppgöra med en tidning, som vore villi att taga emot sådanan meddelanden i qv. frågan som ej kan rymmas … Jag föredraga Dagbladet såsom mest läst; men kanske bör man först fråga Aftonbladet. Honorar måste Tidn. Gifva’. 52. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, Correspondence vol. 2, Letter from Sophie Adlersparre to Gertrude Adelborg, Norrköping 6 April 1886, ‘Det vore fördelaktigt om jag också finge lista på de landsortstidn. till hvilka Dagny skickas, då jag kunde vidtala en och annan Red:n att uppmärksamma henne’. 53. KB, Correspondence of Adlersparre to H. Rohtlieb undated 1888 (no. 473), ‘Det är alls icke lätt att få in meddelanden i den bättre tidningspressen och jag vet att om man kommer med mycket på en gång, blir red:na förargade och afvisa sedan alla försök*. Jag har i sommar rådgjort med framstående tidningsred:er….’ * hvad som kan vinnas med varsamhet och klokhet visas bäst af att jag i somras utverkade af två dagl. tidn. ej blott meddelade om Förbundet utan ock fria annonser för filialen [upplysningsbyrån i Malmö]’. 54. RA, FBA head archive, e.g., Minutes of the executive committee, 12 April 1889 §4. 55. M. Djerf Pierre. 2003. ‘Journalistikens kön: fältets struktur och logik under 1900-talet’, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift 2(24). 56. Manns, Den sanna frigörelsen, 49–56. 57. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 3 February 1894 §8. 58. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 6 May 1890 §8 about the Dress Reform Association; 19 November 1895 §2 about the association for married women’s proprietorship. 59. Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’. 60. Nilsson, 53–63, and 98–101. A good example of the reciprocal use could be seen in the work around the Women’s Night Work Prohibition, see L. Karlsson. 2001. Perspectives on Gendered Labour Legislation in Sweden during the 20th Century, 128; RA, FBA head archive, Minutes e.g. 11 May 1907 §4. 61. Björkenlid, Kvinnokrav i manssamhälle, 60f.; Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 58f. 62. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 18 October 1907 attachment I. The initiative seems to have been taken by Signe Bergman, Ada Nilsson, Anna Rylander, Anna Lindhagen, etc. 63. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny archive, Minutes 23 June 1911 §2. See also Björkenlid, Kvinnokrav i manssamhälle. 64. Ibid., 79–83. 65. Criticism against the cooperation with the suffrage movement turned up inside the Fredrika Bremer Association in the Periodical Dagny, where it was answered. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1908–1913, e.g., 10 April 1913 §2, and 10 June 1913 §3. Ibid., 85 and 155ff. See also Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 131; Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 258–60. 66. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, Minutes 27 January 1912 §4, attachment, ‘Dagny kommer gifvetvis alltjämt lifligt syssselsätta sig med rösträttsfrågan men detta mera i stora drag, lämnande åt det speciella organet att upptaga enskildheterna, och kan därför nu ägna större uppmärksamhet och lämna mera utrymme åt öfvriga viktiga kvinnofrågor’. 67. RA, Dagny and the association Dagny u.p.a. archive, Minutes 27 January 1912 §4, attachment, ‘Dagny icke mindre än förut känner sin uppgift att med aktualitet af en hvarje vecka utkommande tidning följa rösträttsfrågan i dess skiftande faser’. 68. E.g., political women’s federations were established. The social democratic women from 1907 (Social Democratic Women’s Conference Working Committee 1907, see below), the

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right-wing women in 1911 (Stockholms moderata kvinnoförbund), and the liberal women in 1914 (Föreningen frisinnade kvinnor). K. Östberg. 1997. Efter rösträtten: kvinnors utrymme efter det demokratiska genombrottet, Kulturhistoriskt bibliotek, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion. 69. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 6 February 1911 §3, 28 February 1911, 10 April 1913 attachment II, 17 March 1915 §3, 1 October 1919 §4, 2 February 1920 §1, and 11 July 1923 §14. Minutes of the executive committee 5 October 1915 attachment I, and 21 November 1917 §1. See also Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället, 256ff., 266–70 and 315. 70. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 15 February 1907 attachment II, 23 March 1910 §4, 29 September 1911§7, 1 October 1919 §4, and 6 February 1921 §3. 71. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 1885–1925. E.g., see 21 November 1899 §5, 28 February 1911 §4, 8 January 1913 §2 attachment I, 10 June 1913 §8, 13 April 1915 §2 and §3, 1 October 1919 §4, and 29 January 1920 §2. About cooperation with women’s professional association, see B. Nilsson. 1996. Kvinnor i statens tjänst – från biträden till tjänstemän: en aktörsinriktad undersökning av kvinnliga statstjänstemäns organisering, strategier och kamp under 1900-talets första hälft, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 179, Uppsala, Stockholm: Univ.; Almqvist & Wiksell International Distributör, 60–68 and 100. About joint actions with other women’s organizations, see Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället. 266, 296–9, and 308–16. 72. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 7 February 1913 §2 when seventeen women’s organizations were represented in a meeting in the bureau. For examples of letting other organizations have meetings in the bureau, see Minutes of the executive committee 25 April 1925 §9. See also Bokholm. En kvinnoröst i manssamhället: Agda Montelius 1850–1920, 310. She gives an example with a supporting action (Kvinnornas uppbåd) in relation to the beginning of the First World War, where it seems to have been so ‘natural’ to hold the meetings in the Fredrika Bremer Associations local that it is not even mentioned in the minutes. 73. About paying for other organizations, see RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 8 September 1906 §6, 9 March 1908 §8, 4 February 1909 §6, and 30 August 1911 §3 and §9. 74. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 7 February 1913 §2, 27 February 1913 §8, 19 March 1913 §8, 26 April 1913 §2, and 10 July 1913 §1. 75. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 30 December 1912 §3. 76. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 16 March 1922 §2, attachment I, 20 September 1922 §5, and 29 December 1922 §4. 77. McFadden, Golden Cables of Sympathy, 7 and 152. 78. Leijonhufvud, Sophie Adlersparre (Esselde), 117–9. Tidskrift för Hemmet (Home Journal) 1884, no. 4, 291ff. 79. Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’. See also RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee, e.g., 19 January 1885 §8, 13 February 1886 §7, 30 January 1888 §1, 13 September 1888 §3, and 8 October 1888. 80. Under the headlines ‘Letter from Copenhagen/Christiania’ (Brev från Köpenhamn/Kristiania) or ‘Various matters in the women’s cause’ (Hvarjehanda i kvinnosaken) were reports on women’s rights, improvements and other actions for the cause. Most common were reports on the Nordic countries, England, Germany, the U.S.A. and France. However scattered reports on many other countries, such as Russia, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, India, Japan and Congo also occurred. Dagny 1886–1893. About the exchange of foreign literature and periodicals see, e.g., Sophie Adlersparre’s statement in the annual report 1887, 7; KB, Correspondence to Sophie Adlersparre from Kristine Frederiksen (Denmark) 3 November 1879, from Clara Tschudi (Norge) 16 June 1886, from Rosina Heikel (Finland) 21 February 1885, from Annie Macdonell (England) 30 May 1886; RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, 19 November 1892 §2 and attachment II.

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81. Jonsson and af Peterséns. ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’ Participation on the International Scene, 1885–1916’. Ellen Fries attended both ‘Le Congrès francais & international du droit des femmes’ and ‘Le Congrès international des œuvres et institutions feminines’ in relation to the World Exhibition in Paris, 1889. Wikander. Feminism, familj och medborgarskap: debatter på internationella kongresser om nattarbetsförbud för kvinnor 1889–1919, 57 and 105. 82. Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’. See also L.J. Rupp. 1994. ‘Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888–1945’, The American Historical Review 99(5), 1577; McFadden, Golden Cables of Sympathy, 7, 10 and 152. 83. Rupp, Worlds of Women, 15; ICW. 1966. Women in a Changing World of Women since 1888, London, 16–19 and 39. 84. Ellen Fries attended, e.g., both ‘Le Congrès francais & international du droit des femmes’ and ‘Le Congrès international des œuvres et institutions feminines’ in relation to the World Exhibition in Paris 1889, and ‘Le Congrès général des Sociétés féministes in Paris 1892. Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap, 57 and 105. About mobilization of new National Councils, see ICW, Women in a Changing World, 18–19. 85. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 23 March 1895 §5, attachment II Report from Ellen Fries dated 28 February 1895, ‘Att det innebär olägenhet att ett land ej är representeradt på en Internationell Kvinnokongress framgår af förhandlingarna på kongressen i Washington, där intet svenskt ombud var närvarande. På grund häraf fäldes yttrandet där, att i Sverige togo kvinnorna antagligen ingen del i social och filantropisk verksamhet…’. 86. NA, FBA head archive, Minutes 23 March 1895 §5, Attachment II Report from Ellen Fries dated 28 February 1895; V.J. Strong-Boag. 1976. The Parliament of Women: The National Council of Women of Canada, 1893–1929, Paper/History Division, National Museum of Man, 18, Ottawa, 16 and 74. 87. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 23 March 1895 §5 and attachment I, 18 May 1895, attachment I. About the establishment of the National Council of women of Sweden, see af Peterséns, Formering för offentlighet, 53–56. 88. In 1898 the Swedish council affiliated with the International Council of Women, which meant that Sweden became a member rather early together with Germany (1897), Canada (1897) and Great Britain (1898). Rupp, Worlds of Women, 15f.; N.E.S. Griffiths. 1997. The Splendid Vision: Centennial History of the National Council of Women of Canada 1893–1993, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 73. 89. A. Thorstenson. 1944. ‘Internationell kontakt’, in M.v. Konow (ed.), I Fredrika Bremers spår: Fredrika-Bremer-förbundet 1884–1944, Stockholm, 151. 90. For example RA, FBA head archive, Minutes, e.g., 23 March 1895, 10 October 1912 §3, 13 May 1913 §2, 25 January 1915 §3, and 30 November 1920 §5. FBA also attended the Nordic women’s movement meeting in Christiania, Norway, 3–7 July 1902, and in Stockholm, Sweden, 5–7 March 1916. RA, FBA head archive (Nordiska kvinnosaksföreningars samorganisation), F4e: 2. 91. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 March 1915 §3; Minutes of the executive committee 15 February 1916 §12 attachment I, 5 October 1915 attachment I; RA, FBA head archive (Nordiska kvinnosaksföreningars samorganisation), F4e: 1. See meeting 24 May 1916 §8 about to the unsuitability of inviting the political women’s organizations. 92. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes of the executive committee 8 May 1922 §7, and 1 June 1922 §6. 93. See, e.g., RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 14 September 1896 §2, 15 January 1902 §5, 22 May 1909, and 2 November 1922 §6. 94. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 17 March 1896 §3, 13 March 1897 §4, and 5 May 1909 §2 and attachment VIII.

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95. RA, FBA head archive, Minutes 26 February 1909 §3, ‘Förbundet skulle derigenom icke blott kunna tillgodogöra sig de nya uppslag till nyttigt arbete och de lärorika erfarenheter … det skulle också derigenom kunna stärka sina förbindelser med likartade sammanslutningar öfver hela världen, hvilket skulle vara af oberäknelig nytta för ett fortsatt framgångsrikt arbete…’. 96. See also af Peterséns, Formering för offentlighet, 187; Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’. 97. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 234; Boylan, The Origins of Women’s Activism, 178f. and 192; NCWC Yearbooks. 98. Paletschek and Pietrow-Ennker, ‘Women’s Emancipation Movement in Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century’, 309–12. See also Offen, European Feminisms; Anderson, Joyous Greetings; McFadden, Golden Cables of Sympathy. 99. See ‘Women’s movement and economic, educational and political rights for women’. 100. Rupp, Worlds of Women, 16; Griffiths, The Splendid Vision, 73; Jonsson and af Peterséns, ‘Resources and Swedish Women’s Organizations’. 101. See, e.g., E. Flexner. 1975. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Evans. The Feminists: Women’s Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840–1920; Bosch. ‘History and Historiography of First-Wave Feminism in the Netherlands, 1860–1922’; C. Bolt. 2004. Sisterhood Questioned?: Race, Class, and Internationalism in the American and British Women’s Movements, c.1880s–1970s, London; New York, NY: Routledge; Griffiths, The Splendid Vision; Bokholm, En kvinnoröst i manssamhället. 102. See, e.g., ‘Constraints and Opportunities in Adopting, Adapting, and Inventing’, 142; Snow et al., ‘Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation’; McAdam, ‘Micro-Mobilization’. 103. Rosenthal et al., ‘Social Movements and Network Analysis’, 1051.W

Chapter 4

Social Democratic Women

It is normally said in the party, that the women’s clubs are the richest organizations in the party. We have never managed to find out how much this statement is true.1 (The author’s translation)

The funding of the socialist women’s movement has, until now, never been a subject for academic research. Women’s sections in socialist parties have for a long time been regarded as the silent coffeemaker troops of the party, organizing bazaars and jumble sales to pay for the party’s expenses for elections and rent.2 For this reason they have been regarded as the richest organizations in the party, as the citation above from the Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbund, SSKF) indicates. The picture of women as coffeemaker troops not only reduces women’s work to something outside the political sphere, but also hides the degree to which women’s sections have been important for a party’s economical survival. A closer look at the flows of money between the Swedish SSKF and the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party (Sveriges Arbetareparti, SAP) shows that their economies were intertwined in a very complicated way that does not allow the simple conclusion that the SSKF was the richest party organization, but that women being members of the SSKF paid much more than their fellow male comrades for political activity. Swedish social democratic women have made calculations showing that in 1954 women organized in the SSKF had contributed 11,200 USD (58,000 SEK) to the SAP’s economy, while the SSKF only got 4,800 USD (25,000 SEK) from the party during the same year.3 In addition, women had paid for their membership in the SSKF as well as their party membership. While the contributions Notes for this chapter begin on page 127.

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to the SAP from the SSKF women are not labelled in the account books, the party’s contributions are. Although SSKF women contributed much more money to the party than they got in return, this money did not have the same status as the money the SSKF got from the party. Moreover, membership fees did at times differ between male and female members of the SAP; women sometimes paid half the fee men paid.4 The intertwined economic relations between women’s sections and parties were often informal and unmentioned, but are nonetheless important if we want to understand women’s access to politics in male-dominated organizations. Socialist parties can be characterized as mass-organizations. And as the Swedish social democratic women’s movement, similar to other party organizations, had been modelled after the structure of the party, the characteristics of a mass-organization do also fit the description of the SSKF.5 In a mass-organization the financial structure is highly dependent on membership. Membership fees, in addition to financial contributions from other groups such as trade unions, are the most important income source. This financial strategy is also regarded as a more democratic way of financing organizations, as the costs are shared among all the members, each of whom pays only a very small amount in the form of membership fees. This makes the concept especially suitable for working-class organizations with members from lower-income strata. Thus, the viability of resources is dependent on successful mobilizing.6 We can expect that membership fees and contributions from the labour movement are more important than donations from individuals for the funding of the social democratic women’s movement. And they are probably also more legitimate than donations. This mirrors the attempt for a more democratic concept of funding an organization. Socialist women not only organized with the party structure as a model, they were also part of the party, which complicates the relation between two mass-organizations. Different from the women studied in the previous chapters, social democratic women had access to some of the resources difficult to reach for non-party women. Earlier research has, for example, shown that social democratic women had, in many countries, the most women representatives in Parliament.7 And if their party won elections they had access to decision makers. Social democratic rank and file women came from a slightly different stratum than their middleclass sisters. In Sweden most of the female social democratic members of Parliament had a working-class background, had a lower education than other members of Parliament, but had on the other hand more political experience.8 However, different from trade union women, not all social democratic women were working, and neither did they have to belong

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to the working class as a social stratum. Still one of the questions in this part of the book is how did the fact that socialist women mainly organized women from the lower strata influence access to and the strategic use of money? Moreover, women’s integration and autonomy in the form of women’s sections have been a permanent topic of discussion not only in the Swedish case. In order to shed light on the conditions for women’s political work in a party organization, but also working-class women’s activism, we will investigate how the development of the relation between the social democratic women’s movement and the party affected access to and use of necessary resources.

The Road to Integrated Separatism – Women in the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party Swedish social democracy is well known for its forty-four years of unbroken power. It is the result of a strong, well-organized and united Swedish labour movement.9 The social democratic women’s movement is seldom mentioned in this success story,10 but Swedish social democratic women have been among the best organized in Europe. Few socialist women in Europe and North America created their own organizations in the party during this time. Most of them formed women’s sections and committees, and they could even organize their own conferences.11 Two of the strongest socialist women’s movements, the British and German, started with separate organizing on the national level, but later became members of the party, dissolving their own organization. The development of these two movements, especially the German one, has been the dominant model for organizing socialist women. It is therefore interesting, before we turn to Swedish women, to see the development of women’s organizing on the national level against the Swedish development in order to understand what was especially unique about the development. One could say that the development of the British Labour women’s organization went in the opposite direction to the Swedish one. In 1906, when the Labour Representation Committee had been renamed the British Labour Party (BLP), it was a male-dominated organization. In the same year the Women’s Labour League (WLL) was initiated by the Railway Women’s Guild.12 The aims were similar to those of many of the first socialist women’s movements: they wanted to educate women in socialism. It was a central committee for organizing and advisory purposes. The WLL had individual members and was not accepted as an affiliate by the BLP until 1908.13 Similar to it was an organization with an elected leadership, statutes, a programme, individual members, a journal (Labour

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Woman, after 1911) and its own income. Election reforms changed the organizational structure; the BLP saw an integration of the WLL into the party as a way of winning women’s votes.14 The WLL was dissolved in 1918 and lost its ability to affiliate with sister organizations.15 German social democratic women had to work under very different conditions than Swedish and British women. Their political activity was restricted twice by ruling laws. First, the anti-socialist laws, applied between 1878 and 1890, made meetings illegal, and working-class women were especially persecuted by the police. Second, even after the law was rescinded, women still did not have the right to belong to political organizations in different parts of Germany.16 Not until 1908 did women have the right to become members of political organizations. This made the formation of a social democratic women’s movement a difficult task, but, paradoxically, legal restrictions sometimes helped to mobilize for consensus about the case of socialism among women.17 In 1892 a women’s agitation committee was started, situated in Berlin and meeting under the smoke screen of meeting for coffee or celebrating birthdays. This committee did not have statutes, members or a president.18 It was led by Clara Zetkin, back from her exile in Paris, and it had between seven and twelve members. It organized the election of women to the party congresses and controlled the journal Gleichheit, established in 1891.19 By 1890 the German social democratic party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD), had established a network of contact persons, who were representing their constituencies at the party congress. In case the public meeting did not elect a woman, women had the right to choose a woman from their own group.20 This form of separatism did not fit Karl Liebknecht’s announcement that there was no such thing as a women’s question, just a social question. The matter was discussed during the congress in 1892, but was reinstated after Zetkin made a statement for this form of separatism. The system was upheld until 1908. In 1900 the first national women’s conference was held, when civil law admitted women to national political organizations.21 This women’s conference was, according to Richard Evans, proof for the separate organizing of social democratic women in Germany. The movement had a complete organization that was parallel to the party organization. Practical and political matters concerning women were now handled entirely by the women’s conference.22 When women got the right to join political organizations all over Germany in 1908, many women did not find separate organizing necessary anymore, as their number had grown immensely. The SPD wanted to abolish the system of contact persons, which provoked protests by the leading women activists. They demanded instead a women’s bureau

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with two women, among them one who should be a member of the party executive. The women’s bureau existed until 1912 when it was dissolved.23 In Sweden the first national committee began in 1906, changed its shape several times, and in 1920 was turned into the Social Democratic Women’s Federation, which still exists. It was a centralized, Stockholmbased organization that consisted of local clubs and regional districts. The leadership consisted in the beginning of a rather radical group close to the leaders of the social democratic elite based in Stockholm, with contacts to the international socialist women’s movement and roots in unions. The three different processes of mobilization in Britain, Germany and Sweden show how both the organization of the party and the national legal frame shaped the development of women’s organizing. Socialist women’s organizing was intimately connected to the male-dominated party organization, which makes it different from the above middle-class organizations.

Earlier Research Swedish social democratic women have been the object of historical studies since the 1930s, when the party’s chief female officer, Hulda Flood, wrote the first historical account.24 This detailed description of the organization’s development and its agenda was part of the educational strategy of the Swedish SSKF. The book was published in two editions.25 Although it gives a very detailed picture of the development, Flood’s book lacks a critical perspective, similar to the account of the Swedish women’s movement written by suffrage activist and historian Lydia Wahlström.26 Flood avoided mentioning conflicts between the different women leaders, which the minutes sometimes include. Conflicts with the SAP are mentioned to a much larger extent, which shows that she was conscious of the importance of showing historical unity among the women in order to strengthen the case of social democratic women, although she herself was employed by the party. Flood explicitly took up financial problems and strategies, which indicates that money was an important issue. Social democratic women have also been the object of several academic studies in the field of women’s history where the connections between feminism and class have been explored. The social democratic women’s movement has mostly been studied separately from the party’s history. Two larger studies have analysed women in the Swedish SAP. Christina Carlsson Wetterberg has studied the party’s attitudes towards the women’s question, its ideological standpoint and its political strategies.27 Gunnel Karlsson has focused on a later period and dealt with the women’s question of legitimacy in a male party organization. Women’s struggle for influence

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and power in the party organization has been studied for the period between 1920 and 1978, with an emphasis on the period after 1945.28 Neither Carlsson nor Karlsson have studied the national social democratic women’s movement before 1920. Carlsson focuses mainly on the SAP’s attitude towards women’s issues and to some degree on women’s local practice in Malmö and Stockholm until 1910. The period chosen relates rather to benchmarks in the history of social democratic men than to the development of the social democratic women’s movement, as the end of the period coincides with the introduction of male suffrage. Karlsson’s investigation starts with the foundation of the SSKF in 1920, although the earlier movement is mentioned. Hulda Flood instead used a broader approach, starting with the very first roots both locally and nationally in order to understand the development of the movement. Flood shows that there was a whole range of local socialist women’s organizing which formed a movement. The first coordination of this local work at a national level is for Flood the starting point for a national organization.29 Flood has focused on the activity of women activists while both Carlsson and Karlsson have focused on women’s influence on party politics and male resistance to women’s issues. Male opposition to women in the SAP has also been studied by Kjell Östberg, Gunnela Björk and Renée Frangeur.30 Ann-Sofie Ohlander has studied social democratic family politics and by this shown that earlier research on party politics has not demonstrated an interest in ‘women’s issues’.31 Yvonne Hirdman was the first one to make the women’s movement part of a larger account of the party’s history.32 She has also investigated the ideological attempt made by the SSKF in order to turn the social democratic housewife into a conscious consumer during the 1930s.33 While most of the studies concentrate on the ideological development, Marianne Swedmark’s study on Hulda Flood’s biography is a contribution to the history of the organizational development, concentrating on how mobilization of women was carried out.34 Most earlier research has focused less on the organizational ties and more on the problems of combining feminism and socialism, although there is one exception to mention.35 Political scientist Drude Dahlerup has identified three different ways in which women were mobilized for the labour movement in Europe and how women tackled the problem of retaining their independence within the wider movement. They all included some form of women’s organizing, but they did not always result in the founding of a women’s organization. The first model is characterized by separatism. The party organizes men and the separate women’s organization recruits women. In the second model the party recruits both men and women. Women can become members by joining the women’s com-

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mittee, the party, the trade union, or all three of these. In the third type, men and women are both members of the party and eventually a women’s committee is started to handle ‘women’s issues’ within the party.36 A problem with the model is that it is rather ahistorical: it cannot explain that women’s organizing, and men’s interest in recruiting women, has changed over time and that within one party several ways of recruiting women have been practised. Even research on the SAP has focused on the party’s ideology and less on organizational structures.37 Finances have only been mentioned rarely besides the work of Lotta Gröning and Gullan Gidlund. Gröning has analysed SAP’s organizational development and its importance for political activity between 1900 and 1933. The analysis of the financial structure is an important part of her investigation.38 Gullan Gidlund has analysed the financial structure and strategies of the SAP and the conservative party in Sweden in order to understand the change in party financing systems.39 Both studies show the typical funding structure of a mass-organization and are of use for a comparison with the women’s movements’ funding structure.

Forms and Phases of the Swedish Social Democratic Movement The social democratic women’s movement has changed over time and so have its goals and needs. According to social movement theory, different criteria are important to characterize the stages of socialist women’s organizing: the mobilization of consensus, broader mobilization of people, and later promoting solidarity to keep the organization going. Lotta Gröning has divided the SAP’s development between 1889 and 1933 into three phases: a first between 1889 until 1900, a second between 1900 and 1909 and a third between 1909 and 1933. In order to characterize the different phases, she takes the form of membership and the number of members into account, but also the organizational structure and the broadening of activities into new arenas.40 The first attempts to organize the Swedish working class were made by liberals. When the SAP was founded in 1889 it was a decentralized organization, far from the characteristics of a hierarchic mass organization. It consisted of local organizations, trade unions and health and burial funds. This decentralized concept made Swedish organizing different from the centralized Danish and German models.41 The major issues on the social democratic agenda were the introduction of an eight-hour day and universal suffrage. As the number of strikes was increasing and more of the money was used to finance strikes instead of the general vote (for men) at the end of the nineteenth century,

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the trade unionist part separated from the SAP and formed the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, LO) in 1898. However, the ties were close between the two organizations. After the split, the members of the LO were compulsorily enrolled in the SAP until 1900 when LO members could decide within three years to become members of the party.42 The collective association of trade union members was of major importance for the party’s strength during the first years; it has even been regarded as a necessary condition for the party’s breakthrough. However, this association also meant that the party became vulnerable to political strikes, which meant a loss of members.43 Demands for a more stable leadership were pronounced. There were still only a few local organizations in some parts of Sweden; therefore, regional organizations covering larger areas would have been more meaningful. The second phase was introduced by two organizational reforms in 1894, and in 1900 turned the party into a more hierarchical mass organization. Decisions were centralized and local organizations were directly under the central Stockholm-based leadership.44 The introduction of a proportional electoral system in 1910 influenced the party structure, too. Regional organizations were established which corresponded with the constituencies. This not only meant an adaptation to the electoral system, but it also implied bureaucratization of the party structure, making it easier to administer a growing organization. The consequences of the growth of the organization were reorganizations and the establishment of side organizations, where the LO was one of the first, followed by the foundation of a youth organization in 1892 and the first national women’s organizing in 1906. Later even the People’s house and park movement (Folket hus och parker), a folk high school (Brunnsviks folkhögskola) and the Workers’ Educational Federation (Arbetarnas bildningsförbund, ABF) were founded as part of the SAP. The third phase was characterized by a new political activity; mobilization of the working class was now less important than the mobilization of voters.45 This also explains the reorganization of the party according to the new election system on the basis of proportional representation. According to Gröning, the party adjusted its organization to the changes in the political system. After a lost election, the party prioritized organizing.46 What did these phases look like for the Swedish social democratic women’s movement? Are there any differences or similarities with the party’s development? Can similarities tell us something about the implications of class for the mobilization of social movements? And can the differences tell us something about the implications of gender for organizing?

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1880–1906: The Paradox of Gender Unity and the Mobilization of Consensus There is no special women’s question for us … The only women’s question for us is the material and spiritual exploitation of the women of the proletariat, but this is nothing else than the workers’ major international issue – socialism. Axel Danielsson.47 (The author’s translation)

Axel Danielsson’s statement, although rather characteristic of the party’s attitude towards women’s issues, was provoked by the first Nordic women’s meeting in Copenhagen in 1888. During the first stage, when women tried to mobilize for consensus about the importance of mobilizing women for the labour movement, it was a class-oriented, male-dominated and centralized movement.48 Social democratic politics concentrated on the needs of male skilled workers. Renée Frangeur has pointed out that ‘in this overwhelmingly male environment, women and their concerns were secondary’.49 Women were not always present at the annual conferences and there were only a few women members in the trade unions.50 This made it difficult for women to find a way to reach out to other women and to mobilize for consensus about the importance of women’s issues in the labour movement. It was not only a matter of male domination in the movement, it was also a matter of common class interest that was stressed and made it very difficult to define women’s own interests. Industrialization created a new form of competition between men and women: women were accused of pressing men’s wages. This competition was aggravated in Sweden by the emigration of young men from the rural areas, increasing the women’s surplus. Many unmarried women and mothers were forced to work to earn their own living. To organize women in the movement was regarded as a way of ending this competition.51 In addition, women became members in order to work for the improvement of the conditions of the working class. In short, women were invited to join the labour movement to be loyal and supportive to men.52 The SAP did not make any special efforts to organize women. Although Swedish women did have the right to assemble in political organizations, which was different from women in Germany and Austria, it was believed that working-class women did not have the experience of organizational work. Women’s indifference to socialist ideas was regarded as one of the major problems by socialist women activists. During several congresses women demanded a women’s organizer, paid for by the party, stating again and again that the party was ignorant of the needs of working-class women. Instead of sending party organizers to womendominated workplaces, the party congress in 1894 recommended separate

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organizing for women at a local level. By this women would get the room to get their own experiences and to train for political work in their own associations.53 This was a solution that did not cost the party anything and left the work to the women. Some local women’s clubs existed early on. In 1886 the first local club was founded in Lund, and a second one in 1888 in Malmö. Later, in 1892, Stockholm’s Women’s Club (Stockholms Allmänna Kvinnoklubb) was founded and, contrary to the first two mentioned, managed to survive and become one of the midwives for the national social democratic women’s movement.54 During this period the social democratic women’s movement can be described as a decentralized loose network of local organizations.55 Separate organizing was at that time not a primary interest of women in the labour movement. Kata Dalström, the first and only woman in the party executive in 1897, was against women’s separate organizing except for women’s trade unions in branches where only women were employed. Instead she demanded a women’s organizer, who did not necessarily have to be a woman, but a person who would get attention from a female public.56 The demand for a women’s organizer was pronounced at many party congresses by representatives of local women’s organizations without any major result. The party agreed that organizers should devote as much time to women as to men, but debates during the next congress showed that this never happened. It was not until the congress in 1908 that women managed to get funds earmarked for special organizing tours for women.57 The demand for a women’s organizer illustrates the difficulties the first women in the movement met in their mobilization of consensus. Sometimes they were supported by a few men, but they still did not have a way to convince the majority of men about the importance of organizing women.58 It is not surprising that the first national women’s committee in the labour movement was called ‘Committee for Agitation Among Women’ (Kommittén för den kvinnliga agitationen). This committee was similar to the origins of the labour movement union. It was founded in 1897 in Stockholm. Gertrud Månsson was the president and Kata Dalström was the secretary. This organization mobilized women to start women’s trade unions.59 It was financed by contributions from the social democratic district and through income from bazaars and fêtes. The money was also used to give women the opportunity to participate as local representatives at LO and party congresses.60 There was even a special fund to support women in case of illness or economic difficulties.61 The committee was converted into the Women’s Trade Union (Kvinnornas Fackförbund, WTU) in 1902, and became affiliated with the LO in 1904. It had one

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employed organizer and started its own journal, Morgonbris.62 In 1908 the WTU was dissolved, as competition from the larger tailor’s union was becoming too strong.63 In 1906 the WTU initiated, together with Stockholm’s Women’s Club, a first committee to organize a national women’s conference. Local organizations had become so common that a coordination of the decentralized movement became necessary. Paradoxically the SAP’s lack of interest in organizing women led to gender separatism, despite the demand for unity among men and women in order to liberate the working class.

1906–1930: Organizing Separately The social democratic women’s movement changed its organizational structure several times between 1906 and the 1930s. It is a period that is characterized by attempts to find an organizational structure that could handle a growing movement – a similar process for the party’s development as that described by Lotta Gröning. One of the main aims and activities was the mobilization of members. It was a period in Swedish history when women received more rights as citizens and wives. For social democratic women it was also characterized by a struggle for legitimacy and for larger organizational autonomy for women in the party. The years between 1906 and 1910 saw an increased politicization of women in the labour movement as a result of the mobilization of consensus.64 In 1906 social democratic women demanded an extraordinary party congress or at least a vote as they wanted to discuss the party’s strategy for general suffrage. Social democratic women managed to collect the necessary number of signatures and the party executive decided to have a vote. In the end local party organizations decided against an extra congress.65 Women had become an active group in challenging the party leadership, but they met resistance from local party organizations. Even the share of female representatives at the party congresses increased in 1908. The intention was to establish an agenda for political and trade unionist enlightenment and mobilization among women, and not to start a political women’s organization or a women’s movement, as Anna Sterky said in her opening speech at the first women’s conference in 1907. She emphasized the need to coordinate the work between the different local women’s clubs and trade unions.66 Sterky intended to convince other party members of the necessity for women’s temporary separate organizing. By reducing the organizational side to coordination of local work and emphasizing the need to mobilize women, Sterky tried to convince male party members of the advantages of having a separate women’s sec-

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tion that could do the work that had never been prioritized. The result was a working committee, consisting of members from different parts of Sweden. It was a separate women’s organization, subordinate to the party, with statutes and its own income, although it lacked individual members and official recognition from the party. In 1909 the committee took over Morgonbris from the WTU.67 This inheritance from one of the predecessors enabled the committee to reach out to larger groups and over farther distances. It was used to inform about the situation in different parts of the movement. Not only did it link the leadership in Stockholm with the local parts of the movement all over Sweden, it also linked the Swedish movement with the international movement. Prominent figures of the international labour movement such as Clara Zetkin published serial stories in Morgonbris.68 Reports from women’s movements in other countries were also published.69 Internationalism was used to educate members and in this way create a common platform of ideas for the movement. The main task of the committee was the organization of the working class, which meant in practice that campaigns were carried out all over Sweden in order to start new local clubs. From 1907 on, the foundation of a separate women’s organization was a permanent topic. The main reason for this was the lack of adequate funding for the women’s committee, it being dependent on sporadic contributions from the party. Several times the foundation of a separate women’s federation with individual members was considered, and income and costs were calculated. But the fear of not being able to finance an independent organization made decisions at women’s congresses a difficult matter. Some were afraid that male party members would regard such an organization as proof of women’s mistrust. It would look like women were no longer relying on their male comrades.70 Opponents of a separate women’s organization were supported by the representatives of the LO and the party executive, as they regarded a women’s organization as another party within the party.71 Albin Waidenhajn was: fully convinced that a Women’s Federation would harm both men’s and women’s organizations. A special women’s organization would inevitably work one-sided, as its interest would not always coincide with the party’s interest and this would disable the whole movement. One should not under any circumstances create exceptions, either for men or women in a party, as they all have the same interests.72 (The author’s translation)

Separate women’s organizations were regarded as organizations for class traitors by many in the party. Anna Sterky and Ruth Gustafson, both

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advocates of separate organizations, argued that women already had their own clubs, their own women’s committee, annual conferences and their own journal; what was lacking was adequate funds for the administration of the movement.73 In 1920 the women’s congress decided on a separate women’s federation affiliated with the party. It is difficult to say whether this happened with the party’s consent or not.74 The movement had grown to an extent that demanded a more bureaucratized organizational structure. But also a second wave of politicization was caused by the decision in Swedish parliament for adult suffrage in 1919.75 What differed from earlier organizing was a somewhat modified goal for the organization. Even this time, agitation was one of the central aims of the organization, but education was now seen as the key to changing society. Per Wisselgren has shown that lectures by the popular movements in Sweden during this period were not only a matter of educating people, but they were at the same time a cultural phenomenon with a social dimension.76 Josefin Rönnbäck has shown that this was also the case for the Swedish women’s suffrage movement.77 Similar to earlier arguments for women’s separate organizing, the point was made that women did not have as much experience of the political floor as men. A separate organization would help to educate them and would maximize the number of female social democratic voters. In the end the education of working-class women would result in an improved ability to fight for the freedom of the working class.78 In her opening speech at the women’s congress in 1920, president Anna Sterky emphasized that women’s increased political rights demanded action in a strategic manner and within a larger context. The best way to do this was, according to Sterky, with a strong organization. The arguments for a stronger organization were to increase female representation in the party and the ability to lobby for major political issues. But solidarity with the male movement was also emphasized.79 Although independence was emphasized much more in this speech than in 1906, solidarity with the whole labour movement was stressed as well. The official organizational change did not alter the attitude of party men towards a separate women’s organization, but the SSKF became the most important basis for the recruitment of social democratic women to top political positions.80 Between 1920 and the middle of the 1930s twenty-seven social democratic women’s districts were established. The districts coordinated the work of the local clubs and worked with the party during election campaigns.81 The success of the SSKF was measured by the electoral success or failure of the party. During the following years the existence of a separate women’s federation was questioned frequently by both men and women. In

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1924 the congress decided to investigate the reorganization of the SSKF. The suggested reorganization was discussed at the women’s congress in 1927, but it was not accepted. The same suggestion had been discussed with the party executive, who accused the SSKF of having failed to organize women. Representatives from the SSKF complained instead about the lack of support from the party, both financial support and support for the publicity of women’s issues in the party press. The party suggested dissolving the SSKF and local clubs, and instead starting a women’s secretariat under the party leadership.82 It was the old debate about the lack of support from the party for women’s organizing. A statement from the women’s congress in 1927, demanding more financial support for the mobilization of women, illustrates this. A women’s organizer was on the SSKF’s wish list. One of the problems was the resistance from local party organizations, reported by many women active in the movement.83 The SSKF called on the party leadership to demand more solidarity and support for the women’s movement from the local party organizations.84 The SAP proposed instead a reduction of membership fees for wives, which was rejected by women. The party had different ambitions than the Women’s Federation: while the SSKF wanted to educate women to be able to participate on equal terms in the political struggle, the SAP was more interested in increasing the number of members. A reduction of membership fees for women was regarded as loss in status by the women of the SSKF.85 The suggested reduction did not imply increased financial contributions from the party. The party leadership blamed women for the loss of the election in 1928, and the demand for a women’s chief officer resulted in the employment of Hulda Flood in 1929.86 Flood worked directly under the party secretary, but did not take part in party executive meetings.87 She travelled all over Sweden to organize women for the movement, but now with a party salary. Flood left the office of the SSKF and moved to the party headquarters. The party regarded the employment of Flood as a first step in gaining more control over the SSKF.88 But it might also have been that the discussion about reorganizing the SSKF was inspired by the organization of a women’s committee in the Labour and Socialist International (LSI), initiated in 1926. This committee was structured in a similar way to the suggestion made by the SAP. The LSI got maximum influence and the women’s committee was thought to work as an advisory committee.89 In the end the party took more responsibility for the mobilization of women, which women activists had demanded since the 1880s. The SSKF was able to continue its work as before, separate but integrated, without the pressure of campaigning without funds. And with Hulda Flood at the party headquarters, they had received official status and economic sup-

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port. At least formally they had gained more influence.90 In the beginning of the 1930s, the number of members grew, which was regarded as being a result of the double investment the party had made in the SSKF.

Breakthrough from 1933 The date for the breakthrough of the social democratic women’s movement is difficult to define. Not until the 1970s did gender become an issue for the Swedish SAP, when Olof Palme approached the issue by reading a letter from a female comrade, describing the difficulties women met in social democratic politics. Palme admitted that it was time the whole labour movement took responsibility for women’s equal rights in politics.91 This could be interpreted as the first indication of the end of the need for a separate women’s organization; however, it still exists today. In 1948 the SSKF got a seat in the party’s executive committee, as the other party organizations.92 Gunnel Karlsson has marked 1936 as the year for the breakthrough of the SSKF. It was during the 1936 women’s congress that party leader and prime minister Per Albin Hansson announced that women’s separate organizing was accepted and should no longer be questioned.93 However, even in 1944 a reorganization of the SSKF was discussed again. It was the same old debate about integration or separatism.94 Renée Frangeur has stated that women’s share in the party had grown during the 1930s but their influence on male politics had not grown to the same extent.95 Regarding the development from a social movement perspective, the breakthrough is a process, defined by several changes. President Signe Vessman many years later described 1933 as the year when the SSKF for the first time was unreservedly acknowledged by the party executive.96 The number of members rose from 8,738 in 1932 to 17,795 in 1933.97 Earlier criticism that the SSKF did not manage to mobilize was no longer valid. The electoral success of the Swedish SAP in 1932 led to a large mobilization of women for social democracy.98 Earlier research has shown that women were mobilized by the party’s electoral success. This also had consequences for female members of Parliament. As women candidates were often placed just below the candidates that were expected to be elected, women were the winners of the party’s electoral success.99 But also the SSKF’s activity had been broadened and could from then on be regarded as more important than the mobilization of members. Morgonbris was changed into a modern journal, with more expensive paper, a different layout and different ambitions. Yvonne Hirdman has characterized this change as ‘the ideological attempt’. It was an attempt to show Swedish housewives their macroeconomic power.100 Morgonbris

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produced a product catalogue in order to urge social democratic women to buy functional products. Swedish social democratic women have been regarded as unique in the way they combined struggle for equality with developments in art and culture.101 Morgonbris initiated and also organized political tourism. Women were visiting factories in Sweden and in other countries. In the end the Morgonbris attempt to change the lives of working-class women failed. Both the SSKF’s members and male comrades protested against the work of Morgonbris. It led too far from the main work that had to be done. There was little insight in the work of Morgonbris and the financial side had not been under control. The party threatened to take over Morgonbris.102 In the end Morgonbris was put back on track and the SSKF could keep its ‘voice’. The example of Morgonbris, although it is a rather dramatic one, shows how the organization worked on finding an identity and keeping the organization together. While editor Kaj Andersson, as member of the SSKF’s elite, had far-reaching visions for the SSKF, the rank-and-file members did not agree with these visions. But not only Morgonbris changed; also the cooperation with other women’s organizations changed. In 1933 the SSKF took for the first time the initiative for a cooperative protest meeting against fascism with other women’s organizations outside the labour movement. And this was just the beginning. During the 1930s social democratic women cooperated with other women’s organizations on a range of issues. They worked together with other women’s organizations in order to increase the number of female MPs. Social democratic women were also members of state commissions, such as the population commission and the commission on women’s work. They were accepted as the women’s representatives of working-class women and worked in close connection with their own members of Parliament. They had become experts on women’s issues and several legislative suggestions were under consideration with members from the SSKF.103 They were accepted by the party, the Swedish and the international women’s movement and they had become experts on women’s issues. They used both cross-class and cross-gender strategies in order to reach their political goals in Stockholm,104 and nationally. This indicates that the start-up period was over. The SSKF has to be regarded as established both inside the labour movement and within the Swedish women’s movement.105 It had won several new political platforms: it had its own members in Parliament, and the fact that the party had reached a government position changed its political influence. The continuity of separatism was guaranteed through the election of Disa Västberg as president in 1936.106 Organizing the working class, which mainly resulted in mobilizing men, and organizing working-class women show several similarities, al-

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though there was a time lag between them. Both movements started as decentralized networks which grew to a degree that demanded a different organizational structure. As a result, both organized with a centralized and Stockholm-based leadership. In both cases the organizational structure was adapted to electoral reforms in order to maximize the number of social democratic voters. Both organizations also broadened their activities during this stage of organizing. The differences between the organizations’ development are due to the relationship between them. First, women’s mobilization of consensus was a reaction to the party’s work. Second, the breakthrough of the SSKF did not take as long as the party’s breakthrough, as they had an advantage from the party forming the government in 1932. A comparison between the different social democratic women’s movements illustrates also how legal changes on a national level led to changes in the organizational structure. This fits very well with Kjell Östberg’s thesis that there is a connection between larger historical changes in society and the strength and development of social movements.107

Agendas and Strategies A movement’s success in its attempt to mobilize for issues and new members depends on the framing of issues and the use of political opportunities.108 Social democratic women had not only to convince their own sisters, but also party comrades and sometimes even other women’s organizations. Christina Carlsson has shown how the composition of delegates at women’s congresses has changed over the years. In 1907 unmarried union representatives dominated, while in 1920 married representatives for local political organizations dominated.109 An investigation by the SSKF in 1939 showed that 91 per cent of the SSKF’s members were married to manual labourers, and only 2 per cent of the members were unmarried. Further, 87 per cent of the members had an elementary education. The largest group of members was between 30 and 40 years old. In short, the movement changed from a women’s union into a working-class housewives’ organization.110 How did the agendas and ideas change over time? From the very beginning social democratic women fought for women’s rights in the labour market and in politics. Adult suffrage was from the very beginning on the party programme. However, it was one of the issues that created conflicts between the main party and its women’s activists. As soon as the chance for general male suffrage moved closer, the party put the demand for women’s votes aside.111 This made social democratic women using cross-class strategies seek cooperation with other women’s organizations.112

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Different from women in other countries, Swedish women were against night work prohibition for women. Instead they demanded gender-neutral protective labour legislation.113 Night work prohibition created another conflict with the party, as the party supported the restrictions of women’s night work against the demands of the whole women’s movement.114 Moreover, matters of unmarried working mothers, prostitution, married women’s rights, poor relief, suffrage, hygiene and schools were the dominating issues during the first congresses.115 Yvonne Hirdman has shown how the agenda changed from a uniondominated agenda to a programme that was mainly concerned with the situation in working-class homes. As a result of shortages during the war, the rationalization of house work was regarded as a way for workingclass women to gain more time. But issues shifted also from paid work to motherhood.116 This made the newly established SSKF a competitor to the Swedish Housewives’ Association (Husmodersförbundet). In the 1930s the SSKF and especially Morgonbris organized tours to Swedish factories which produced functional products for housewives. The focus on the ‘socialist housewife’, as Hirdman has called it, was an attempt to win new members in competition with the more ‘bourgeois’ housewives association.117 This Swedish success was even transferred to the LSI’s women’s committee. Swedish representatives demanded an investigation into the needs of housewives and the functional home on an international level, which was carried out by the LSI women’s committee in the 1930s.118 During the 1920s, women’s right to work was discussed in several dimensions in Sweden. When married women’s right to work was questioned not only by conservatives but also by social democrats, the movement was split. While the leadership was against any restrictions on married women’s right to work, local clubs sometimes had the opposite opinion.119 What led to a political breakthrough for the ideas of social democratic women was the so-called crisis in the population question. Alva and Gunnar Myrdal published a book in 1934 which changed Swedish politics. Discussing the consequences of declining birth rates for the Swedish nation, the Myrdals gave a dark picture of the future of Sweden. A number of prophylactic social reforms were regarded as the only way out. The social democratic government set up a state commission on this matter, and social democratic women got a leading position. The reforms and discussions initiated by the social democratic couple won broad support among both men and women. The Myrdals, especially Alva, believed that women would have more children if they could keep their work and combine work and family life. The debate that evolved from this book was clearly producing a political opportunity both for the mobilization of consensus

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around women’s rights and also for the mobilization of women for different organizations.120 Social democratic women used both cross-gender and cross-class strategies and their parliamentary work has illustrated this as well.121

Summary The Swedish social democratic women’s movement went through a major development between the first period of mobilization of consensus and the 1950s, when they challenged the party in political issues, voting against the male majority. The number of members had grown exponentially, their agendas and ideas had changed, and their activities had broadened. The movement was, until the 1970s, the most important springboard to political positions. During this development, Swedish social democratic women had their own separate women’s organization that was subordinate to the party. This long period of separatism was rather special compared to the shorter periods in the history of the German and British social democratic women’s movements. The political change of 1932, when the SAP started its long-term hegemonic position as governing party, also influenced the position of social democratic women. The SSKF’s separate structure was no longer regarded as a threat to the party’s power and was finally accepted. From having been a decentralized movement, the movement turned into a centralized Stockholm-based organization with a number of representatives in Parliament. In the beginning unmarried working women dominated the member group. Over the years this changed, and the SSKF became dominated by married housewives – a similar development as in Germany and England. Working women organized instead in trade unions, which, in the case of the LO, were opposed to women’s separate organizing.122 The movement was from the very beginning part of an international socialist movement and stayed in close contact with leading women from socialist women’s movements in the Nordic but also other European countries. The focus in the following two chapters is on the first national mobilizing and organizing of the Swedish social democratic women’s movement between 1906 and 1933. The main question is, how did the relation to the party, national and international networks, funds and other resources impact the organizational and political development of this movement.

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Notes 1. ‘Det brukar i partisammanhang sägas, att de rika organisationerna i partiet är kvinnoklubbarna. Hur pass mycket av sanning som ligger i detta resonemang, har vi aldrig lyckats få en uppfattning om’ I. Thorsson et al. 1956. Framåt i SSKF: en redovisning av uppgifter och arbetsformer inom den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen: Sveriges socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbunds 9:e kongress 6–9 maj 1956, Stockholm. 2. J. Sangster. 1989. Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920–1950, The Canadian Social History Series, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart; P.M. Graves. 1994. Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics 1918–1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; G. Karlsson. 1996. Från broderskap till systerskap: det socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbundets kamp för inflytande och makt i SAP, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 44, Lund: Arkiv. 3. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF. 4. L. Gröning. 1988. Vägen till makten: SAP:s organization och dess betydelse för den politiska verksamheten 1900–1933, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 149, Uppsala/Stockholm: University, Almqvist & Wiksell; Karlsson. Från broderskap till systerskap. 5. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap. 6. G. Gidlund. 1983. Partistöd: Public subsidies of Swedish political parties, Umeå studies in politics and administration, 8, Lund: Liber/Gleerup. 7. C. Norrbin. 2004. Från isolering till integrering: en kollektivbiografisk studie över de kvinnliga riksdagsledamöterna under tvåkammarriksdagens tid 1922–1970, Skrifter från Institutionen för historiska studier, 6, Umeå: Institutionen för historiska studier Univ. 8. Ibid. 9. Gidlund, ‘From Popular Movement to Political Party’, 67. 10. C. Carlsson. 1986. Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik: en studie av svensk socialdemokrati 1880–1910, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 25, Lund: Arkiv; Y. Hirdman. 1983. ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun: den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen och hemarbetet 1890–1939’, in Y. Hirdman, B. Åkerman and K. Pehrsson (eds), Vi kan, vi behövs! – kvinnorna går samman i egna föreningar, Stockholm: Akademilitteratur, 11–50; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap; Å. Linderborg. 2001. Socialdemokraterna skriver historia: historieskrivning som ideologisk maktresurs 1892–2000, Stockholm: Atlas Akademi. 11. D. Dahlerup. 1980. ‘Zur Frage der selbständigen Organisierung der sozialistischen Frauen. Dargestellt am Beispiel der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Dänemarks1871–1939’, Internationale Tagung der Historiker der Arbeiterbewegung XIV. Linzer Konferenz 1978 Teil II; for the interwar period see S. Neunsinger. 2007. ‘Creating the International Spirit of Socialist Women: Women in the Labour and Socialist International 1923–1939’, in P. Jonsson, S. Neunsinger and J. Sangster (eds), Crossing Boundaries. Womens Organizing in Europe and the Americas, Uppsala. 12. LHASC Women’s Labour League Annual Reports. Reports of the first conference of the Women’s Labour league, Leicester, 21 June 1906, 2. 13. C. Collette. 1989. For Labour and for Women: the Women’s Labour League, 1906–1918, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 39. 14. Ibid, 157; Graves. Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics 1918–1939, 5. 15. Collette, For Labour and for Women, 178. 16. R.J. Evans. 1979. Sozialdemokratie und Frauenemanzipation im deutschen Kaiserreich, Internationale Bibliothek, 119, Berlin, 30; U. Gerhard. 1990. Unerhört: die Geschichte der deutschen Frauenbewegung, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 191; W. Thönnessen. 1976. Frauenemanzipation: Politik und Literatur der deutschen Sozialdemokratie zur Frauenbewegung 1863–1933, Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 50; A. von Saldern. 1998. ‘Modernization as Challenge. Perceptions and Reactions of German Social Democratic Women’, in P.M. Graves and H. Gruber (eds), Women and Socialism, Socialism and Women Between the Two World Wars, New York: Berghahn Books, 95–134.

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17. Evans, Sozialdemokratie und Frauenemanzipation im deutschen Kaiserreich, 93. 18. Gerhard, Unerhört, 191f. 19. Evans, Sozialdemokratie und Frauenemanzipation im deutschen Kaiserreich, 91. 20. Ibid., 86. 21. Ibid., 90. 22. Ibid., 91 and 124. 23. Ibid., 174. 24. H. Flood. 1939. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, Stockholm: Tiden. 25. For a similar discussion about the party see Linderborg. Socialdemokraterna skriver historia. 26. L. Wahlström. 1933. Den svenska kvinnorörelsen: historisk översikt, Stockholm: Norstedt. 27. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik. 28. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap. 29. H. Flood. 1960. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, Stockholm: Tiden, 7 and 90. 30. Östberg, Efter rösträtten; G. Björk. 1999. Att förhandla sitt medborgarskap: kvinnor som kollektiva politiska aktörer i Örebro 1900–1950, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 52, Lund: Arkiv; R. Frangeur. 1998. ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden: A History of Contradiction’, in P.M. Graves and H. Gruber (eds), Women and Socialism, Socialism and Women: Europe between the Two World Wars, New York: Berghahn Books, 425–49; R. Frangeur. 2004. ‘Jämställda män och andra män i folkhemmet: riksdagsdebatt och lagstiftning på 1920- och 1930-talen’, Arbetarhistoria 112 (2004: 4). 31. A.-S. Ohlander. 1989. ‘Det osynliga barnet?: kampen om den socialdemokratiska familjepolitiken’, in K. Misgeld, K. Molin, & K. Åmark (eds.), Socialdemokratins samhälle: SAP och Sverige under 100 år, Stockholm: Tiden, 170–90, 405–6; for an English version see A.-S. Ohlander. 1992. ’The Invisible Child?: The Struggle for a Social Democratic Family Policy in Sweden, 1900–1960s’, in K. Misgeld, K. Molin and K. Åmark (eds), Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 213–36. 32. Y. Hirdman. 1979. Vi bygger landet: den svenska arbetarrörelsens historia från Per Götrek till Olof Palme, Solna: Pogo Press. 33. Y. Hirdman. 1989. Att lägga livet till rätta: studier i svensk folkhemspolitik, Maktutredningens publikationer, Stockholm: Carlsson; Y. Hirdman. 1992. ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun’, in Y. Hirdman (ed.), Den socialistiska hemmafrun och andra kvinnohistorier, Stockholm: Carlssons, 36–112. 34. M. Swedmark. 1993. Hulda Flood: socialist, agitator, kvinnopionjär, Idéhistoriska skrifter, 18, Umeå: Univ. 35. P.M. Graves and H. Gruber (eds). 1998. Women and Socialism, Socialism and Women: Europe between the Two World Wars, New York: Berghahn Books, 1998. 36. Dahlerup, ‘Zur Frage der selbständigen Organisierung der sozialistischen Frauen’, 451f. and 466. 37. See overview in Gröning, Vägen till makten, 9, footnote 1; see also Linderborg, Socialdemokraterna skriver historia: historieskrivning som ideologisk maktresurs 1892–2000. For exceptions see Gidlund (1983), Partistöd; Gröning (1988). 38. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 62–103. 39. Gidlund, Partistöd. 40. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 27. 41. Gidlund, Partistöd, 97; K. Molin. 1992. ‘Historical Orientation’, in K. Misgeld, K. Molin and K. Åmark, (eds), Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, xvii–xxix, xviii. 42. Gidlund, Partistöd, 101. 43. Ibid., 104, Figure 3: 11. 44. Ibid., 100. 45. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 33.

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46. Ibid., 47. 47. Axel Danielsson, cited from Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 92. 48. For discussions about the implications of male dominance in the Swedish labour movement see I. Humlesjö. 1999. ‘Manliga och sega strukturer: fackföreningsrörelsens dolda historia’ Arbetarhistoria 9091 (1999: 23); G. Salmonsson. 1998. Den förståndiga viljan: Svenska järnoch metallarbetareförbundet 1888–1902, Uppsala Studies in Economic History, 41, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. 49. R. Frangeur. 1998. ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 426. 50. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik: en studie av svensk socialdemokrati 1880–1910, 138; Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 37ff.; G. Qvist. 1974. Statistik och politik: Landsorganisationen och kvinnorna på arbetsmarknaden, Stockholm: Prisma; Y. Waldemarson. 2000. Kvinnor och klass – en paradoxal skapelseberättelse: LOs kvinnoråd och makten att benämna 1898–1967, Arbetsliv i omvandling, 2000:1, Stockholm: Arbetslivsinstitutet, 19. 51. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 114. 52. Carlsson has shown this, which is even strengthened by a principal declaration at the first party congress in 1889: ‘As the woman’s interests are the same as a man’s and as her participation in the labour movement would be of considerable use for the party and would largely make the man’s work and fight against the capital easier, this congress encourages every woman of the proletariat, not to stand indifferent, but instead participate with all power and energy in the struggle and to stand in solidarity with the man. Moreover the congress announces that every friend of the party should use every possibility to try to get women interested about our cause and by this get her involved in the partyline.’ Ibid., 130. 53. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 19; Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 427. 54. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen, 9–13. 55. Flood gives an account of the different local organizations which existed early on in order to characterize the origins of the social democratic women’s movement. Ibid., 11–49. 56. Ibid., 20. 57. Ibid., 33. 58. Ibid., 26. 59. Ibid., 35. 60. Ibid., 36. 61. Ibid., 36. 62. Ibid., 44ff. 63. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik: en studie av svensk socialdemokrati 1880–1910, 194. 64. This politicization is also visible in LO member statistics. In 1907 more than 9 per cent of the members were women. The number of female representatives at the LO congresses was even higher in 1909 than after the war. Qvist, Statistik och politik: Landsorganisationen och kvinnorna på arbetsmarknaden, 70. 65. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 57f. 66. Ibid., 90. 67. Ibid., 54. 68. Hirdman, ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun: den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen och hemarbetet 1890–1939’, 22. 69. Morgonbris 1908–1930. 70. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 74. 71. Ibid., 75. 72. SSKF Congress Minutes 1908, 19: ‘fullt övertygad om att ett förbund skulle skada såväl männens som kvinnornas organisationer. Ett speciellt kvinnoförbund skulle ovillkorligen verka ensidigt, då dess synpunkter inte alltid sammanfölle med partiets och detta skulle förlama hela hela rörelsen. Man borde inte under några förhållanden inom ett parti göra undantag för män eller kvinnor, då de alla ha samma intressen’. See also Ibid., 75.

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73. Frangeur, Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden, 430. 74. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 122, 134 and 191f.; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 79. 75. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 135 and 137. Both Anna Sterky and Hjalmar Branting were emphasizing the change adult suffrage made for women’s organizing, demanding the women’s movements strategic work. 76. P. Wisselgren. 2000. Samhällets kartläggare: Lorénska stiftelsen, den sociala frågan och samhällsvetenskapens formering 1830–1920, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 157. 77. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 146–53. 78. SSKF Statutes 1920, ‘Förbundets ändamål’. 79. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 141f. 80. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 23; Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 109. 81. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 54. 82. Ibid., 87f. 83. ARAB Hulda Flood’s Papers, Letters to Hulda Flood. Many of the letters from local activists outside Stockholm witness about this resistance, complaining about the tough situation with male comrades in the movement. 84. ‘Kongressen uttalar sig för, att förbundet icke nu omorganiseras, utan under kommande kongressperiod arbetar efter samma linje som hitintills. Men för att i högre grad kunna verka för kvinnornas anslutning till partiet fordras större ekonomiska resurser och särskild speciell arbetskraft för agitations och instruktionsarbetet, såsom t ex anställande av en ombudsman. Kongressen hemställer därför till partiet att anslå väsentligt högre belopp till agitationen bland kvinnorna och dessutom att kraftigare uppfordra partimedlemmarna till solidariskt samarbete med kvinnoorganisationerna i deras strävan att vinna arbetarkvinnorna för partiet och fordra parti medlemmarna till solidariskt samarbete med kvinnoorganisationerna och deras strävan att vinnka arbetarkvinnorna för partiet och fostra dem till målmedvetna socialdemokrater även som i övrigt mera verksamt bidraga till kvinnornas anslutning till partiet’ cit. from Flood, Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 165. 85. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 191; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 89f. 86. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 432; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 93–95; Swedmark, Hulda Flood, 57. 87. Swedmark, Hulda Flood, 117. 88. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 432. 89. Neunsinger, ‘Creating the International Spirit of Socialist Women’. 90. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 432. 91. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 16. Karlsson is citing the SAP congress Minutes 1972, 234. C. Florin and B. Nilsson. 1999, ‘“Something in the Nature of a Bloodless Revolution … ”: How New Gender Relations Became Gender Equality Policy in Sweden in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies’, in R. Torstendahl (ed.), State Policy and Gender System in the Two German States and Sweden 1945–1989, Uppsala: Department of History, Uppsala University, 11–77; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 38. 92. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 97. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid., 128. 95. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 441. 96. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 96f.; Swedmark, Hulda Flood, 104; D. Västberg. 1951. Socialdemokratisk kvinnogärning: festskrift i anledning av Disa Västbergs 60-årsdag den 17 maj 1951, Stockholm: Sveriges socialdemokratiska kvinnoförb.: Tiden, 186. 97. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 56. 98. Ibid., 95 and 97. 99. Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 110, is showing that this was also the case in Norway, England and Scotland. 100. Hirdman, ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun’; Hirdman, Att lägga livet till rätta: studier i svensk folkhemspolitik.

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01. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 442. 1 102. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 110f. 103. Ibid., 124. 104. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 447. For cooperation among female members of Parliament see Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 194–210. 105. See also Gröning, Vägen till makten; Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap. 106. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 111. 107. K. Östberg. 2004. ‘Först så går det upp: svensk kvinnorörelse i ett longitudinellt perspektiv’, in Y. Svanström and K. Östberg (eds.), Kön och feminism i Sverige under 150 år, Stockholm: Atlas Akademi, 143–66, 143. 108. McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, ix and xviiiff. 109. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 197. 110. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 22. 111. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 185f. and 224; Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 59–91; Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 88. 112. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 50. 113. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik; Wikander, Feminism, familj och medborgarskap, 217ff. 114. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 225–44; Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 427. 115. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 105–12; Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 427. 116. Ibid., 428; Hirdman, ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun’, 27. 117. Hirdman, ‘Den socialistiska hemmafrun’, 48f. 118. Ibid., 48. 119. R. Frangeur. 1998. Yrkeskvinna eller makens tjänarinna?: striden om yrkesrätten för gifta kvinnor i mellankrigstidens Sverige, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 49, Lund: Arkiv; S. Neunsinger. 2001. Die Arbeit der Frauen – die Krise der Männer: die Erwerbstätigkeit verheirateter Frauen in Deutschland und Schweden 1919–1939, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 198, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. 120. A.C. Carlson. 1990. The Swedish Experiment in Family Politics: the Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 11–26; E. Elgán. 1994. Genus och politik: en jämförelse mellan svensk och fransk abort- och preventivmedelspolitik från sekelskiftet till andra världskriget, Studia historica Upsaliensia, 176, Uppsala, Stockholm: Univ., , 158 and 163; Hirdman, Att lägga livet till rätta, 131; B. Åkerman. 1997. Alva Myrdal: från storbarnkammare till fredspris, Stockholm: Cordia, 41–58; A.-K. Hatje. 1974. Befolkningsfrågan och välfärden: debatten om familjepolitik och nativitetsökning under 1930- och 1940-talen, Sverige under andra världskriget, Stockholm: Allmänna förl, 16. 121. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’; Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering: en kollektivbiografisk studie över de kvinnliga riksdagsledamöterna under tvåkammarriksdagens tid 1922–1970. 122. Waldemarson, Kvinnor och klass; K. Östberg. 1997. Efter rösträtten: kvinnors utrymme efter det demokratiska genombrottet, Kulturhistoriskt bibliotek, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion.

Chapter 5

The Price of Turning Women into Socialists

If we want to discuss the SSKF’s economy, we will have to go back in time. Since the SSKF was founded, the economic side has been affected by the permanent considerations of the limited assets and the many and, over the years, growing tasks. Framåt i SSFK1 (The author’s translation)

Money’s social value depends on the source of income, on the use of it and on its form of exchange. There are differences between direct payments, entitlements to use money, and gifts.2 The social value of money is also affected by gender and class.3 If we want to understand how class and gender mattered for access and use of resources, we have to ask which sources of income social democratic women had. However, not only the number of available resources is important, but also tactical choices about how to spend the money and how to allocate the money are of major importance.4 Did sources restrict the use of money? Differently from the Fredrika Bremer Association or any other national ‘bourgeois’ organization, we can expect that socialist women would have had a smaller budget than their middle-class sisters for two reasons: first, members of socialist organizations could be expected to come from the lower social strata in society, with less access to financial resources. Second, socialist women’s organizing had been part of a party organization. We can expect that some of the costs would have been hidden in the party’s budget as they could use the party organization for several tasks. In order to understand access and use of monetary resources for the development of the social democratic women’s movement, we first have Notes for this chapter begin on page 175.

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to take a closer look at the development of the annual results. Figure 5.1 shows that social democratic women yielded more or less a zero result. During some early years, the committee lost money, which was a major topic of discussion in the early minutes. During the First World War, annual reports were published every third year when the congress was held. This gives us only an average of incomes and expenses for this period. The size of the budget was growing over time and we can identify three different periods which are marked by two major changes in size. The first period, between 1907 and 1920, is marked by a smaller growth. Between 1920 and 1921 the budget grew, and it stayed at about the same level until the end of the 1920s. After 1929 we can identify growth that is different from earlier years. These changes in the size of the budget fit with the organizational changes in the social democratic women’s movement. The figures also demonstrate that the first years of the newly founded Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation (SSKF) showed some economical problems, which later turned into a more or less zero result for the rest of the 1920s. For 1933, the figure shows a sudden loss of a size never experienced before.

Figure 5.1  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation incomes and expenses 1907– 1933. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: Annual reports, accounts SSKF, cash books SSKF. Morgonbris result is not included in the numbers for 1907–1909, 1911–1913, and the annual reports between 1914 and 1919 show only a summarized result of three-year periods. The result of the year includes both the federation’s result and the journal’s result.

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What kinds of choices created this development? In order to understand the reasons behind the development we need to know what kind of assets the movement had and how they were affected by the economical situation. What was prioritized during years of economical problems? In order to understand how the social democratic women managed their financial situation, a closer look at incomes and expenses, as well as assets and liabilities, is necessary.

Sources of Income The income scheme of the SSKF fits very well with an economical structure described for a mass organization.

Figure 5.2  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main incomes 1907–1933. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual accounts, account and cash books.

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Figure 5.2 shows that the movement in the beginning relied heavily on contributions from organizations close to them, in this case the labour movement. A closer look at income without the journal Morgonbris shows that after the foundation of the SSKF, membership fees became the most important income source. Income from fundraising activities was in third position, followed by a very small post of income from interest. When the federation gave an account of its economic situation in 1956, membership fees had been the most important income since its foundation.5 This did not change until the SSKF received part of the state subsidies for political parties via contributions from the Social Democratic Labour Party (SAP). Income increased from 4,400 USD (23,000 SEK in nominal value) in 1965 to 29,000 USD (150,000 SEK) in 1968; in 1978 the SSKF received 419,800 USD (1,900,000 SEK).6 Morgonbris generated a larger post of income, but as it had costs as well, it did not necessarily make a profit. The major income and expenses for the periodical will therefore be discussed under expenses.

Contributions from the Labour Movement Contributions from the SAP were the dominating income sources during the very first years, as Figure 5.3 shows. This changed when the movement got its own income from membership fees. However, during election years membership fees were not sufficient and the party contributed extra money exceeding income from membership fees. From 1914 on, contributions could even be used for administration.7 After 1949, when women’s chief officer Hulda Flood retired, the party contributed to the SSKF secretary’s salary.8 Moreover, contributions from the party were used to save the women’s committee’s finances several times, especially the journal. The SAP also contributed money for special occasions such as election campaigns and women’s congresses.9 Although the party’s contributions were the most important ones, contributions also came from the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), smaller trade unions, local party organizations and local women’s clubs. As Figure 5.3 shows, the amount of money varied from year to year and was difficult to calculate for future budgets. Although the party congress in 1908 decided on a regular annual contribution of 1,300 USD (5,000 SEK in nominal value) for the committee’s organizing work, the money was never paid. Instead this marked the beginning of the first severe crisis for the women’s committee, showing the problems of financial dependence on the SAP during this early period. The general strike in 1910 had not only emptied the party coffers, but had made the party lose

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Figure 5.3  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation major incomes without Morgonbris 1907–1933. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual accounts, accounts and cash books.

members, which in the end meant a loss of income from membership fees.10 Whatever strategy was used by the women’s committee to get the promised money, it was judged to fail, although this was the only time the women’s committee had a formalized right to the contribution. They wrote letter after letter and demanded to attend party executive meetings, but without any success.11 When the party’s finances had improved, regional party organizations were prioritized instead.12 Different from the women’s committee, regional party organizations had an income from membership fees, which illustrates that the SAP gave priority to the main party structure. This had double the consequences for the women’s committee: agitation was cancelled and the women’s committee had to keep silent about the lack of money that made campaigning unaffordable. The

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women’s movement showed solidarity with the party in public, and especially in front of other party women, while the minutes bear witness to the anger against the party.13 Another example of the complicated relation party contributions created was the development in the 1920s. When the SSKF was started in 1920 and the party’s economic situation was worsening, the federation did not get any contributions at first, as the party executive wanted the federation to pay for its own administrative costs but continued with its financial contributions for agitation.14 What kind of contribution was the money from the labour movement? What could it be used for? What role did these contributions play for the social democratic women’s movement’s development? During the 1950s the SSKF emphasized that economic independence was in itself of major value. To stand on its own feet and manage with its own means was regarded as important. It was also regarded as part of the educational task that the social democratic women’s movement had used to legitimize women’s separate organizing. Having economic independence was regarded as a way of learning how to handle finances and to take responsibility.15 Separate income sources were of major importance when the early social democratic women’s movement discussed the establishment of a separate women’s federation. But money or different monies had different values, depending on the form of the exchange and the use of it. In 1928 Agda Östlund complained about the financial relation between the party and the federation: We have to work as for sheer pity and beg for money for our action, which is not appreciated; instead you get a feeling that the party executive regards us blocking the way for women’s mobilization for the movement.16 Agda Östlund, member of the SSKF executive (The author’s translation)

Party contributions were important, but they also made social democratic women’s organizing dependent on the labour movement’s goodwill, as the quotation by Agda Östlund shows. During the very first years, women in the executive and the working committee regarded their own work as very important for the SAP. Leading social democratic women felt that this work was not sufficiently compensated for and even questioned from time to time. The attitude of women activists shows that they regarded these contributions not as payments but as an allowance that they were entitled to. The way women received these contributions can tell us something about the Swedish social democratic party’s view of the contributions to the women’s movement. The quotation by Agda Östlund illustrates the

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SSKF felt that applications for party contributions still in 1928 were begging letters. Transfers did not take place automatically. It was a process that was described as very detailed in one of the first minutes.17 Thinking about the form of contribution can explain why strategies could be regarded as legitimate or not. It was legitimate to ask larger organizations within the labour movement for larger specified contributions. Specifications gave the contributors more control over the sponsored organization’s work. Poorer organizations were only asked for smaller contributions, if they were asked at all.18 The way applications were written shows how the source of money, the form and the purpose of the contribution turned the money into special money. There were written instructions on how to apply, for example letters had to be typed during times when minutes were handwritten and the committee did not have a typewriter.19 In the beginning, several applications were accepted but under specified conditions: a plan for campaigning had to be approved by the party executive. But women discussed different ways of applying for contributions. While the women’s committee wanted to apply for money by a motion at the party congress, the SAP made it a matter for the party executive, as the institution who had the right to decide on these matters. The fact that the women’s committee applied several times via the congress could be an indication of a strategy for more publicity and legitimacy.20 Applications via the congress meant that some time had to be spent on the issue and that a majority of the congress had to support the financial demands. A decision by the party executive made it less public, without any advertisement for the women’s movement’s work. Why was it so important to show publicly that the SAP granted money for the women’s movement’s work? One possible answer is that the movement could show what it actually worked with, but also that it got the support from a majority in the movement, despite its separate organizing. In the end it was a demonstration that the women’s movement was legitimately entitled to allowances by the SAP. The way the movement received the money in practice illustrates the exchange of allowances for the work done. The money was only handed out afterwards when a final report on the results had been sent to the executive.21 It also implied that social democratic women needed some capital in order to be able to finance their work in advance. This form of exchange was much closer to financial transactions between employers and employees. Although the SSKF some years later got a certain amount in cash, which they had to pick up at the party’s office, it was still women who had to go and get their allowance on hand. This changed some years later when the money was transferred between bank accounts.

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Party contributions to the women’s movement were questioned. Some of the party members did not see the necessity of sponsoring the women’s movement as the labour movement also started from scratch, implying that conditions for organizing should be equal.22 Contributions from the party show that they changed in size, but also in their restrictions of use. During this whole period the party contributions never turned into regular incomes that could be used in the budgeting work. Similar to allowances granted from husbands to middle-class wives, allowances were made irregularly and served as compensation for the work done, rather than as a payment for the work done.23 The use of the money was decisive in terms of the possibility of receiving it. The party contributed only money for recruiting new members or voters; it was an investment. Contributions for administration and conferences were difficult to get and were only paid for with smaller sums. The development over time also shows that the contributions from the party worked less and less as a measure to control the work of the women’s movement. The grant of money to administrate campaigns in 1914 indicates that a separate administration was at least accepted for this part of the work. During the first years the women’s committee discussed the foundation of a federation, but the prospect of losing contributions from the party were used as an argument against the foundation.24 The problem with party contributions was that they were insecure income, but also that they were earmarked. This made their use less flexible. Party contributions could not, for instance, be used to pay for the growing administrative needs of the movement.

Membership Fees Membership fees allowed for a different use of income. Since the foundation of the SSKF in 1920, membership fees were the most usable income. Their use was not restricted in the same way as contributions from the SAP, although this money was restricted by social values. It was a payment by members for the work done by the SSKF. This made the income calculable for future budgets. Moreover, this income could be increased. More members theoretically meant more money. And more members did not necessarily lead to an increase in all types of expenses; some expenses were rather static, like employed staff.25 Nevertheless, to rely on income from membership fees during the first period was a fragile way to choose, as this income was extremely sensitive to economic cycles.26 What strategies were used to increase income from membership fees? Between 1920 and 1952 members paid an annual fee of 1 SEK in nomi-

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nal value.27 The party used a similar moderate strategy, although it increased membership fees twice during the same period. According to the party leadership, margins for an increase had already been used by regional and local party organizations.28 Discussions became heated, when it came to membership fees, at both party and women’s congresses. Figure 5.4 shows that income from membership fees was decreasing or stagnant during some years. The reason was that the labour movement organized mainly low-income earners.29 Unemployment did not leave any money for membership fees among the working class. Different from the SSKF, the SAP managed to raise membership fees several times at the beginning. One of the reasons was that women paid double fees, both to the SAP and the SSKF at the local, district and national level. The difference also indicates the different motives for membership. Men were enrolled members of the party , due to their higher degree of unionization, which gave them little choice about party membership. As we have seen before, the members of the federation were far from being unionized; most of them were housewives with little money of their own. As membership changed over time, so did discussions about membership fees. During the first period, affiliated trade unions paid a collective membership fee similar to the enrolled trade union members in the party. As more and more women’s trade unions left the SSKF in 1924, it was decided to lower the membership fees for trade unions, but even this did not prevent trade unions from leaving the federation during the 1920s.30 During the very same discussion, women complained that they had to pay more in membership fees (double) than men did. The SAP had differentiated fees for those groups who were difficult to organize. Among them were women, farm workers and woodmen.31 After 1900 the membership fees for women had been reduced in the party.32 The discussion about the introduction of a housewives’ discount with the party leadership in 1928 illustrates that a reduction according to gender was seen as a loss of influence. This reveals the social value of membership fees. Women were against this suggestion, as it would have implied a loss of influence in local party organizations. Membership fees were not neutral contributions to the movement. They were seen as the price for membership, and by this as the cost for a democratic voice in the organization. Lowered fees for women were regarded as a loss in power by individual women. Women wanted equal rights in the party and saw equal duties as the only way to equality in politics.33 The problem of loss of income during economically critical periods remained, despite women’s willingness to pay more for their democratic rights. The difference in development between the number of members

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Figure 5.4  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation members and members’ fees 1920–1933 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual reports, financial reports, Thorsson et al., Framåt i SSKF.

and membership fees, which Figure 5.4 shows for 1931, was the result of the economic crisis and unemployment in Sweden. In 1932 the growing number of members enabled the SSKF to reduce fees for some of the members: a change of statutes lowered fees for unemployed and sick members. The differentiation of fees continued to expand during the 1930s for the elderly as well.34 The members of the movement had grown older and, as a tribute to their solidarity and their work for the movement, a reduction of their fees was acceptable and affordable. Discussions about membership fees illustrate the relationship between two of the most important resources for a mass organization, people and money. An increasing number of people led to an increase in income. On the other hand, an increase in individual membership fees always contains a risk of losing members.35 But margins to raise membership fees among working-class women were rather small. The development of membership fees not only illustrates the growth of the organization, but also the growth in independence, as membership fees became the most important income source. This was not only because of their size, but also because membership fees could be used to finance the needs of a growing administration’s broadening activities. Membership fees covered the ordinary work of the SSKF, but as this income did not have any margins for extraordinary expenses, other income was also necessary.

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Extra Income To afford special activities or even to maintain administration during difficult economic periods, when party contributions were not forthcoming, extraordinary strategies became necessary. The women’s movement’s strategies to cover financial outages were rather different from the party’s. The party used levying as extra income during its start-up and organizing period. This meant that ordinary members paid extra levies, which provided an income that corresponded with more than half the annual income from membership fees. This income strategy worked only as long as members could contribute the extra amount, which makes the success of such a strategy dependent on the larger economic development. In 1905 the congress decided against the obligatory levies.36 After 1908 the SAP was also in need of a special means for elections. In 1911 an election fund was started, financed by money from collections at the district level and contributions from unions.37 In 1911 the election fund was saved with income from the sale of ‘the red flower’. And the sale of May flowers was another source of income for the party.38 Gullan Gidlund mentions this sale only in passing as it was not of major importance for the financial pattern of the party. In 1921 the party tried to balance the varying income from the election fund with a support organization. The idea was that those members who could afford it should pay a larger annual contribution. It was an organization without any larger success.39 The social democratic women’s movement got important income from sales.40 During years of economic crisis and before membership fees became important, with little income and especially without contributions from the party, it was bazaars, the sale of different products, various fêtes and picnics, and collections which provided important income. From the financial accounts left for the period between 1911 and 1919, about 50 per cent of the women’s committee’s income was the result of extraordinary fundraising activities. But also at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, income from fundraising activities corresponded to 50 to 75 per cent of income from membership fees.41 Was this the result of a gendered income strategy? Women’s organizations have for a long time been fundraising. Claire Midgley has analysed the British antislavery movement and has found evidence that men’s associations have given less priority to fundraising than women’s associations.42 Research on socialist women’s organizations in Canada and Britain shows that women were raising funds for the parties.43 Fundraising fairs in the United States were not held before the 1830s. Investigations of women’s organizations’ fundraising activities show that they also had other purposes: they had an educational function and helped to mobilize. Fundraising activities served as cause-building.44

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Even the Swedish social democratic women’s movement was busy with fundraising activities, which differed over time and in purpose. And even the attitude towards different types of fundraising activities changed over the years. The first type of fundraising activity can be characterized by an appeal to solidarity for higher political purposes. They provided income but were also cause-building in the sense Boylan has shown for early American women’s organizations. The women’s movement made a good profit from the sale of what today would be called ‘profile products’ such as Christmas flags and party pins.45 This strategy helped not only to save the economy, but the products were also good advertisements for the movement. They were symbols of membership in the social democratic movement and worked as ritual communication, similar to the way flags have worked in the Swedish labour movement.46 It was an accepted strategy to earn extra income. As the price was rather low, it was probably easier for women to spare some of the household money to buy them. Even the sale of brochures could sometimes produce a smaller profit, but some of them were distributed for free and others were sold at cost. They are therefore discussed further under spending strategies. Another form of political fundraising was similar to the work carried out by charity organizations. Social democratic women were engaged in fundraising for poor families and workers, supported people on strike and their families, and worked for similar causes abroad. International solidarity was shown when collecting money for ambulances in war areas. Money and clothing were sent to famine-stricken women and children in Russia.47 This shows that political fundraising was an important investment in international solidarity and was probably very effective for cause-building. While this purpose of fundraising was highly valued at a national level, the same type of work was condemned by the SSKF’s leadership at a local level. Work with political, organizational, agitation and education-related issues was regarded as the main work not only for the SSKF but also the local clubs.48 Socials, such as picnics or coffee parties, were in fact especially important at the local level. The reports sent to Morgonbris on local activity show that most of the work was concentrated on fundraising in order to be able to invite the poor or elderly in the local labour movement for coffee.49 These activities were at the same time connected to what today would be regarded as leisure time activities: taking excursions, having breakfast picnics, and so on. They contributed to keeping local party organizations together, but did not provide an income at the national level. In Sweden, these women gave important support to the party, working for free, fundraising, canvassing and keeping the labour society together with social events.50 This meant that fundraising not only provided more

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income and saved the women’s federation’s economy several times, but it was also an important resource to keep up solidarity locally, nationally and internationally. While the same work at a local level was condemned as apolitical work, it was regarded as highly political at the international level. The third type of fundraising activity was fairs and fêtes organized by the national movement in order to save the movement’s economy. They were used as emergency strategies. Even this form of fundraising is not a social democratic invention, but well known from other women’s and charity organizations. Bazaars were held, for example, to save Morgonbris’ economy.51 Women donated products, probably both homemade and bought. Fêtes organized at a national level were held in the People’s Park (Folkets park) in good weather; otherwise they were held at the People’s House (Folkets hus).52 These activities were concentrated in the years when the cashbox was empty; it was a strategy mainly used during the very first years to make the organization survive. Similar to the party ’s levying system during its start-up, the women’s movement used bazaars and fêtes to make ends meet. Over time political fundraising dominated. It was neither a strategy to earn money for profit nor to fill the gaps in the budget of ordinary work. It was mainly a way to make a profit for practical solidarity, and by this use it as an educating strategy for people involved in the collection of money. The sale of Christmas flags and pins was more accepted and legitimate than the sale of homemade Christmas stars. How can we explain the differences between the women’s movements’ fundraising activities and those of the party? Levies and bazaars were used in both cases during the early times of both organizations and disappeared mainly, although not entirely, during the later periods. During the very first years, women were not individual members in the social democratic women’s movement. To demand extra income before the leaders even could be sure that it was possible to get membership fees would have been asking for the impossible. Both strategies approached members and asked them to give some of their extra money. While male party members often were enrolled by their unions and paid less than other party members, women were, as SSKF members, paying double. To demand levies from them was probably not possible both due to their access to money and their different form of membership. The difference between the two strategies can be explained by the different access to monetary resources for men and women during this period. Most men, being party members, had their own income, while women did not. Second, women’s and men’s spending was dependent on their different budgeting of the little extra money they had. While it was possible for a man to take some of his income to spend it in the pub, this

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was much more unusual for women. Instead women were more often trying to save some of the household money in order to buy necessary goods such as clothing for the children. To spend a little money on a bazaar with products usable in the house was probably easier for women than to donate money to the movement.

Spending Spending can show which kinds of priorities were made when an organization was built up. Not only how money was spent but also the choice to spend money or not is therefore interesting. Expenses varied over the years. The pattern of prioritization is very similar to the one of the SAP. Lotta Gröning has described the expense pattern of the party as an investment into education. Most of the party’s money was spent on the party press, followed by campaigning.53 As Figure 5.5 shows the women’s movement spent most of the money on the journal, followed by campaigns, administration and education.

Figure 5.5  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: SSKF Annual reports, account books.

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Figure 5.6  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933 without Morgonbris in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual reports, account books. In 1908, 1911, 1914, 1917, 1920, 1924, 1928 and 1932 national elections were held. For the years of 1914 and 1917 only average numbers are available, which makes costs for canvassing invisible.

Figure 5.6 shows that costs for campaigning were especially high during election years. Even the costs for Morgonbris were increasing during election years as special election issues were printed. Expenses for administration during the first period were kept at about the same level until the SSKF was founded in 1920.

Mobilizing Members and Voters Why not do everything to attract people and why not show that socialism is not against culture, but makes culture and refinement a property of every man?54 (The author’s translation)

As mentioned earlier, the social democratic women’s movement in Sweden mobilized consensus around the lack of campaigning among women.

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It is not surprising that during the first years of organizing money was spent on campaigning. Campaigns were carried out in two main ways: organizers were touring Sweden to start new clubs, and written campaigns were an alternative to reach members in other parts of such a geographically vast country as Sweden. There was also a third form of campaigning, which was not only promoting the women’s organization, but was also soliciting votes for the SAP ’s election campaigns at the local, regional, and national levels.55 The priority given to the first two types of campaign was dependent on available funds. That the party leadership regarded campaigning as among the most legitimate has already been demonstrated by the discussion of income and the earmarking of contributions. Campaigning can also be regarded as an investment into a growing organization, providing new members in return.56 Campaigning was carried out in a similar way as the SAP. Figure 5.7 shows that during the first years about the same sum as was contributed by the party was spent on campaigning by the women’s movement. The figure also shows that party contributions and sums spent on campaigning differed. Here it is important to note that the party also contributed with money for conferences; we can see how the spending was adapted to income during the first years. When campaigning cost more than income from the party could cover, income from extra fundraising filled the holes. Women organizers were paid for their work. It was more of an allowance than a wage. In the beginning they were paid 1.50 USD (6 SEK in nominal value) per day, later augmented to 6.70 USD (25 SEK in nominal value). In addition they were paid for their speeches and refunded for travel expenses.57 Several times the employment of a permanent women’s organizer was discussed, but turned out to be too expensive. Financial relief did not come until 1929 when Hulda Flood was employed as women’s chief officer at the party executive. This made it possible for her to campaign on behalf of the SSKF paid by the party. This might also be the reason for the change in view on campaigning tours. During that year agitation was only carried out by Hulda Flood.58 It was no luxurious life these early organizers lived. Flood’s letters and her diary bear witness to the demanding situations campaigners had to endure.59 Still, there had been discussions on reducing subsistence allowances, but in the end, they decided against it. Organizers had to pay to leave their homes and work in order to travel as organizers. They risked losing their jobs, and those with families could often not afford a maid who could have compensated for the lack of time.60 It demanded committed women, living for the movement in order to make the campaigns affordable. To reduce organizers’ allowances might have crossed the limit of what was acceptable even for a committed soul.

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Figure 5.7  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation campaigns 1909–1933 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source ARAB SSKF Annual reports, annual financial reports, account books.

While the statutes regulated campaigning, the way organizing tours had to be prepared and carried out was described in different articles in Morgonbris: it was not enough to have a political message, the message should be wrapped in ‘cultural manifestations’, supplied by local resources. The importance of preparations at the local level was stressed in detail, for instance to put up a dozen posters and, in case they got wet, to put up new ones. It did not always have to be the People’s House, which was regarded as ugly, but could be freshened up with flowers and some borrowed cloth. Campaigning should not only be politics but also entertainment. It was important to cheer up the public with sketches or music. The word ‘campaign meeting’ should not be mentioned; instead ‘education’, ‘fête’ or ‘speech’ should be used. The speech should be illus-

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trated by a sciopticon show – a form of slide show. A ‘nice atmosphere’, a nice room and speakers were regarded as the most important product the organization had to offer, and should be shared by everybody in order to make the perfect evening. Some issues of Morgonbris should always be provided, as they would be there even when the evening was over. Tickets for the evening should be sold privately to friends.61 The instructions also show that it was regarded as very important to prepare the ground for agitation and to mobilize women for an evening with a social democratic speaker. To arrange it in a respectable way, making it clear that that the social democrats were not against culture, seems to have been very important and was in many ways a class-marker. One way was to use the politicization created by local strikes. Campaigns were systematically held at places already politicized, such as where workers were on strike. Women were regarded as politicized through their husbands.62 Moreover, even international events were used to create a politicized atmosphere without demanding financial resources from the national level. International women’s day was celebrated at the initiative of the international socialist women’s organization. These celebrations were not only held in Stockholm but all over the country and had a mobilizing effect.63 And these celebrations were the only activity during years of harsh economy and international conflicts.64 Even though agitation tours were always described in connection with the number of new members and newly founded clubs, it is difficult to say whether organizing new members was to a large extent dependent on women’s agitation or whether it was due to other factors, such as an active local party organization or low resistance to a women’s club. The resistance by local party organizations was discussed several times both between the party executive and the SSKF.65 During the first years, campaigns only took place when local organizations asked for them and could contribute with space free of charge. In several cases, the local or even regional party organizations paid for part of the organizing cost.66 The demand for women organizers at the local level was huge. Campaigning was during the very first years dependent on the contributions from the party . How was the non-payment of party contributions handled? Hulda Flood wrote in her history about the social democratic women’s movement that even though the women’s committee did not have any money it managed to organize 270 lectures between August 1908 and March 1911.67 How did they manage? The main problem, according to her description, was that the committee could not plan agitation in a proper way, as they never knew how much money they would get.68 Party

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contributions were earmarked for campaigning, but not for the administration of campaigns.69 The fact that the movement’s leadership had to make choices between different enquiries for tours shows that party contributions were not enough to cover the demand for touring out in the country. A strategy to increase the number of tours was to use local money to pay for campaigns.70 Existing women’s clubs made excursions to the next village in order to mobilize for a new women’s club there.71 This shows that the movement’s economic situation was composed of different layers, which could be used for national work, although they were not visible in the account books. When women’s clubs could not pay for agitation, they were included in the national agitation plan, which was paid for with the money from the party executive. Other local organizations could afford to pay part of the expenses, and the national organization paid for travel expenses.72 The final strategy to handle non-payments from the party was to cancel tours. When enough money was available, campaigns were carried out at places that did not have a women’s club. Organizers were sent on longer tours, so they could save travel expenses, especially when going up to the far north where distances were long.73 This strategy was also used by the party campaigners.74 To organize meetings together with other organizations and to share the costs was a regular committee strategy during the first years.75 Most of the meetings held in Stockholm were not free but visitors had to pay an entrance fee. The different strategies used also show that campaigning cost much more than the account books tell us. Expenses were paid with local money; space and labour were free of charge. Commitment was necessary to keep early women’s organizers going, despite low allowances. The strategies also show the choices made by the movement. The money spent on campaigning was not more than was received from the party. Despite this, the choice of investments shows that it was not a pure hand-to-mouth strategy; costs were not kept as low as possible, as the tours to areas without local clubs show. Instead of choosing to save some of the money, the movement invested in ‘untouched’ areas. Similar to the party’s strategy, less money was spent on campaigns when less money was available, especially during periods of economic crisis, when other activities were prioritized. Lotta Gröning has shown that the SAP was spending a great deal of money on campaigning during the first two periods of organizing; after 1910 the money was instead used for election campaigns.76 In 1932, agitation tours were no longer regarded as the most effective way of organizing new members.77

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Besides planned campaigning, written campaigns were regarded as the most effective political tool to reach women in remote areas. Postage was low in Sweden, so costs were reduced by sending brochures instead of people.78 Brochures and printed minutes were sold at cost. Printed material during the first year cost nearly as much as campaigning did, but could reach many more people. During the first years and especially in periods when fewer financial resources were available, brochures and folders were given priority.79 The authors were paid for their contributions, and even if they offered to work for free they received at least a small remuneration for their work.80 Several times printed materials were paid for by the party, including distribution. Especially during election campaigns, the party paid for brochures and posters.81 Brochures and posters were controlled by the party secretary in order to be accepted and financed by the party.82 Brochures were sold, while leaflets could be ordered from the SSKF. Written agitation was regarded as an important means to reach new groups, such as female farm workers and housewives.83 While the SAP started a cooperative in order to finance its brochures, the women’s movement used a hand-to-mouth strategy until 1954 when it started the publishing house Morgonbris.84 Election campaigns were expensive but not always prioritized. Their format changed during these years and demanded more advanced techniques like cars and microphones, which could not be provided by private individuals.85 Nevertheless, election campaigns were also conducted in the traditional way: pamphlets and brochures were printed and distributed.86 In the beginning, some of the special election brochures were sold while other circulars were handed out free.87 Contributions from the party, but also from the regional and local women’s organizations, were important. The party used its election fund in which most of the money came from unions, sometimes even tied to electoral pledges.88 Different from the party, the SSKF had no special election campaign fund. Such a fund would probably have been regarded as too separatist. The movement did not prioritize a separate strategy and thus their activities during election campaigns depended on the party’s contribution. As a consequence election campaigns could not be planned properly and led to a hand-tomouth strategy. Besides contributions from the party , extraordinary fundraising activities were used in 1922, when income from a fair paid for the expenses.89 An investment with extraordinary resources was made when women were voting for the first time in national elections. In the 1928 election, campaigns were carried out in places where a local or regional women’s organization was already established.90 In 1930, the SSKF’s executive announced that they could not afford to participate in election campaigns,

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as they did not have the money, the time or the power to go on their own tours. Instead the local party organizations were regarded as the ones responsible for the campaigns.91 Another method of campaigning was ‘house agitation’; this meant that members of the local women’s club went from house to house campaigning for the party and female candidates.92 In 1932 the party did not make any contributions. During that year women used a different form of campaigning. They held a public meeting in Stockholm together with other women’s organizations and female speakers from six different parties.93 Although election campaigns run by the women’s organizations seemed to be organized after the model of the party’s campaigns, this meeting made a difference. Here the fact that social democratic women wanted to win female voters made cooperation with women from other parties possible. It was a period when class was not always given priority before gender. The social democratic women’s movement made large investments in the growth of the organization by sending women organizers on tours all over Sweden and by sending brochures. The strategies used by the SSKF differed from those of the party. They did not start cooperatives or special funds in order to finance their activities. The money was obviously enough to keep to a hand-to-mouth strategy.

Investments in Education Campaigning used enlightenment as a strategy to mobilize new members. This underlines again that this was not just an additional purpose, as fundraising activities have shown. During the 1920s the SSKF broadened its field of activities and used much of its money for adult education; courses were held and scholarships were instituted. Adult education was an important part of the work of women’s organizations, as women had long been excluded from education and from politics. Special investments were regarded as necessary in order to improve women’s influence and power in society.94 In cooperation with the Workers’ Educational Federation (Arbetarnas bildningsförbund or ABF), courses concerning different political topics were organized. Access to ABF’s courses and the possibility of organizing women’s courses within ABF’s activity was an important resource.95 It was an indirect way of getting state subsidies. ABF received state contributions for its courses. Women’s organizations had difficulties in getting these contributions, as the prerequisite was that the organization was only dealing with education.96 Social democratic women also worked to-

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gether with other women’s organizations like the cooperative committee (Samarbetskommittée) and the school of female citizens (Kvinnliga medborgarskolan) at Fogelstad.97 The courses could be attended for a small fee.98 However, cooperation was also a point of discussion. It was suggested they concentrate on women’s issues or specialize in socialist women’s interests. In the latter case women’s courses would be integrated into ABF’s activities.99 It was difficult to finance education in this form at the very beginning. The first courses were paid for by income from the sale of brochures.100 The party also sponsored courses, but sponsoring meant influence on the content of the course. In 1927, a course was held where the party programme was discussed and famous party members gave speeches. The party paid the expenses, but then the course mainly considered issues that fitted the party’s interest.101 A step towards a solution of financing education was the establishment of an educational fund in 1924 in order to finance scholarships. This indicates both bureaucratization of educational strategies and professionalism. It was obligatory for all local women’s clubs to pay at least 1.30 USD (5 SEK in nominal value) per year. During the first years, between five and twelve members received these scholarships.102 Part of the educational fund came from the surplus of Morgonbris. The money was put into a special bank account and the scholarships had to be distributed every year. Scholars received a maximum of 53 USD (200 SEK in nominal value). The first half of the money was received during the autumn and the remaining sum during the spring. These scholarships were a powerful way of both mobilizing and maintaining solidarity among members. The conditions for a scholarship were a membership of at least two years, active participation in the federation’s work, and proof of the relevance of education for future work. Applications had to be sent to the executive together with proof of age and which folk high school the applicant wanted to attend.103 This meant that the fund not only financed the education of the members; it was also a reward for solidarity with the organization, and might have worked as an attraction for membership in the SSKF. It was an investment in members’ education. Lotta Gröning has pointed out a similar investment made by the SAP during its start-up period. Her conclusion is that this investment gave benefit in the form of members and voters.104 A closer look at the conditions for scholarships shows how members were tied to the SSKF by these scholarships, which at the same time were an investment in members’ solidarity. The fact that money was allocated in a special fund shows that the budget for education had grown to a degree that demanded more control over income and expenses. But it also shows how much the movement

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gave priority to education and wanted to be able to plan for it in the long run. The money was not only an investment in members’ education but also in members’ solidarity. It was a way to keep them interested in the movement and at the same time keep them up to date with discussions regarding political development.

Morgonbris – the Voice of Social Democratic Women in Sweden – Nearly an Affiliated Company The circulation of Morgonbris is a good barometer for the awareness amongst women and their understanding of our ideas. As long as there is still a woman in our movement that thinks it is more sophisticated to show Allt för Alla or similar on the newspaper shelf or on the table in the room and puts away Morgonbris in the kitchen and let it become filthy, then she is not only highly uneducated but she is also a less valuable member of our movement.105 (The author’s translation)

Morgonbris can be regarded as the heart of the social democratic women’s movement. Its circulation increased during the whole period studied here. From the very beginning, the party press had been regarded as the most important means of political struggle. This was also the case in the women’s movement. The labour movement made its largest investments in its own press. Newspapers were created, saved and reconstructed at all party levels. This was due to the dominance of the ‘bourgeois’ press agitating heavily against the movement during its initial stage in Sweden.106 The ‘bourgeois’ women’s press is also haunting in the quotation above. The journal Husmodern had a print run of 120,000 in the early 1920s and was, according to the editor, not at all interested in working-class women.107 In order to reach working-class housewives and to convey socialist ideas and ideals to them, an investment in their own journal was important.108 The journal could be used to recruit new members, but also to guarantee members’ solidarity, by informing them about important political subjects and the national political development of the movement. Morgonbris was the SSKF’s journal and not just a bulletin for members. While a bulletin normally was included in membership fees, the journal had a subscription fee. Instead it had to work on similar premises as other journals, which demanded both interesting content and an attractive layout. In order to make the journal pay its way, economic strategies had to take into account rising paper prices and printing costs. The expenses for Morgonbris were until 1930 on average about 75 per cent of the total expenses of the SSKF. In 1930, this changed and Morgonbris’ share of expenses went up to 90 per cent. The largest expenses for Morgonbris were

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printing costs, salaries and remunerations, and it seems that nearly every article was paid for. How was the journal financed? In the beginning most of Morgonbris’ costs were covered by subscriptions and by selling single copies; only a smaller part was paid for by party contributions and an even smaller part by advertisements.109 Morgonbris was from the beginning a costly enterprise, and without support from the party the journal would not have survived the start-up period. Morgonbris was in principle organized as a sub-company to the SSKF, with its own budget and much larger total assets than the federation.110 At the same time Morgonbris was a source of income, not only in the form of contributions from the party, but also in the form of income from the journal that could be used for other activities. This makes the allocation of money an interesting issue. Not only the SSKF’s existence, but also its possibilities to act politically, were dependent on Morgonbris’ economic situation. What kinds of strategies were used to finance the journal? What was given priority? The sale of the periodical was in the beginning organized by a system of local sales agents. Local clubs chose a member as a sales agent working to distribute the journal and recruit new readers. Sales agents were recruited during official campaigning tours and were among other aspects proof of the success of tours.111 It is not clear if they were paid or not, but this way of distributing the journal was probably cheaper than sending them individually by mail. Still in 1956 the same distribution system was upheld with satisfaction. The system demanded commitment from the local sales agents and an investment of their own time.112 The local women’s clubs were economically responsible for the sale of the journal. The system also implied a range of problems as some of the sales agents did not manage to sell all of the copies. Instead of sending them back, they were stored away.113 This left many of the sales agents with debts to the journal, sometimes paid back by a written article. The problem was that only a small number of social democratic women were subscribers or read the journal regularly.114 During the 1930s a new sales strategy was introduced. The idea was to have a political women’s journal that could be found at every newspaper shop but also at every hairdresser, café and hospital. Even if this idea did not work out 100 per cent, during the 1930s Morgonbris was sold at Stockholm’s newspapers shops and the circulation increased enormously. The movement acted strategically on income from advertisements early on. In 1908, when the committee had taken over the journal from the the Women’s Trade Union (WTU), it employed an advertisements agent in order to get advertisements to finance the journal.115 Advertisements became more and more important over time. After the 1930s, advertisements were a far more important income source than sales.116 In 1931 the

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circulation figures for Morgonbris increased by 50 per cent, which made it more attractive for advertisers, but also more expensive.117 Income strategies were also coloured by the movement’s new ideological turn; not all advertisements were accepted.118 Agents in the 1930s got between 25 and 30 per cent of the income from advertisements (there is no information about the income of the earlier agents in the material), which in the minutes was described as the ordinary sum.119 New was that advertisers were increasingly using the option of a yearly subscription to advertise in the periodical. To increase the number of readers, different agitation strategies were used. A Morgonbris day was held all over Sweden, with information meetings and slideshows.120 In the beginning, well-known writers were asked to contribute articles. Later, interviews with well-known politicians about feminist subjects were published.121 A hand-to-mouth strategy characterized the journal’s financial strategies until the 1930s. In order to make ends meet, costs were decreased and fewer pages were printed, instead of increasing the price of sale. In addition, a similar strategy as for membership fees was used. The tension between the number of members/readers and the price was only elastic to some degree. An increase in the price could mean the loss of readers. This would have been a dangerous strategy for a journal with a political, nonprofit-oriented aim. The strategy to increase income by adding more readers, combined with decreasing printing costs, was used until the 1930s. From the 1930s on, the increase in readers became the most important strategy. Under editor Kai Anderson, Morgonbris was turned into a modern journal with a new layout and a new idea of active journalism, which was shown in its new content on homes and functionalism.122 The layout had become much more expensive and costs for printing went up immensely.123 Agreements on the number of pages to be printed between the executive and the congress on the one side, and the editor of Morgonbris on the other side, were not kept. The logic had changed. Even though the number of readers and the circulation had increased from four thousand in the beginning to more than twenty-five thousand in 1936, expenses had risen by too much to make a profit.124 During the other half of the 1930s, the SSKF’s and Morgonbris’ economy went through a deep crisis because of raised expenses due to Morgonbris lacking financial means. None of the sales agents for Morgonbris sent in the money, and published advertisements were not paid for. This economic scandal was hidden for a while by the fact that the bookkeeper had stopped bookkeeping in the middle of 1932.125 This makes it rather difficult to see how the economic situation developed during these years.126 It was a dangerous strategy to use during the economic crisis of the early

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1930s. Even though editor Kai Andersson managed to find a lot of advertisers who would support the journal with an income that would make the new style affordable, there was never enough money. The advertisers were unable to pay at the end of the year. The main reason for this was the consequences of the depression of 1932. An investigation by an external auditor some years later showed that most of the advertisers who had not paid for their advertisements had gone bankrupt.127 This left the journal with heavy liabilities for printing costs in 1932, which it only managed to recover from with financial aid from the party in the mid-1930s.128 The party threatened to take over the journal and did not want to have the SSKF in charge of its finances. Not only did the party appoint an external auditor, it was close to turning the journal into a cooperative.129 Earlier financial problems had been solved by local collections of money.130 This was no longer possible during the 1930s, as the budget was much more extensive than ever before. The helping hand came this time from the party, in the form of a large loan, which was paid off during the 1930s. The development of Morgonbris’ budget illustrates the development of the social democratic women’s movement. Costs for production were kept at an affordable financial level for the SSKF by reducing the size of the publication. This strategy fitted very well with a financial strategy for a member bulletin. But different from bulletins, Morgonbris could also make smaller profits, which were allocated for other movement activities. In this way Morgonbris could be used to build up important parts of the movement’s field of activities. The rearrangement of the periodical in the 1930s was an investment in a new ideological concept that was overrun by worldwide financial development. The strategy was to reach more readers and to reach readers outside the movement in order to increase income. It was a strategy much closer to profit-oriented journals and the party press than a member bulletin was. The party press ended up in a similar situation in 1932 when it became difficult to manage the competition from the ‘bourgeois’ press; similar to Morgonbris, they lacked working capital.131 During economically difficult times, Morgonbris was given priority, not only by the SSKF but also by the party.132 This illustrates that the journal was not only important as a vehicle for internal communications but was regarded as an important means to communicate with women outside the movement. To give priority to the journal meant also an investment into campaigns for new members. Financial problems led to the question of reorganizing the financial structure of Morgonbris. Several times a transformation into a cooperative was suggested but was never realized, as the editors managed to keep down costs and thereby managed to make a profit, which saved the journal’s finances.133 But maybe these activist women just lacked the financial knowledge to do so.

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Administration For a movement whose economic resources never increased to the same extent as the organization’s and the movement’s expansion, it is sometimes a difficult decision to balance, how much of the resources should be used for administration of the central office and paid staff. Moreover, it is important to stress how much the success of the Women’s Federation’s work depends on the central office working effectively and rationally, as all the threads meet there.134 (The author’s translation)

Costs for administration and its priority can indicate the importance of an organizational structure. Campaigning is an important strategy to gain other powerful resources: new members and solidarity of existing members. Administration is an important condition for campaigning. Administration created expenses for meetings, salaries, and attendant costs like rent and postage.135 Some of these expenses did not increase because of a growing number of members, while others did, such as postage and part of the attendant costs. Figure 5.8 indicates that administration was prioritized when a new organizational structure was introduced, both in the very beginning of mobilizing and when the SSKF was founded in 1920. In addition, it shows the importance of a working administration for the mobilization of members. However, administration was difficult to fund. As mentioned earlier, the party contribution could in the beginning only be used for campaigning, but not for the administration of campaigns. Expenses for administration grew between 1907 and 1933. In order to understand if the growing number of members led to increased administrative costs, we have related the number of clubs between 1920 and 1933 to administrative costs. For the earlier period, between 1907 and 1919, there are no figures for clubs available. Instead, we have used the number of representatives at congresses, as every local organization was able to send one representative and for each subsequent fifty members they could send another representative.136 The number of clubs used for the first period should then be too low rather than too high, as they only show the number of representatives who took part in the congress meeting and not those who could not come. Figure 5.8 shows that money spent on administration per local club varied greatly over the years. It also shows that during and after the general strike administrative expenses were high in relation to the number of local member organizations, which shows that the survival of the organization was prioritized. During the first years, the congress years are marked by increased costs for administration; later these expenses were covered by a special fund. What were the reasons for the different amounts of money being spent by

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the local organizations during these years? The increase in expenditure in 1911 is partly because the number of representatives decreased from sixty to twenty-three, while expenses for administration were fixed costs.137 What actually raised the costs for some years were expenses for salaries, meetings, telephone and postage. The latter especially was dependent on the number of clubs. The share of costs for administration shows that during economically harsh years, administration was prioritized. In 1911, 89 per cent of the most important expenses were costs for administration. During the following years, only a small part of the budget was spent on administration, while costs rose again during the 1920s. This was also the period when the federation had grown. Mobilizing new members was still important, but the administration of members was prioritized and members brought new income, which enabled the movement to cover costs. Already in 1908, the president was paid for her work both as president and as editor of the journal. In addition, she received a housing allowance.138 The size of salaries was decided by the congress and was explicitly mentioned in the statutes. The working committee had from the beginning

Figure 5.8  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation’s administrative costs per club. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual reports and financial reports. For the period 1907–1919 the numbers of representatives at congresses were used, while for the period 1920–1933 the number of clubs was used.

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made suggestions on the size of salaries. In 1908, the president suggested employing one person to take care of the administrative work. The suggestion was to pay 250 USD (950 SEK in nominal value) for one year’s administrative work.139 This would have been a comparably high salary. According to the annual financial reports, this salary was never paid. In 1932 the president received 310 USD (1,700 SEK in nominal value), the treasurer received 420 USD (2,300 SEK), the office employee 220 USD (1,200 SEK) and the editor of Morgonbris 420 USD (2,300 SEK). All the salaries were constructed with financial support from Morgonbris.140 Compared to editors of other non-profit oriented Swedish women’s journals, the editor of Morgonbris only received a symbolic sum. In 1928 Agda Östlund stated that the editor of Husmodern, the journal of the Swedish Housewives’ Association, received 5,360 USD (20,000 SEK) compared to the 270 USD (1,000 SEK) which the editor of Morgonbris received.141 Class obviously mattered not only for access to the resources but also the very use of them. The size of salaries mirrors the status structure but also the fact that employees with lower salaries only worked part time. The difference in income between the office employee and the treasurer shows a difference in status. The difference between president and editor indicates again the priority given to Morgonbris. The journal demanded more work, and the president worked less than the editor did. The fact that the editor and the treasurer got the same salary indicates that the movement’s economic situation had created so much work that a full-time treasurer was needed. The SSKF started to resemble a small business. Earlier costs for remuneration and salaries were registered under the office. The fact that salaries had become a post in the account shows that these expenses were growing, due to the growing administrative work the committee had to conduct. There was no discussion about reducing costs for salaries and remuneration during the start-up period. The expenses paid from 1920 on corresponded to the sums paid during the very first years. This demonstrates the professionalism of the first women’s committee and its prioritization of administration in order to make the organization survive. But it also shows the party’s and the SSKF’s problems in the early 1920s. In 1922, the federation executive described the official functionary’s salaries as too low, but the issue was not followed up.142 Most of the work at the national level was paid for, although the salaries were not high. This strategy with paid staff was an effective way of building up a strong organization with small means from a rather poor member group. The very first attempts to organize social democratic women at a national level show, therefore, a high degree of professionalism similar to the case of the FBA.

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Getting Together – Meetings The movement arranged a range of different meetings. We have already discussed campaign meetings. But meetings for the leadership and congresses were also expensive. While the first ones partly filled administrative demands, exchanging information and putting congress decisions into practice, the second ones created time and space for democratic discussions and decisions. Congresses were important to uphold solidarity among members and stabilize the growth of membership during the first two phases of organizing. What strategies were used to finance administrative meetings? Centralization was a way of cutting costs. While the first committees represented women from different parts of Sweden, this changed in both 1911 and 1914, when the committee turned into a Stockholm-based group.143 This strategy had consequences for the flow of information and decisions. The lack of money led to a hierarchically centralized organization, where the members of the executive outside Stockholm were cut off from information and decisions.144 Another strategy, which was not visible in the minutes until many years later, was used by individuals. Committee members not taking out their remunerations during these years covered the obvious lack of money for the committee’s work.145 In practice, this meant that the economical consequences of the general strike in 1909 were paid for by the committee members’ unpaid work. The congress was the most important institution of the movement, even though the president had a strong position.146 This made financing the attendant cost democratically important in order to make participation possible for every local organization, independent of their financial situation. Travel expenses were from the beginning shared equally between all the local organizations represented and were not to exceed a certain sum.147 The congress fee and daily allowances were paid by the local clubs.148 This way of sharing costs equally between all local organizations enabled all to participate, mostly independent of the financial situation at the local level, as the costs were limited to a certain amount. The way of handling expenses changed over time. In 1917, the twelve women’s clubs registered for a congress fund which was the first formal economic relation between the local clubs and the women’s committee at a national level.149 The fund made it easier to plan congresses. In 1928 there was not enough money in the congress fund to pay all the attendant cost for the congress, and it was decided to raise the fee for this fund to 90 USD (350 SEK in nominal value) for each year. In 1932, making the congress fund part of the statutes was discussed.150

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A way of saving money was by decreasing travel expenses. Congresses were held in connection with other larger meetings, such as party congresses. In this way, travel expenses could be saved and sometimes paid by or shared with the other organization. Moreover, it gave these women the possibility of discussing subjects before or after party congresses, which could give them more strength and unity in these male-dominated assemblies. Until 1920, when social democratic women got their own office, space or the lack of space was a subject frequently discussed. When social democratic women met for the first time in 1906 to plan the first conference, they were able to borrow space from other organizations in the labour movement.151 Neither the committee nor the SSKF ever asked the party for a meeting room; instead, they approached the LO and different trade unions on this issue.152 This indicates some strategic separatism. Even though working in the party’s office could probably provide a lot of useful information, the federation would probably also end up under the control of the party. In the very beginning, space was borrowed for single meetings. The women’s movement did not have its own office. In order to keep up basic daily administrative tasks a telephone was installed in the president’s office.153 Rent contributions to the president and the editor of Morgonbris indicate that they were working at their homes in the very beginning.154 More space was needed than was available during this period. Later, when larger office rooms were available, some were let for rent in order to keep costs down.155 Office space was shared with and, to a large extent, paid for by Morgonbris.156 In other contexts, space had another dimension. It was a question of representation. Congresses were mostly held at the People’s house (Folkets hus) in Stockholm, where after 1902 the party paper Social-Demokraten, the workers’ printing shop, and several unions had their offices. Hjalmar Branting regarded the new location of the People’s house as tremendously revolutionary. The labour movement was rooted in the middle of Stockholm, which made it impossible to ignore social democrats in the future.157 The A-hall, which was the preferred location for women’s conferences, was also the traditional location used by the SAP.158 This representation was even more obvious when the women celebrated the general franchise. The ‘bourgeois’ women held their celebration at Skansen, a symbol representing the whole of Sweden, and the social democratic women celebrated at the People’s House.159 The arrangement around congresses shows the relation to the party. The congress was to be held every third year, if possible before the party congress. This gave social democratic women the possibility of preparing sub-

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jects for the party congress at their own congress. This gave them strength at the congresses as they knew the women’s position when speaking. Space was seldom free of charge. The social democratic women’s movement advanced over time in renting different locations for different events. The Medical Scientific Association’s premises (Läkarsällskapet), the city hall, the concert hall and Parliament were places where ‘bourgeois’ women activists met, as we have seen in previous chapters.160 Money spent on space shows that the movement from the very beginning was looking for ‘a room of its own’. The development over time shows how the movement claimed more and more space for its activities.

First of May, Birthdays and Funerals – Times for Manifestations Money was often spent on manifestations. Manifestations were important for the labour movement, which was mainly obvious at demonstrations held on the First of May, but also at birthdays and funerals. Fêtes were organized to celebrate the anniversaries of both the SSKF and Morgonbris, but also for the pioneers of the movement. There were manifestations of the growth, but also of the duration of their work. They were an important part of the social democratic women’s movement’s culture. Even though no large sums were spent on these occasions, the federation participated with fundraising for party leaders’ birthdays and funerals, but also by leading women within the women’s movement in Sweden and of course especially active social democratic women.161 These were opportunities to show the integration of their separate organization in the context of larger party celebrations.

Allocating Money The financial strategies look at first glance very much like a hand-to-mouth strategy. But a closer look at the strategies show that social democratic women allocated smaller surplus for other purposes. How were losses and surplus handled? During the period after the general strike in 1910, assets were mainly the party’s outstanding debts.162 These external liabilities were covered on the one hand by the women’s committee’s loans from the journal. Morgonbris had in turn external liabilities, mainly for outstanding printing bills. At least twice during the start-up period the treasurers took personal loans.163

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During the first period the auditors’ report shows that, until 1914, losses were covered by internal liabilities; money was borrowed from the journal.164 External liabilities were high during the years of economic crisis in the aftermath of the general strike, and war inflation led to the loss of more than 50 per cent of assets.165 The second period marked by large external liabilities was from 1931 on. The reason for this development was the shift of the journal, discussed earlier. The profit made during some years (see Figure 5.9) was due to the journal, and this profit was often invested in the educational fund or educational activities. The congress and the educational fund were built up by contributions from the local clubs. During several years some clubs did not make regular payments.166 This was also the reason why these two funds became part of the statutes in 1932.167 Although this was a long-term strategy, even in

Figure 5.9  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation assets and liabilities 1910– 1933 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: ARAB SSKF Annual reports, financial reports and account books.

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this case a hand-to-mouth strategy is visible. Both interest and incoming money from local clubs to the congress fund were used to pay for shared travel expenses. Even for the educational fund a hand-to-mouth strategy is visible. Scholarships were distributed as long as there was money available. But part of the profit made by Morgonbris was consolidated in the educational fund.168 The SSKF had its holdings in different bank companies. The income from interest was very small and the minutes do not show any strategic discussions on this subject.

Financial Strategies: A Summary The movement is not ripe to carry out what cannot be burdened economically by a movement in the long run.169 (The author’s translation)

The growth of the social democratic women’s budget reflects the growth of the movement and the broadening of activities over the years. Most of the money was spent on the periodical. If we only look at expenses without Morgonbris, the budget shows that between 60 and 90 per cent of the money was spent on campaigning, including both brochures and tours. It illustrates the need for mobilizing members to make the movement grow, and the need to educate them. The strategy changed when the SSKF was founded and membership fees created a new source of income. After 1920, the share of money spent on campaigns decreased and the money spent on administration and salaries grew. The growth of the organization had created more administrative tasks; more staff and larger premises were needed. The budget also shows that during years of economic crisis the survival of the organizational structure was prioritized. Gullan Gidlund has shown how the expense profile of the party in Sweden mirrors the party’s priorities during this period. Expenses for campaigns and agitation were the largest share, although they decreased over the years when permanent costs, such as salaries, administration and contributions to other close organizations, grew. Her conclusion is that the expense profile for SAP is characteristic of an organization during its startup that has to face both ‘survival and growth’.170 A growing organization needs to stay in close contact with its members, which makes administration important. Although the work was from the beginning mainly unpaid, Gidlund’s overview of expenses shows that salaries and administration were an economic post, although a small one, from the beginning.171

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A comparison with the SAP indicates that the women’s movement often used similar financial strategies as the party. The knowledge about these strategies was often a matter of family relations. The first treasurer of the movement was married to the treasurer of the party. Most of the money was spent on campaigning and the press during the first period. What differed was the ways money was allocated. The party had used both funds and cooperatives to organize the budgets of the party press and election campaigns. One reason for this is probably the size of the budget. Social democratic daily newspapers had a different budget than the women’s movement’s monthly journal. The problems with Morgonbris during the 1930s makes one wonder why such a large enterprise was not put on a more stable footing with a financial structure that was easier to plan and control, which even a cooperative would have been able to do. One possible answer is that social democratic women did not have any experience as leaders of such a business, something that has to do with the formations of class and gender during this historical period. Another difference between the income strategies of the party and the federation was the different activities that were used to fund extra projects and to fill financial holes during economic crises. A probable explanation can be found in the gendering of fundraising activities, but also in the difference between members’ access to financial resources. Working-class men could have more direct access to monetary resources; they earned their own income, although we know that many of these men left their salaries to their wives for administration. Levying was, therefore, a more typical fundraising activity during the early years of the party than for the women’s movement. The women’s movement used instead sales, later combined with an educational purpose, as its main emergency strategy during the first years. To buy products was probably more legitimate for housewives than ‘donating’ money. The structure of expenses demonstrates that the earliest period of organizing social democratic women gives an image of a highly professionalized organization, with paid staff albeit with low salaries, that could be accepted as legitimate by the movement. A comparison of the income and expenses between the first social democratic women’s organizing and the later SSKF shows the enormous financial dependency on the party during the first period. Social democratic women had to organize their work according to their financial income from the beginning. Financing campaigns illustrate this. When party contributions did not come, campaigns had to be reduced or even cancelled. Expenses were calculated and reduced when no money was available. This rather careful strategy was put aside for a short period during the economic

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crisis of the 1930s and jeopardized the existence of the ‘voice of the movement’. Insufficient bookkeeping, a committed editor and the economic crises made the federation nearly lose responsibility over Morgonbris, as the party leadership threatened to take it over. This case illustrates the difficulties of broadening activities quickly without the consent of all members. During years of profit, Morgonbris sponsored parts of the SSKF’s work, especially in the form of contributions to the educational fund. All salaries and rents were paid with a contribution from Morgonbris. It was the only capital reserve the federation could use. Morgonbris had, different from the federation, the possibility of getting loans from banks, and printers, which made it functional during economically difficult times. Nevertheless, Morgonbris’ finances could also become an existential problem for the SSKF, as the crisis in the 1930s had proven. This strategy of using Morgonbris as a capital reserve was a heritage from the labour movement, where the largest investments were made as a result of the strong ‘bourgeois’ press in Sweden. The party supported the federation’s strategies for saving the journal. The fact that the party prioritized the journal during economically difficult times shows that the journal had gained much more legitimacy in the eyes of the party leaders than social democratic women’s organizing and its legitimacy paid in cash. Membership fees were, similar to the income of the SAP, the most important resources to cover costs for the administration of a rapidly growing organization. With the growing number of members, more staff and space were needed. The discussion of membership fees shows that the number of members was far more important than the money. Although financial resources were fundamental for organizing social democratic women, legitimacy in the labour movement was crucial. The account books show that a lack of money led to a loss of internal democracy and created a Stockholm-based centralized organization. It was a necessary strategy, as a closer look at assets shows. Still in 1956 the SSKF leadership warned of activities that could not be financed, as the citation above shows. The reason was that social democratic women had limited assets. Although the movement seemed to live from hand to mouth, a closer look shows that smaller amounts of profit were allocated and mainly invested into education. A look at assets and liabilities also shows that most of the SSKF’s and the women’s committee’s liabilities were internal, which means the money came from the journal. The journal’s economy was financed partly by external liabilities, which sometimes could be paid back by the party. This shows, in one way, that Gunnel Karlsson’s argument that the federation always strived for economic independence was true. In another way, social

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democratic women regarded contributions from the party as allowances that they were entitled to. These allowances were only a smaller remuneration for the work the women’s movement carried out for the party when touring in order to mobilize more women. At the same time social democratic women did not conduct work that would enable them to borrow money from outside, or to receive state subsidies during this period. Women’s political work did not pay in cash but was a comparatively expensive activity for women. Instead, the SSKF had to make ends meet with the help of unpaid or lower paid labour.

Class, Gender and Separatism – Three Factors in the Financial Strategies of Socialist Women’s Movements So far the picture of the budget of a growing movement and its bureaucratization is not much different from those of other organizations and movements, such as the feminist middle-class movement or the SAP. But it differed from most other socialist women’s movements in that the Swedish movement actually had its own budget. Neither German, nor Canadian, nor even the Labour and Socialist Internationals women’s committees had money of their own. Their account books do not mention a cent for the work of the women’s movement. Although several of these movements did have a women’s chief officer employed by the party, their salaries were not earmarked for women in the annual financial reports.172 Although German women had their own conferences, a periodical, a women’s secretary and even women’s organizers, the costs are hidden in the party accounts. While autonomous ‘bourgeois’ women’s organizations always had a budget of their own and could make strategic decisions about the use of the money, most of the women organized in the labour movement could not. The development of the British Women’s Labour League (WLL) might help to understand the outstanding position of the Swedish social democratic women. The separate organizing of the WLL between 1906 and 1918 gives us a chance to compare their financial strategies. Unfortunately financial accounts are only available for the period between 1906 and 1915. Both movements started to organize during the same period and changed their organizational form due to the election reforms, although in opposite directions. To begin with, if we compare the size of the budgets between the two movements, we can see that both movements started with a similar size budget, of around 500 USD (in real value).

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In 1915 we can see a difference that shows that the budget of the WLL was double the size of the Swedish budget, although the UK was in the middle of the war. The explanation is given by the sources of income, which show that the WLL, different from the Swedish movement, did not get any contributions from the British Labour Party (BLP). Instead it received its largest share of income from private donors, mainly Margaret MacDonald, a source of income to which Swedish women never gained access.173 This shows British activists’ larger dependence on individuals with private capital, while Swedish women were dependent on party contributions. Swedish social democratic women received by far their largest income from their periodical, compared with the WLL lower incomes from Labour Woman and the earlier League Leaflet. Although the WLL had access to membership fees, they never formed as high a share as they did during a later period in Sweden. What is interesting is that in both cases income from sales had a similar importance for overall income. This strengthens the thesis of sales as gendered income strategy, mainly used by women. However, only a larger and more thorough comparison can lead to a sound conclusion. What was the money spent on? Can we find any difference in terms of what was given priority?

Figure 5.10  Women’s Labour League incomes and expenses 1906–1915 in USD Source: LHASC Women’s Labour League annual reports 1906–1916.

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Expenses show that both movements spent their largest shares on campaigning in the beginning. Over time less money was spent on campaigns and more on salaries and administration in both cases. Written agitation was used during years when less money was spent on ordinary tours. The comparison also shows how much more Morgonbris was given financial priority compared to Labour Woman. A glance at the WLL’s assets and liabilities shows that most of the assets were allocated in the organizing fund, which was established in 1906.174 This shows a more professional financial strategy during the first years and the more stable income from membership fees that enabled WLL women to start a fund. For the years after 1912, the WLL lacked working capital.175 Although the WLL dissolved in 1918 when its members became members of the BLP, the financial accounts give a picture of a similar problem as in the Swedish case. Both movements were dependent on irregular external incomes and were in need of working capital. While the WLL already had proven the strategy of affiliation fees, the Swedish movement had not. Membership fees had turned out to be a sustainable successful financial strategy in the Swedish case, but they had not in the

Figure 5.11  Women’s Labour League main incomes 1906–1915. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: LHASC Women’s Labour League annual reports 1906–1916.

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Figure 5.12  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main incomes. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: ARAB SSKF financial reports, accounts and cash books.

case of the WLL. The choice to remain independent was probably very difficult to finance by the WLL. The development of women’s organizing in the BPL also allows for comparing how much money was spent on women integrated in the party. Different from the International, the German and the Canadian parties, the BPL earmarked at least part of the money spent and earned by activities directed towards women.176 Although it is a questionable method to choose the entries earmarked with women’s activities in order to see how much money was spent on women in the party, it still gives us the possibility of seeing how different posts of income and expenses developed. The entries used are expenses for brochures and the journal, and salaries for chief officer Marion Phillips and women organizers. Moreover, this includes the costs for administration of the standing joint committee of women. Of course women also profited from other income and expenses not earmarked for women, but the account on earmarked entries can give us a glimpse of whether more or less money was spent on women in the WLL or in the BLP.

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Figure 5.13  Women’s Labour League main expenses 1906–1915. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: LHASC Women’s Labour League annual reports 1906–1916.

Figure 5.14  Swedish Social Democratic Women’s Federation main expenses 1907–1933. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Financial reports, account and cash books.

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Figure 5.15  Women’s Labour League assets and liabilities 1906–1915 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: LHASC Women’s Labour League annual reports 1906–1916.

Figure 5.16 shows that in 1922 expenses had already reached a level which Swedish social democratic women did not have until the 1930s. What did the BLP spend the money on? Figure 5.17 shows that most of the money was used for administration, but that more and more money was spent on the periodical Labour Woman. At the same time, the periodical also provided the most important income. The budget for Labour Woman in the early 1920s was larger than that of Morgonbris. The BLP spent more money on women than the SSKF did during the same time. A significant difference between these integrated forms of organizing women in parties for both the WLL and the Swedish social democratic movement is that they were unable to allocate money or to make strategic decisions on how the money should be used. The income sources of the WLL and the early Swedish social democratic women illustrate the two different cultures, but also differences in members of the British and the Swedish labour movements. While donations from private capital were the main income source during crisis, the Swedish labour movement did not have access to a source like this; instead, the money came from the Labour movement. This was also the case for available space: while the WLL had an office in Margaret and Ramsay MacDonald’s house, Swedish women only during the very first years had some

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Figure 5.16  Incomes and expenses of women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: LHASC BLP general ledgers.

Figure 5.17  Major expenses for women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: LHASC, BLP general ledgers 1921–1925.

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Figure 5.18  Major incomes for women in the Labour party 1921–1925 in USD. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: LHASC BLP general ledgers 1921–1925.

kind of office in the president’s home. This was, different from the WLL, not a form of donation, but just a necessity. Later office space was rented, spatially separate from the Swedish SAP. Whether more or less money was spent was also dependent on the number of members and other non-monetary resources.

Notes 1. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 79. 2. Zelizer, ‘The Social Meaning of Money’, 139; Zelizer, ‘The Creation of Domestic Currencies’, 368 and 371. 3. Zelizer, ‘The Social Meaning of Money’, 141; Zelizer, ‘The Creation of Domestic Currencies’, 367f. 4. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 73. 5. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 79. 6. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 64. 7. ARAB SSKF Minutes 17 June 1914, 500 SEK in nominal value were granted for administration. 8. SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933; G. Karlsson. 1996. Från broderskap till systerskap: det socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbundets kamp för inflytande och makt i SAP, Arkiv avhandlingsserie, 44, Lund: Arkiv, Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 80. 9. See, e.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 August 1910; 3 February 1920; 18 July 1930. The journal was saved by party contributions when it was on its way into bankruptcy in the 1930s, see ARAB SSKF Minutes 1933–1937, where it was a topic under permanent discussion.

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10. Gidlund, Partistöd, 102–4 and 121; Gröning, Vägen till makten, 90f. 11. The party executive had not paid any money during 1909, although they had promised a certain sum. After the general strike the party coffers were empty and there was no money for the women’s conference. ARAB SSKF Minutes 3 March 1909; 21 July 1909; 15 September 1909; 15 December 1909; 25 February 1910; 25 April 1910 (decision from the party executive not to contribute any money at all). 12. ARAB SSKF Minutes 25 April 1910, report on a letter from the party executive. 13. ARAB SSKF Minutes 25 April 1910. 14. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 May 1920, information from the party executive. About the party’s financial problems see Gröning, Vägen till makten, 98. 15. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 80. 16. ARAB SSKF Minutes 25 November 1928: ‘Vi får ju arbeta som på nåd och tigga pengar till vår verksamhet, vilken alls uppskattas, utan man får istället en känsla av att partistyrelsen anser oss sitta i vägen och hindra arbetet för kvinnornas anslutning till partiet’. 17. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 January 1907. 18. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 January 1907. It was decided to apply for certain sums from the party, the Swedish trade union confederation LO and Stockholm’s local party organization, while no sum was mentioned when applying for money from the youth organization and the local party organization in Malmö. 19. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 February 1907. 20. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 May 1908; 30 October 1919. 21. Letter from the LO executive 29 April 1907 in ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 April 1907 letter from the Swedish trade union confederation LO executive: ‘att nämnda belopp får lyftas i mån af behov och efter för sekretariatet företedd plan för agitationen i fråga’. 22. ARAB SSKF Minutes 19 March 1909. Report from a meeting with the party executive, where party secretary Wikman was against sponsoring of the women’s organization, the executive decided against his opinion. 23. Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money. 24. ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 January 1914. 25. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 79. 26. Gidlund, Partistöd, 111. 27. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 79. 28. Gidlund, ‘From Popular Movement to Political Party’, 108; Gröning, Vägen till makten, 64–66. 29. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 65. 30. Congress decisions referred to in ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 June 1924. For Trade Unions leaving the SSKF, see SSKF Annual Reports 1924–1927. 31. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige; Gidlund, ‘From Popular Movement to Political Party’, 108; Karlsson (1996), Från broderskap till systerskap, 62f.; Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 64–66. 32. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 65. 33. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 89. 34. ARAB SSKF Minutes 26 February 1932; earlier several motions on making exemptions for unemployed and sick members, see ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 February 1931. 35. Josefin Rönnbäck has shown such a development for the Swedish suffrage movement. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 105. 36. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 66f. 37. Gidlund, Partistöd, 67–70. 38. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 72. 39. Gidlund, Partistöd, 110f.; Gröning, Vägen till makten, 70f.

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40. Gröning, Vägen till makten:, 71f.; Gidlund is not mentioning incomes from sales beside the incomes from the sale of the red flower which became part of the election fund: Gidlund, Partistöd, 110. 41. SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. 42. C. Midgley. 1992. Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870, London: Routledge, 52. 43. Graves, Labour Women, 157–67. 44. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 182f.; Midgley, Women Against Slavery, 53. 45. The Christmas flag was sold for the first time in 1916 with a profit of 516 SEK in nominal value, party pins were sold for the first time in 1929 and a peace flower was sold in 1930. ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 May 1916, 16 January 1918; 25 November 1928; 29 April 1929; 24 April 1930. 46. M. Ståhl. 1999. Vår fana röd till färgen: fanor som medium för visuell kommunikation under arbetarrörelsens genombrottstid i Sverige fram till 1890, Linköping studies in arts and science, 202, Linköping: Tema University, chapter 7. 47. ARAB SSKF Minutes 20 November 1912, 27 January 1915, 1 March 1923, 7 February 1924, 22 April 1924, 13 June 1924, 14 January 1926, 31 August 1926. 48. ‘Hur behjärtansvärda och i en del fall välmotiverade sådana insatser än är, är ändå den politiska verksamheten, organisations-, agitations- och skolningsarbetet i så trängande behov av ekonomisk förstärkning inom en rörelse med så begränsade resurser som vår, att man skulle önska att alla klubbar såg detta som den bästa användningen de kan få för sina pengar – i den mån de har några’, Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 53. 49. Morgonbris 1920–1923, ‘Från kvinnoklubbarnas arbetsfält’. 50. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 53. 51. ARAB SSKF Minutes 20 July 1910, 25 August 1910, 12 September 1910, 24 April 1911, 6 December 1922, 4 June 1926. 52. ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 September 1911, 16 April 1912, 4 September 1913, 9 June 1915, 1 March 1923, 6 April 1925, 18 November 1929, 11 February 1930. 53. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 72–80. 54. ‘Men varför inte göra allt för att locka folk till sig och varför inte visa att socialismen visst inte är kulturfientlig, utan tvärtom vill göra kultur och förfining till var mans egendom’. “Hur möten kunna anordnas” Morgonbris, 1921, No. 5. 55. SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. During election times election campaigns were prioritized, ordinary campaigns were only held at places with already established women’s clubs. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 June 1928. 56. See reports on agitation in ARAB SSKF Annual Reports and Minutes. Moreover, Hulda Flood has written on her campaign tours in her diaries; see Swedmark, Hulda Flood: socialist, agitator, kvinnopionjär, 113, and Flood’s diaries, but also her letters in the collections of ARAB. 57. ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 July 1908, 12 November 1911, 16 November 1912, 2 July 1915, 24–25 August 1929. 58. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 67f. ARAB SSKF Minutes undated 1908. ARAB SSKF Annual Report 1929, 3. 59. ARAB Hulda Flood’s papers, letters and diaries, Swedmark, Hulda Flood: socialist, agitator, kvinnopionjär, 16 and 113. Kata Dalström, who was working as a campaigner for the party and was working for the women’s conference to some extent, had reached an age when she was working as campaigner that she was allowed to travel second class instead of third, and was also afterwards allowed to get her luggage checked in. ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 April 1908. 60. ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 September 1907, in the beginning organizers did risk losing their regular work because of their agitation work; an agitator needed to have another income to make ends meet, 6 May 1909; 24–25 August 1929. One of the organizers did ask for some

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other work at the SSKF in order to be able to pay for a maid, as she could not manage to take care of her household due to her political work. ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 June 1932. 61. Nelly Thüring in Morgonbris 1920, No. 20. 62. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1 March 1923. 63. SSKF Annual Reports 1910–1933. 64. In 1917 most of the debate in the executive was about the organization of international women’s day. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1917. 65. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 143; Karlsson. Från broderskap till systerskap: det socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbundets kamp för inflytande och makt i SAP, 82f.; Swedmark, Hulda Flood: socialist, agitator, kvinnopionjär, 42. ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 October 1920, 16 May 1922, 25 November 1928, 28 January 1929. 66. See e.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 May 1907, 9 July 1907, 5 September 1907, 30 September 1907, 18 November 1913. 67. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 42. 68. Ibid.; Gidlund, ‘From Popular Movement to Political Party’. 69. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1907–1914: applications could only be made for travel expenses, and the money was only refunded and not paid in advance. 70. ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 September 1909. SSKF Annual Reports, reports on agitation 1908–1933. 71. See e.g., Morgonbris ’Från Kvinnoklubbarnas arbetsfält’ 1920–1923 and SSKF Annual Reports 1922–1923, 3. 72. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 November 1907. 73. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 February 1907, 26 February 1932, ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. See also ARAB Hulda Flood’s papers, Hulda Flood’s Diaries. 74. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 73. 75. ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 August 1906, §4. 76. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 73f. 77. ‘Nyrekryteringen till förbundets avdelningar har på senaste tid visat oavbruten stegring, dock tarvas ännu mycket organisationsarbete innan resultatet av medlemsvärvningen och antalet nybildade klubbar kan anses nöjaktig. Agitationsveckan måste därför på allt sätt göras mera effektiv med som förbundet ej förfogar över tillräckliga ekonomiska resurser att ständigt hålla talare ute på turnéer, och detta knappast är den effektivaste formen för medlemsvärvningen, måste tyngdpunkten mera läggas på distriktsorganisationernas arbete, naturligtvis med bistånd och överinseende av förbundsstyrelsen.’ ARAB SSKF Minutes 26 February 1932. 78. D. Nordmark, E. Johannesson and B. Petersson (eds). 2003. Den svenska pressens historia: II, Åren då allt hände (1830–1897), Stockholm: Ekerlid, 2003, 203–12. 79. See especially ARAB SSKF Minutes 1907–1919. 80. ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 September 1907, 6 January 1908, 18 November 1920, 20 March 1932. 81. E.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 September 1907, 15 January 1919 and 2 May 1933. 82. ARAB SSKF Minutes 17 November 1918, 29 January 1932. 83. SSKF Annual Report 1933, 17. 84. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 80f.; Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 77. 85. Ibid., 81. 86. Fifty thousand leaflets were printed in 1908, SSKF Annual Reports 1907–1908; Annual Reports 1921, 3. Besides brochures that had been sent to different local sections, four different election leaflets were printed and distributed. These leaflets were directed towards mothers and women in trade unions, and were printed in 300,000 ex. In 1924, seven different leaflets were distributed which were directed especially towards women within different professions; most of the leaflets were paid for by the SSKF during this year. SSKF Annual Reports 1924–1925, 2; Annual Reports 1928, 4, one manifesto in 29,000 ex was printed

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and distributed, four leaflets: to labour women (457,000 ex), to women working within industry and trade (290,000), to maids (215,000), to women in agriculture (150,000 ex). 87. SSKF Annual Reports 1920, 1f. 88. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 67–70. 89. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 December 1922. 90. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 May 1928. 91. ARAB SSKF Minutes 5–6 May 1930. 92. ARAB SSKF Minutes 9 February 1914, 20 November 1928. 93. SSKF Annual Reports 1932–1933, 4. 94. L. Eskilsson. 1991. Drömmen om kamratsamhället: Kvinnliga medborgarskolan på Fogelstad 1925–35, Stockholm: Carlsson, chapter 9; Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, chapter 7. 95. ARAB SSKF Minutes 3 January 1924, 30 October 1924, 29 September 1932, see also SSKF Annual Reports 1922–23, 6; SSKF Annual Report 1924–25, 4f.; 1928, 4; 1926–1927, 6; 1929, 8; 1930, 8; 1931, 7. 96. H. Heffler. 1962. Arbetarnas bildningsförbund 1912–1962: krönika vid halvsekelgränsen, Stockholm: Arbetarnas bildningsförb, 25; K. Nordberg and K. Rydbeck. 2001. Folkbildning och genus: det glömda perspektivet, Mimer (forskningsprogram), Linköping: Mimer Institutionen för beteendevetenskap Univ, 83f. 97. SSKF Annual Report 1924–1925, 4f.; 1928, 4; 1929, 8. 98. 1.20 USD (4.25 SEK in nominal value) per speech; ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 November 1926. 99. ARAB SSKF Minutes 29 September 1932. 100. ARAB SSKF Minutes 14 January 1921. Annual Reports 1922–1923, 6. 101. SSKF Annual Report 1926–1927, 5f. See also the party leader’s participation in 1921, SSKF Annual Report 1921, 4f. 102. SSKF Annual Reports 1926–1931. In 1930 only 120 USD (380 SEK in nominal value) was spent on scholarships, which rose in 1933 to 280 USD (1130 SEK). In 1928 there was very little money in the educational fund, and by 1929 there was no money left at all. 103. SSKF Annual Report 1924–1925, 5f. 104. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 99. 105. ‘Tidningen Morgonbris spridning är en god barometer på vakenheten hos våra kvinnor och förståelse för våra idéer. Så länge som en kvinna inom rörelsen ännu tror att det är finare att skylta med t.ex. ‘Allt för alla’ o.dyl. alster på tidningshyllan eller bordet i rummet och stoppar undan Morgonbris i köket och flottar ned den, så är hon icke blott i mycket hög grad obildad utan hon är helt enkelt en mindre värdig medlem i vår rörelse’, Morgonbris, 1923, No. 1. 106. Gidlund, Partistöd, 109. 107. M. Larsson. 2003. Bonniers – en mediefamilj, Stockholm: Bonnier: Institutet för ekonomisk historisk forskning vid Handelshögsk. i Stockholm (EHF), 115. 108. E. Ekstrand. 2007. Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris, 109–36. 109. SSKF Annual Reports auditor’s reports 1908–1933. 110. SSKF Annual Reports include separate auditor’s reports for Morgonbris and the SSKF. Compare to Ekstrand, Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris, 67. Ekstrand has not compared Morgonbris expenses with the costs of the SSKF. Her results are difficult to compare as she has not deflated the figures for the period 1920–1939, moreover the lack of bookkeeping during some years makes her result rather unreliable. 111. In 1934 Agnes Söderqvist estimated that up to 90 per cent of Morgonbris sales were made by local sales agents. ARAB SSKF Minutes 14 April 1934. 112. Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 56f. 113. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 November 1909, 25 November 1909, 10 January 1910, 11 January 1911, 10 September 1931. The executive threatened also to publish a list in Morgonbris of those sales agents who had not paid their debts to the journal. Morgonbris Förteckning over skulder 1922/3.

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14. ARAB SSKF Minutes 20 September 1931. See Ekstrand. Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris. 1 115. ARAB SSKF Minutes 3 December 1908. See also Ibid., 70f. 116. ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 April 1931, 18 May 1931, 10 September 1931, 15 December 1931, 8 March 1932, 10 August 1932. 117. ARAB SSKF Annual Report 1931, 14. 118. ARAB SSKF Minutes 24 January 1935 where cooperation with industry was mentioned for the growth of incomes from advertisements, 15 January 1936. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige. See also ARAB SSKF Minutes 17 December 1928. An advertisement, by the post bank for their saving accounts, was discussed several times and was not accepted before it was clear that other organizations within the labour movement had also accepted a similar advertisement. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 May 1929. 119. ARAB SSKF Minutes 10 November 1931. 120. ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 May 1911 and was suggested to held again 1931, see ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 May 1931. 121. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 October 1916. See the first issues of Morgonbris, for some examples during later years see Morgonbris julnummer 1927, Morgonbris 1934: 2. 122. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 43f.; Ekstrand. Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris, 53–55. 123. SSKF Annual Reports annual financial report 1932. See also the Discussions in the executive during 1932–1936 ARAB SSKF Minutes 1932–1936. 124. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige; SSKF Annual Report 1937, 5. 125. Ekstrand. Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris, 194f., has explained this development with the accountant’s personal problems. It turned out the accountant took money from the cashbox according to Ekstrand because she was blackmailed. However this explanation is not far reaching enough, as much more money was missing than the amount taken by the accountant. 126. ARAB SSKF Minutes 8 February 1937, the auditors were not able to write their reports as the cashbook had not been used since the end of September 1936. Moreover external auditors, usually working for the party, found out that the bookkeeping was not being done in a proper way and was responsible for the economic problems that had appeared. ARAB SSKF Minutes 24 February 1937 attached promemoria auditing the SSKF’s and the journal’s finances for the period between 1 July 1934 and 30 September 1936. 127. ARAB SSKF Minutes 3 March 1937, supplement with a list of advertisers and their debts to Morgonbris. 128. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1935–1938. See also SSKF Annual Reports 1932–1937. 129. ARAB SSKF Minutes of the 4 November 1909 §6; see also Ekstrand. Kaj Anderssons Morgonbris, 198–202. 130. ARAB SSKF Minutes 25 February 1910, 20 July 1910, 25 August 1910, 24 April 1911, 14 January 1926. 131. Gröning, Vägen till makten, 78f. 132. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 August 1910, 9 November 1911, 6 May 1920 and especially Minutes between 1933 and 1937. 133. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 November 1909, 10 September 1931, 26 February 1932. Preliminary charts for the cooperative were sent to all the local women’s clubs for discussion, 8 March 1932; on 11 June 1937 the party suggested turning Morgonbris into a cooperative. 134. ‘För en rörelse, vars ekonomiska resurser aldrig utvecklats i samma takt som organisationens och rörelsens expansion, är det en ibland bekymmersam avvägningsfråga, hur stor del av resurserna som skall användas till administration av den centrala förbundsexpeditionen och avlöning åt anställd personal. Likväl är det angeläget att betona hur mycket av framgången i förbundsarbetet som hänger på att expeditionen kan fungerar effektivt och rationellt, eftersom alla trådar löper samman här’, Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 71. 135. SSKF Annual financial reports 1908–1933. 136. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 August 1906, §3. 137. For the number of representatives and costs see SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1919.

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38. SSKF Statutes 1908 §1. 1 139. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 November 1908. 140. SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. 141. ARAB SSKF Minutes 25 November 1928. 142. ARAB SSKF Minutes 8 May 1922. 143. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 114. 144. There was a tension between the members living in Stockholm and those living in the countryside from the very beginning; discussions on the lack of information and decisions made by the Stockholm-based group were criticized from the very beginning, ARAB SSKF Minutes 7 August 1908. In addition, the countryside representatives did not always get their remunerations, which caused discussions as well. ARAB SSKF Minutes 12 September 1910. 145. ARAB SSKF Minutes 17 March 1915. 146. SSKF Statutes 1920, Kongressen, §7. 147. ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 August 1906, §3. 148. SSKF Statutes 1908, Kongressen, §4. 149. ARAB SSKF Minutes 5 September 1917. 150. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 February 1932. 151. The Minutes witness about the different premises used. From the beginning they used different offices in the People’s House. They started in the premises of the WTU and the Expedition of Broschyrförlaget. The Minutes of 1907 are filled with discussions on premises, both for the congress and executive meetings, and also for campaigns. See ARAB SSKF Minutes 1906–1907. 152. ARAB SSKF Minutes 26 January 1911. 153. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 May 1912. 154. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 May 1912. 155. ARAB SSKF Minutes 26 June 1933. 156. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 (without month, but probably March) 1923. 157. S. Hansson. 1939. Svenska folkrörelser V Folkets hus och parker, Stockholm: Lindfors, 432. 158. ARAB SSKF Minutes 11 December 1912, 2 April 1908, 16 April 1912. See also Ibid. 159. L. Jönses. 1999. ‘Ett Sverige i smått eller ett Tyskland över allt?: nation och territorium genom upptäckt och försvar under 1800- och 1900-tal’, in L. Pettersson (ed.), I nationens intresse: Ett och annat om territorier, romaner, röda stugor och statistik, Uppsala: Historiska institutionen, 131. 160. ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 May 1924, 5 March 1928, 3 May 1930, 15 September 1933. 161. ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 October 1920, 19 December 1923, 20 February 1925, 6 April 1925, 3 July 1925, 13 May 1926, 14 April 1927, 29 January 1932, 21 January 1933. 162. In December the party executive owed the women’s committee 4,574.25 SEK. The committee demanded at least 3,000 SEK to pay off the major part of its debts. In case the money was unavailable they wanted the executive to get the money as a bill of exchange. 163. ARAB SSKF Minutes 19 January 1909, 25–26 June 1936, report on Kaj Andersson who took a personal loan during economically critical times. 164. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 July 1909, 20 July 1910, 6 December 1911. 165. SSKF Annual Reports and financial reports 1907–1914. 166. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 January 1920, 11 July 1928. 167. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 February 1932. 168. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 December 1924, 22 January 1925. 169. ‘att vad som på längre sikt icke kan ekonomisk bäras av rörelsen själv är rörelsen icke heller mogen för att genomföra’ Thorsson et al. Framåt i SSKF, 66. 170. Gidlund, Partistöd, 113ff. 171. Ibid., 114 see Table 3.14. 172. S.P. Deutschlands. ‘Parteitage der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands’; LAC CCF National Conventions.

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173. LHASC Women’s Labour League Minutes, 3 December 1909, see also Women’s Labour League Conference Reports 1906–1916. 174. LHASC WLL Report of the First Conference of the Women’s Labour League, 21 June 1906, 5. 175. LHASC WLL Eighth Annual Report of Executive 1912. 176. LHASC Labour Party General Ledgers 1921–1925.

Chapter 6

Human Resources in Social Democratic Women’s Organizations

Money is important to plan and carry out political activities, but as the discussion about income strategies has shown, an organization relied in the first place on increasing the number of members. Members are important in all respects. Their number is important for political action; as a large number of members can challenge political decisions, they are important during street demonstrations and barricades. Not only their number but also their individual qualities, such as education, political experience, political prestige, and access to other networks, are important resources for a movement.

The Magic of Number The number of members in the social democratic women’s movement was important in several ways. We have already discussed the financial aspects concerning membership fees, but the growth of the movement also legitimized its ongoing need for a separate women’s organization. The growth of membership was also used as an indicator for the growth of the electorate among women. And, last but not least, the size of the movement was decisive for its position among other women’s organizations. In the very beginning the social democratic women’s movement did not have any individual members, but was an amalgamation of local organizations and trade unions. During this early period, the strategy was to campaign in order to start new local clubs. The number of clubs had grown to such a degree by 1919 that a more bureaucratic organization Notes for this chapter begin on page 208.

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was needed in order to administrate the member organizations. The change into the Social Democratic Women’s Federation (SSKF) with individual members in 1920 was not only to get access to a different source of income, membership fees, but it also reflects the individualization of women in politics. While social democratic women had earlier engaged in matters such as women’s suffrage, enfranchisement had turned women into individual participants in politics: one woman, one vote. The success of campaigning was, even after the organizational change to the SSKF, measured by the number of local organizations. They were regarded as the best way of recruiting members. The number of local clubs and enrolled women’s trade unions grew from 60 to 252 between 1908 and 1933.1 In 1911 many of the clubs were discontinued, probably as a result of the general strike when the labour movement lost a large share of its members. Between 1913 and 1919, the number of member organizations decreased to approximately 23 and stagnated. This was a result of the loss of members after the general strike and probably also of the harsh economic situation during the First World War. Even the number of regional organizations (distrikten) grew from 2 in 1908 to 27 in 1935.2 This also meant that the SSKF’s regional structure covered the same areas as the Social Democratic Labour Party’s (SAP). As Figure 6.1 shows, between 1920 and 1933 the SSKF was increasing its number of members with the exception of the years 1923 and 1925. Between 1932 and 1934 the membership grew from more than 8,700 to nearly 20,000. Compared to other Swedish women’s organizations, the social democratic women’s movement became one of the largest during the 1930s.3

Figure 6.1  Social Democratic Women’s Federation membership 1920–1952. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Sources: ARAB SSKF Annual reports, I. Thorsson et al., Framåt i SSKF.

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Similar to the rest of the labour movement, the social democratic women’s movement’s size was threatened by economic crisis and unemployment. While unemployment and the general strike made the SAP lose many of its enrolled members from trade unions, this seems to have hit the women’s movement in a more indirect way. As the members were mainly housewives married to workers, it is probable that when men left the trade unions due to unemployment, their wives could not continue paying membership fees for the women’s movement. The loss of members in 1923 and 1925 and the stagnation between 1931 and 1932 suggest that this was the case. As a result, we can see that social democratic women lost members due to economic crises, which in turn meant a loss of income from membership fees and a loss of political strength and legitimacy. The development of the number of members was watched carefully by the SAP. The slow growth during the 1920s not only led to discussions about the dissolution of the SSKF during the congress in 1927, but the SAP also had its word in this discussion. Party secretary Gustav Möller suggested: But we have to admit that the SSKF has not fulfilled its purpose, it did not have the mobilizing power which we originally had hoped for. We should try to establish a new form, where the main task is on the local party organizations. Women’s need to meet each other at special meetings can be taken care of in other ways, such as special women’s conferences arranged by the party. In addition we should employ a women’s organizer directly subordinated to the party executive. The women’s journal should be taken over by the party.4 (The author’s translation)

This shows how the stagnation or slow increase of membership and mobilization of women could lead to a total questioning of the SSKF’s existence and would have deprived the organization of its important resources and independence. It also illustrates that separate organizing was allowed as long as this was for the party’s good, which means it would recruit new members. As the congress decided against dissolution of the SSKF, this never happened. The organizational structure of the women’s movement was questioned both by the party secretary and the president of the SSKF. Both referred to the organization of women in other socialist parties in Europe. Separate organizing was regarded as a problem for the mobilization of women, probably because few women were members of the SSKF and the Trade Unionen Confederation (LO) were opposed to separate organizing.5 The reason for the international comparison was probably the establishment of the LSI’s women’s committee. This committee was not organized as a separate organization, but as an integrated advisory committee, as most of the other European socialist parties had organized their women. When viewed internationally the share of women

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in the Swedish SAP was rather low. This is also illustrated by the available figures for 1931, when the Swedish movement had grown. Sweden’s share was low compared to Denmark, where the party showed the largest share of women in the party, as well as the large movements in England, Germany and Austria.6 This changed when fascism made the Austrian and German movements illegal.7 The example of Austria was used to illustrate that lower membership fees would lead to a higher number of organized women. Karen Hagemann has, in her investigation on the everyday lives of working-class women in Hamburg, shown that it was difficult to organize wives of party activists due to financial reasons. Especially during periods of war, inflation and economic crisis, many families could not afford a second membership.8 If anything, the result of the discussion and the decisions made at the next congress show that both the SAP and the SSKF regarded campaigning as more effective than lowering membership fees.9 Education was given priority as a means of mobilization instead of financially attractive membership fees; this also means that there was a conviction that the Swedish working class had enough money to afford the fees. Also the bodies of members were of importance for the movement. Different from the ‘bourgeois’ women, demonstrations were part of the culture of socialist women. For this reason the number of women was important at a local level during May Day demonstrations.

Giving their Time, Commitment and Skills Members are important in yet another dimension. This is to say a movement’s access to human resources is dependent on its members’ and their leaders’ backgrounds. Working-class women can be expected to have less access to monetary resources than middle-class women. Housewives with younger children probably had less time to spend on political work than unmarried women or elderly women whose children had left home. Different educational backgrounds could give different access to expertise and knowledge. And membership in other organizations can tell us something about the available networks. What kind of background did the rank and file and the leadership of the social democratic women’s movement have? It is not easy to answer this question regarding the rank and file, as sources are not available for the whole period. At the end of 1938, the SSKF investigated its membership in order to differentiate campaigns towards new groups of women. The investigation was published in the annual report in 1940. Although this report does not give us any information about the situation during the early years, a comparison with

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an investigation carried out during the 1950s can give us an idea about trends.10 In 1938, 98 per cent of the members who answered were married. Most had a working-class background. Of those who were married, 91 per cent were married to manual workers, 5.7 per cent to white collar workers and 1.3 per cent to intellectuals. Even the statistics on educational background show that they belonged to the working class: 87 per cent of them had gone through basic education, but 13 per cent had received some form of higher education. As the number of members married to manual workers was decreasing over time, we can assume that the number of women with a working-class background was in 1939 about the same size as shown in the 1950s, or larger.11 Most of the members who answered the inquiry in 1938 were members of the SSKF alone (77 per cent). Only 7 per cent were members of temperance organizations and 3 per cent were members of the LO. The average age of members was between 30 and 50, and this was also the average age when women became members of the movement.12 With these results in hand we can only guess that during the early days of the movement, a larger share than in 1938 and 1956 were gainfully employed, as until 1924 several women’s trade unions were members of the movement. The fact that most of the members were housewives married to workers indicates that they did not have access to larger monetary resources. Today we know very little about the everyday life of working-class women during the first half of the twentieth century. We know from investigations in other countries that being a housewife differed very much over time and between classes.13 Being a housewife did not mean that a working-class woman was without paid work. Working-class housewives were doing the washing, preparing food, cleaning for others and taking care of other people’s children. This form of domestic employment was not always paid in cash, but could instead be a form of exchange of services among working-class women. But these relations could also imply payments.14 In the Swedish case we know very little about this. The design of national statistics did not count these women as gainfully employed, as their income was too low.15 We know today that many more married women were working during this period than had been estimated before.16 How does this fit with hours of unpaid work carried out at the local level, transferring resources to the national level? Let us first have a look at the members of the leadership. The background of rank-and-file members differed from the leadership in the social democratic women’s movement. Most of the officials of the first social democratic organizing were not political newcomers. They had a great deal of political experience from other organizations in the labour movement. This also gave them access to other networks, like trade unions

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and the temperance movement.17 The different committees of the first social democratic women’s organizing are typical examples of a strategy where newer organizations could draw advantages from older organizations. In this case, it meant access to the enormous political experience of women during times when they were still excluded from national politics. The reason for the large network that social democratic women were part of in the beginning was the fact that the committee’s members were women with high status in the labour movement. Some of them were wives and daughters of famous social democrats. In the beginning, the members of the committee had some kind of working-class background, which means that they themselves had been workers, their husbands had been workers or their parents had been workers. Most of them were married or widowed. Only a few were unmarried.18 Camilla Norrbin has investigated the careers of female members of Parliament in Sweden. Her analysis shows a similar picture for female social democratic members of parliament as for the officers of the social democratic women’s movement, which is not surprising as some of them were both officers and members of Parliament. Her results allow us some comparisons with other women in Parliament. Social democratic members of Parliament had a working-class background and had less education, had more children and more likelihood of being married, and had much more political experience than other women in Parliament.19 As the SAP changed its ideology from a typical class party into a broader people’s party, this background was still dominating but not entirely; more women were well educated or married to well-educated men.20 It is difficult to say how many of them were gainfully employed during the first period.21 The leaders of the social democratic women’s movement were also experienced in mobilizing members. Most of them had started organizations such as women’s trade unions. Some of them played an important role in the first Stockholm-based women’s suffrage movement.22 They had been editors of Morgonbris before it became the social democratic women’s journal and some of them were employed by the labour movement.23 In addition, social work was an important background for some of these women, as it was one possibility for women to be politically active without the vote. They were members of different social committees, but they were also employed in the care sector.24 A closer look at the very first national committee shows that there was not a single woman without political experience. This means that the first women’s committee and later the executive of the SSKF were well equipped to start a new organization. These experiences can explain the formal structure of the first women’s committee, well prepared to be for-

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mally accepted by the SAP. Most of them had been active in Stockholm’s social democratic women’s club. The formation of officers at the national level shows that these women belonged to the political elite in Sweden. They were professional politicians and received at least some kind of pay for loss of income. As the discussion of income and spending has shown, a lot of the work was carried out with the help of unpaid labour, especially at the local level, while women were paid when they carried out work at the national level. Regarding the fact that most of the members were housewives, although they might have worked as casual workers, this is not very surprising. If we want to understand why women did all the fundraising at the local level, while men did not to the same extent, and if we want to understand why women were remunerated at the national level, similar to men, we need to understand the connection between access to time and wage work. Time can be bought with money, but money can also pay for time. Miriam Glucksmann’s investigation of the difference in temporality between casual workers, formally being housewives, and skilled women workers can give some clue. According to Glucksmann’s study, casual workers lacked the formal concepts of free time and one’s own time. Skilled workers could instead buy and sell time and, through this commodification of time, separate free time from work.25 For casual workers, paid work was sometimes carried out at the same time as their own domestic task, such as doing the washing for themselves and others at the same time. This meant also that they had control over time spent on activities. They could decide when to stop working, while skilled workers were controlled by the time clock.26 These two groups of women differed in their individual relation to time, their use of time, and the degree of control over time in relation to paid employment and domestic work.27 If we look at fundraising activities carried out by women at a local level, we can see that doing needlework or baking cakes was something that could be combined with domestic work without necessarily demanding extra time. This did not mean that they had more free time. Karen Hagemann has shown the difficulties socialist women had combining domestic work with late evening meetings, as they did not have time.28 This was probably also the reason why it was more difficult to convince husbands about the necessity of spending time at political meetings. Gunnela Björk has shown that social democratic women in Örebro were criticized when they went to political meetings. According to her research, men did not like women going to late meetings and women talked too loudly when they went back home. Socials and fundraising activities were not questioned, as they were paid in cash and did not take all the extra time when

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they were combined with other domestic work. It is, therefore, not surprising that the local social democratic organization in Örebro suggested that women should start a committee to buy clothing for poor children.29 Despite these attitudes towards women’s political work at the local level, social democratic women did invest their time in political education that was more difficult to combine with domestic work. This shows also the need for commitment. Men, in contrast, had a different concept of time, even at the local level. They were working standard work hours and had, as a consequence of this, free time of their own, as few of them were involved in sharing domestic work. Time was a scarce resource among the leaders, as the discussions on time investment during the first years show.30 They were in need of money in order to buy time, as the example of Annie Wallentheim, a member of the SSKF’s executive, showed when she asked for an extra job. She needed an extra income of 19 USD (75 SEK in nominal value) in order to employ a domestic worker, as she had so many political assignments that she did not manage to take care of her domestic duties. The executive decided that, as they were going to send her on many tours, they could not afford to employ additional staff.31 Campaigning was an occupation that demanded even more time, but would allow Wallentheim to buy time by employing a domestic servant. This shows that these women’s concept of time was similar to that of men. Time structure was divided into free time and work time, as some of them were workers and others had been employed by the labour movement. However, different from men, these women still had to take care of domestic tasks. Even single women had problems giving their time to work for the orgnization. In 1907, both Miss Björkman and Miss Särström worked as organizers for the social democratic women’s movement and turned to the executive, as they had worked so much for the movement that they risked losing their ordinary jobs. While Björkman decided to quit her job as an organizer, Särström was offered more work as an organizer for the textile workers’ union, in case she would be given notice by her ordinary employer. The money received from the women’s movement was not enough to make a living, but with the additional income she would manage. That Särström kept on working as an organizer, although it was not a secure job, shows that it was not only a matter of time, but also a matter of commitment to work for the movement.32 The older generation in the German ‘bourgeois’ women’s movement was firmly convinced that work for the women’s movement should be an honorary post, while the younger generation, who had received higher education and were able to earn their own income, could not accept that

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men were paid for their performance while women who did the same job were not.33 While the earlier generation of middle-class women, who did not have any gainful employment, probably had domestic servants at their homes, they lacked the distinction between private and public time similar to housewives discussed above. The later generation, who were paid for their time spent at work, similar to men, made this distinction. Rich middle-class women without employment in other countries could afford to work for free for organizations, as they also could buy time by employing domestic servants; but this was difficult for working-class women. They could not use more than their free time for political work without a compensation for the loss of income. Unpaid work was far from self-evident in the labour movement, as we have stressed earlier. It was rather common to compensate for the loss of income, or the work that had been done with a smaller monetary contribution at the national level.34 To compensate for the loss of income was a matter of survival for many unions, not only in Sweden. Trade unions were, from the beginning, rather rich organizations, as they had to be able to finance strikes and keep up members’ solidarity. This indicates professionalism, but is also the result of the difficulties of organizing rather poor people. Access to human resources differed between rank-and-file members and the leadership of the movement, which gave leaders a powerful position that was challenged by the opinions of the rank and file during congresses and referendums. Members were probably depending on a countryside representation, as the leadership was a Stockholm-based group. The discussion about the dissolution of the SSKF in 1927 was a typical example. When several of the leaders advocated dissolution, the majority still met resistance from men at a local level that made them vote for separate organizing. After the referendum, countryside representation was reintroduced for the first time since 1914.

Access to Parliaments and Government Contacts with political decision makers, both within Parliament and within their own party organization, were an important resource for political struggle. Contacts with political decisions makers were used in two ways. One was getting access to political decisions, by mobilizing decision makers for their issues.35 The other way was using the status of decision makers for internal mobilization of members, using them as authors for articles in their publications or as speakers at meetings and conferences.36 To attend women’s meetings or to publish in their journals legitimized the work of these women.

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Access to decision makers was a resource that changed over time in quantity, but also in quality, and is tightly linked to the political development in Sweden. Before democratization, the social democratic women’s movement was dependent on male members of Parliament and did not get their own representatives until 1922. And after the SAP became the ruling party in 1932, they got access to the government. But formal access was different from real access, as the separate organizing of women in the SAP indicates. Both Christina Carlsson Wetterberg and Ann-Sofie Ohlander have discussed the problems of women’s access to social democratic politics. Carlsson Wetterberg has shown that the split of the Swedish labour movement into a union and a political branch hid women’s gainful employment as a problem, while the situation of housewives later became a political issue.37 The situation of unmarried women was ignored or even seen as a provocation by male party members.38 As mentioned earlier, the procedure for adult suffrage, but also night-work protection, were matters discussed differently by men and women. Even the debate about married women’s right to work during the interwar period split the Swedish labour movement.39 These issues often led to cooperation with other women’s organizations, which we will discuss later. The social democratic women’s movement did meet male members of Parliament early on. One example was the discussion about adult suffrage. The leadership of the social democratic women’s movement was invited to comment on how to work on the issue. They took part in considerations on tactical decisions regarding political power balances in parliament. During this discussion, women did not step back, but argued for a parliamentarian decision, which should mirror what the committee had been working for during its campaigns paid for by the SAP.40 They also sent pamphlets and minutes of decisions on night work prohibition to the members of Parliament.41 The picture given in the minutes indicates that direct contacts between the male members of Parliament and the first women’s organizing were much stronger than after the SSKF was established; instead, contact to women in Parliament became more important. This indicates that female members of Parliament were first of all regarded as responsible for ‘women’s issues’. Male members of Parliament were also used for campaigns, especially those from the countryside. It was a way of saving travel expenses, as the leaders of the movement could meet them in Stockholm. It was also a way of getting access to men of high status in the local labour organizations, where resistance towards women’s separate organizing was strongest.42 The social democratic women also called on different ministers or wrote letters on special issues from the beginning.43 They took part in government talks concerning the export of provisions to Germany after the First World War.44

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Over time, members of the executive of the SSKF also became members of the Swedish Parliament.45 After women had gained the franchise, contacts were mainly made with female representatives. All of them were members of the SSKF, although many were active on the local level. That their work was regarded as part of the movement is indicated in the minutes: in 1932 SAP women MPs were asked to write reports about their work in Parliament during the previous ten years, which were published in the SSKF’s annual reports.46 Even though the franchise provided a new platform for social democratic women, they were only few in Parliament, and they worked under difficult conditions. However, the share of women among social democrats was at its highest until 1945. Between 1922 and 1970 more than half of all the female members of Parliament were members of the SAP.47 This means that social democratic women had, at least formally, much more influence than other female members of Parliament. The political initiatives taken by women in Swedish Parliament followed the work of the women’s movement. Still, Norrbin has shown that social democratic women were rather passive during their first years in Parliament.48 Gunnel Karlsson has underlined that women had high expectations about women’s increased influence when the social democrats became the ruling party. In the end social democratic women were rather disappointed with the result.49 The reason for this might be that they were able to use personal contacts in the government. The leaders of the social democratic women’s movement had very good contacts with the party leadership, and they regularly met with the government representatives in the social democratic group of members of Parliament.50 However, it seems that the cooperation did not always go smoothly, as in 1933 it was suggested to start a committee to improve cooperation between the SSKF’s executive and the SAP women members of Parliament.51 Members of Parliament were not only a channel to power; they could also be used as a source of money. During times when it was difficult to receive money for international conferences, members of Parliament were asked to donate some of their income for this purpose.52 Members of the SSKF’s executive worked strategically in order to keep their representatives in parliament. Several times female candidates changed their electoral ward in order to get enough votes.53 The SSKF discussed cooperation with female members of Parliament from other parties. According to Norrbin, this was much more common before the Second World War than after.54 That gender was sometimes even more important than class is shown in the case of Kerstin Hesselgren, who was a liberal and became a member of Parliament with votes from both liberals and social democrats after a strategic discussion.55 Women

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met in the women’s club room at Parliament, which probably provided ‘a room of their own’ where meetings might have encouraged cooperation.56 Women from different parties wrote motions together to a larger extent than men did.57 Among the leaders in the social democratic women’s movement were also some of the first members of local parliaments.58 This indicates that they were not average working-class women. Some of them were members of the city council in Stockholm during times when the right to vote was dependent on income before adult suffrage was introduced. Members of local parliaments and different boards on a local and regional level were

Figure 6.2  Social democratic women represented in local institutions and boards 1921– 1928. Created by Silke Neunsinger. Source: ARAB SSKF Annual reports 1921–1928. The number of representatives was reported by local clubs, but as not all of the clubs sent their reports the number is rather low.

published in annual reports during some years, which illustrates that they were regarded as an important political resource.59 The reports were the result of a collection of local annual reports. As only between 73 and 83 per cent of the local clubs sent in their annual reports, the number of local representatives was probably higher than Figure 6.2 shows. What the figure demonstrates is that most of the SSKF’s women

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were entrusted with social welfare work. Social democratic women were also more active as politicians in local governments than in local educational authorities. The number of women represented in the executive of local party organizations was rather low. These representatives legitimized the women’s movement’s work, as they had been elected in a democratic way. The minutes show that the movement worked strategically to increase the number of women in local government, a strategy already used by the first women’s committee. Women worked hard to get more women into parliaments and important party positions.60 Although the SSKF was regularly invited to participate at the party congress and the LO congress, the doors to higher party positions were, despite different strategies, closed for these women. Attempts were made to get more women into leading positions, but without success.61 Only Kata Dalström was a member of both the first women’s committee and the party executive. She was the only woman in the party executive before the First World War. In 1924 Olivia Nordgren became the second woman in the party executive, where she was represented until 1952.62 Hulda Flood in 1929 became employed as the SAP’s women’s chief officer, and as such was a member of the party executive, but without voting rights. Access to party leadership was male-dominated and might be a consequence of women’s separate organizing. In other socialist movements, such as the Co-operative Commonwealth (CCF) in Canada, women were represented to a much higher degree in the party leadership, but lacked their own women’s organization. In the Swedish case this meant that women were dependent on personal contacts with members of the party executive. Access to the male party elite was important in yet another perspective. Male SAP members were, different from other socialist women’s movements in other countries, often used as speakers on International Women’s Day, and at conferences and other educational meetings.63 Decision makers were not only used as speakers at meetings and conferences to give the women’s conference more status, but they were also invited as listeners to the women’s conferences. This must have been an important strategy to inform the party leaders on the women’s interests and standpoints.64 Social democratic women also had another channel into politics, which was rather specific to Sweden. Over the years, they had been members of state commissions, advising the Swedish Parliament on different issues concerning women.65 It is difficult to measure the movement’s status in polity. Both the party leaders and representatives in Parliament were in contact with the social democratic women’s committee on political issues concerning women, and other women’s organizations wanted to work together with the committee. This, and the fact that they took the initiative for cooperation,

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indicates that their status was not low, but grew with a growing number of members. The platform for political work changed several times during the startup period for social democratic women. From officially being a women’s committee into a separate women’s federation, having their own MPs and finally a party organization which had access to government positions, their status changed. But also the fact that the population question came into focus in Swedish politics opened up political issues that social democratic women had discussed for a long time, giving them higher status in polity.

Publicity As a means amongst others to achieve more enlightenment among women, the conference stresses the importance of educating and employing more female journalists on the grounds of the movement’s standpoint, as written propaganda is most neglected.66 (The author’s translation)

Limited access to political arenas makes access to media even more important. Publicity, both positive and negative, can help to get an audience’s attention.67 Media can help to convince the general public about the importance of an issue or a way to solve a political problem, and can turn the general public into an important political power. We have already discussed the importance of Morgonbris as a means of mobilizing women for the social democratic women’s movement, but also in keeping members informed and maintaining solidarity among them. While Morgonbris received support from the SAP, the social democratic women’s movement had larger problems in making their voices heard in social democratic daily newspapers. The citation from the statement of a local women’s club in Malmö cited above illustrates the need for female journalists. It was a need also caused by the lack of education among working-class women. While some of the men working at the party papers were well educated at the turn of the twentieth century, women were not, as they did not have formal access to higher education. The party press Social Demokraten was used both to announce meetings and conferences, and to give information on the subjects that were to be discussed in advance.68 Publicity in the social democratic press was an important strategy to legitimize the social democratic women’s work. But even after the congress in 1908, the social democratic women’s movement criticized the party press for ignoring the activities of the women’s movement.69 Social democratic women asked strategically for women’s columns in the party press. The column should contain articles for women and re-

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ports about local women’s meetings and activities. Ten papers said that they would start a women’s column and, according to the annual reports of the women’s movement, even more papers had introduced a column without replying to the movement’s request.70 Local clubs were urgently asked to choose reporters who would send the necessary information to the local paper. Even the SSKF’s executive sent articles and notices to papers to be published under the column. It is difficult to tell how effective this system was. When the annual report for 1922–1923 was published, 55 of 162 local organizations had chosen a reporter.71 How long this system was working and if it was working is difficult to tell. However, the fact that women got space for their activities and issues, and that they were published, was an index for some attention to their cause. Good relations with the editors and the fact that some of the committee members were or had been working at the party paper gave them probably some chance to publish articles the way they wanted them to be written.72 But the party press attacked women as well, especially regarding the methods to achieve adult suffrage.73 This might have worked to mobilize in terms of negative propaganda, showing the women’s movement painted too black in the eyes of female members. Probably, it was too difficult for the movement to criticize the labour movement for mobilizing purposes. The importance to act loyally to the party and the party paper was demonstrated when Sigrid Gillner, a member of the SSKF’s executive, was criticizing the party paper in other publications. The SSKF’s leadership condemned Gillner’s behaviour as not tactical, although they agreed that her statement was true.74 Although the women’s movements made attempts to get more publicity in the party papers, the party press and especially the main daily papers were in the hands of men not always willing or interested in publishing issues concerning the women’s movement. This made party papers rather useless for internal information and external recruitment of women to the movement, and did not contribute to the legitimacy of the women’s movement.

Cross-class Sisters? Cooperation among Swedish Women’s Organizations As we have seen, Swedish social democratic women had access to some of the resources available for the labour movement, but access was sometimes limited, especially for a separate women’s organization. Discussions about work in Parliament and during elections have indicated the cross-class strategies used by social democratic women. Different than the German social democratic women’s movement, the Swedish movement

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cooperated with middle-class feminists, as was also the case among the British women in the WLL. The feminist middle-class movement in Sweden was a fund for expertise on women’s issues, as some of their members had received higher education, as well as for monetary resources. What is characteristic of the relationship between social democratic women and middle-class feminists is that until 1933 the initiative came not from social democratic women but from middle-class organizations.75 During the start-up period, social democratic women agreed to cooperate with other women’s organizations outside the labour movement if the action was consistent with their class ideology and if their financial situation made their own initiatives impossible, as they put it.76 A typical example was a list of signatures as protest against the statement of the conservatives that said women did not want the franchise. The leadership of the social democratic women’s movement agreed on cooperation. The conflict between the leadership with the women’s club in Malmberget and Kiruna far up in the north of Sweden illustrates the difficulties of combining socialist ideals with cooperation with middle-class feminists. Both clubs demanded an independent list of signatures, but the leadership answered that they could not afford the postage, and in this case the suffrage movement paid for it.77 The club in Malmberget was notorious for its anti-cooperative attitude. In 1915 two members of the club were expelled, as they had been members of the Red Cross. They were expelled despite protests from the leadership in Stockholm.78 In this case it is difficult to tell whether they were against membership in the Red Cross as a middle-class non-socialist organization, or if it was a boycott of a group of pacifists against an organization that operated during the war. The fact that other organizations were richer could also be used as an argument against cooperation. During the First World War the institution of a women’s emergency committee had been discussed. Social democratic women were against cooperation at first, as they lacked funds during this period. They also rejected cooperating with other women’s organizations to celebrate Josephine Butler’s 100th anniversary.79 The invitation to participate in the Baltic Exhibition was formally rejected as the social democratic movement saw themselves represented by the labour movement.80 Financial resources were decisive for power balances between different women’s groups with different class backgrounds. This was probably a problem for working-class activists more than for middle-class feminists, as it could be regarded as a loss of independence. Lacking money meant not being able to stand on one’s own feet. To demonstrate independence in this way has, of course, much to do with class. Cooperation was not only a matter of ideology, but also an agreement regarding tactics and strategies. The case of cooperation on the suffrage ques-

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tion shows the tension between socialist and middle-class feminists, but also national and international women’s movements. The Stockholm-based suffrage movement was an initiative of both feminist middle-class women and the Stockholm’s Women’s Club, with leading social democratic women such as Anna Lindhagen and Kata Dalström.81 The programme of the LKPR has been regarded as a compromise between the more radical social democratic demands and the more conservative demands from the FBA.82 From the beginning it was both the LKPR and the FBA who took the initiatives for joint meetings with the social democratic women. The relationship, and the use of these contacts with ‘bourgeois’ women, varied over time. One of the main issues that divided these organizations was the question of how to achieve the franchise for women.83 It was a question of means and aims. Between 1906 and 1909, social democratic women worked together with the LKPR.84 The social democratic women’s committee was split on this question. One critique against the LKPR was that they no longer fought for workingclass women’s interests, but were fighting for the franchise under the same conditions as for men.85 During this period, the franchise was dependent on earning a certain income, which excluded the majority of working-class men and women. This conflict was widened by two international congresses where decisions were made with far-reaching consequences even for Swedish social democratic women. The first conference was the international women’s conference of the Second International held in Stuttgart in 1907. The two principles suggested by Clara Zetkin and affirmed by the conference were: (1) that all social democratic parties must be committed to votes for women and men and were not allowed to call for male suffrage alone, and (2) that there should be no cooperation with ‘bourgeois’ feminists.86 This implied that it was difficult for women to cooperate with feminists outside the labour movement on matters of the franchise.87 Richard J. Evans has interpreted initiatives from middle-class women as pure self-interest. According to him: ‘they only wanted to win over working-class women from their allegiance to socialism, or to win over the socialists themselves from their belief in revolution and commit them instead to a policy of moderate reformism’.88 This interpretation of the relationship between socialist and ‘bourgeois’ women has been questioned recently.89 Ute Gerhard has criticized Evans and others to reproduce the reine Scheidung (the clear cut) between the middle-class feminist movement and socialist women, and by this sometimes even denounce the opponents of their subjects of research.90 However, Zetkin’s powerful position both in the German and the international women’s movement led to the dissemination of the German model for cooperation between women’s organizations in several countries.

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The conference of The International Suffrage Alliance in London in 1910 was another meeting which changed cooperation with the LKPR in Sweden. All organizations with suffrage on their agenda were invited. Social democratic women could not afford to send their own representative and decided instead to send a ‘bourgeois’ representative, Anna Wicksell.91 The decision made by the congress in London was to demand the franchise under the same conditions as for men, a demand that already had been rejected by social democratic women earlier that year. As a consequence, Ruth Gustafson, one of the social democratic leaders, left the LKPR and cooperation between the organizations ended for some years.92 At the same time, there was a discussion on the means usable in the fight for suffrage, as most of the social democratic women were supporters of a general strike. This was probably a difficult matter, as the LKPR was, unlike the British suffragettes, rather conservative in its methods, not supporting street demonstrations or other forms of contentious action.93 During this first period there were still attempts made to reach consensus between these two organizations. Social democratic women decided to work within the labour movement instead of cooperating with the women’s movement.94 In 1912 social democratic women were for the first time taking part in a suffrage meeting again, and this time to mark their own position.95 Josefin Rönnbäck has pointed out that the introduction of male suffrage reduced and changed the conflict between social democratic and middle-class feminists.96 As we have seen earlier during the war, women’s organizations in Stockholm moved closer together, working together in the Women’s Troop (Kvinnornas Uppbåd).97 Despite discussions about unavailable resources, social democratic women joined in this organization and worked together with other women’s organizations. Moreover, after the war class differences were not discussed in the same way as they were earlier; instead, there are several examples of cooperation. However, as soon as the choice was between cooperation with the labour movement or with middle-class organizations, the labour movement was the first choice during the period until the First World War.98 After women gained the franchise, they discussed transforming the LKPR into a neutral women’s organization as part of the FBA. Socialist women were positive about such a neutral organization, which could be an index for a different attitude towards the FBA and, by this, towards middle-class organizations.99 Until 1933 cooperation took place as long as it concerned all women’s interests. Meetings were held for married women’s right to employment in public service, women’s pensions, maternity benefits, international cooperation, school reforms and disarmament.100 They also turned down coop-

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eration concerning issues such as the FBA’s plans to build an all-women’s house, similar to the People’s House, start a special school, start new organizations, or accept invitations from conservative women.101 Social democratic women argued that they were not in need of new organizations or special meeting places for women, as the labour movement offered these facilities. Cooperation was a strategy to meet the movement’s own requirements when the labour movement did not provide the necessary support. While cooperation was possible when it included women from the radical wing of the liberal movement or organizations from all different political colours, cooperation with conservative women was rejected.102 Contacts with other women’s organizations are also visible through contact by single women from different political groups. The importance of these women was visible when they were used as experts, but also when money was collected in relation to their death. Kerstin Hesselgren was not only a well-established personality in the Swedish women’s movement, but she was also known internationally. As a former factory inspector, she was also an established and accepted expert on the conditions of working women and working-class women.103 Ann-Margaret Holmgren, a prominent figure in the suffrage movement, Agda Montelius, former president of the FBA, and Ellen Key were other women who were given a great deal of attention during birthdays and funerals even by social democratic women.104 Gender-crossing strategies became less important when social democrats became the ruling party. Although the social democratic women’s movement had signed many petitions together with middle-class organizations during the interwar period, cooperation took a different turn in 1933. Social democratic women took the initiative for larger public meetings. Gender could be more decisive for common action than class, which made social democratic women cooperate with middle-class feminists on issues not supported by the SAP.105 The SAP in power was probably less challenged by the cross-class strategy of its own women’s movement than it had been before the election. Moreover, the social democratic women’s movement had grown to a degree that made it comparable with the Swedish Housewives’ Association and much larger than the FBA. This means that the movement was not regarded as a threat to the SAP anymore, and it had become a movement to count on among women. In the Swedish case it is difficult to talk about a ‘clear cut’. Rather, women’s groups have used class-crossing strategies. Social democratic women have been more cautious in most of the cases, marking their own class background. We can, however, discern a change from the 1930s, which probably had to do both with the experience of being the largest women’s organization and a political opportunity for renewed political atmosphere for feminist issues, that made many women’s organizations cooperate.

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International Connections The Swedish social democratic women’s movement did not work in a Swedish vacuum. The international socialist women’s movement was used symbolically and to spread Swedish social democratic ideas. International meetings had an impact on access to resources for Swedish social democratic women, but not only in the way described above, where international decisions had negative consequences for women’s access to resources. The international socialist women’s movement was of major importance for social democratic women in Sweden. Ideas travelled from the international arena to Sweden, and vice versa. Social democracy has from the beginning had an international dimension and has worked within a transnational exchange of ideas and resources. During the first years of organizing, Swedish social democratic women were in close contact with the women’s chief officer of the Second International, Clara Zetkin.106 Zetkin had tried earlier to get in touch with the Swedish women, but as Kata Dalström did not understand German, Zetkin did not manage to establish any contact with the women’s movement.107 From the beginning, Swedish social democratic women got information on activities in other countries and took part in international conferences.108 There is evidence that social democratic women prioritized international cooperation during the First World War. The annual reports demonstrate this change: large parts of the reports were dedicated to internationalism. Anna Lindhagen was announced as international secretary and participated in the international women’s peace meeting in Haag. Lindhagen’s engagement led to several demonstrations in Sweden, among them ‘The Women’s Peace Sunday’ with more than ninety-one thousand participants.109 Different from women in other countries, Swedish women had the opportunity to join the women’s peace conference in Haag. British labour women did not receive passports and could not leave the country. As Swedish women could not afford to send representatives to the first international conference in Stuttgart, the exchange of letters must have been even more important. In 1907 it was therefore decided that Wilhelm Jansson, living in Berlin, should report about the congress in Morgonbris.110 At least from 1926 on, the SAP was obliged by the LSI to pay for women representatives’ travel expenses in connection with international women’s conferences and international women’s committee meetings.111 For the earlier period, there are no entries in the account books about expenses for international socialist women’s conferences, which indicates that the party probably paid the costs. This made international work a cheap alternative for women’s organizations, as it was regarded as legitimate political work and was paid for by the SAP.

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International congresses were important to exchange information and experiences between women. But international work had also an important symbolic dimension. One example was the coordination of International Women’s Day, initiated by Clara Zetkin and Louise Zietz in 1910 and for the first time carried out in 1911. In the beginning, International Women’s Day was held on any date of the year and later was coordinated in March.112 Especially during years with severe economic problems, celebrations of International Women’s Day were a cheap alternative, which turned into a collective action coordinated over the whole of Sweden.113 Paid for with small local resources, it showed how the national committee was effective as coordinator and, by this, legitimized its action both internally and externally with the labour movement. Reports on this were sent to the international women’s committee and were published in an international women’s bulletin.114 Besides this, the socialist women’s movements in the Nordic countries were important networks that were used to build up social democratic women’s movements.115 Invitations were sent for congresses, and international guests were invited to give public speeches.116 Swedish women also reported to the international organization about their activities and wrote articles about their organization for different non-Swedish socialist women’s journals. They even reported about the salaries and pensions the leading activists received from the SSKF.117 This was an important resource in guaranteeing internal solidarity, as it awarded the work carried out in Sweden with positive attention from abroad.118 The international contacts also created expenses. Most of the invitations to women’s congresses in other countries could not be accepted due to the costs. It seems that the position of Swedish social democratic women did improve on the international arena during periods of war, probably due to Swedish neutrality. Neutrality, and the fact that Sweden did not have any war at home, made it easier for Swedish women to travel. During the First World War, Anna Lindhagen participated in editing a programme on labour protection laws in Paris.119 Swedish women’s position also improved in the LSI, when fascism had made several of the leading socialist women’s movements illegal.120 However, Swedish women did not always fit in general models of the international organization. They had a separate organization and they were against night work prohibition for women. They advocated the same protection laws for men and women, similar to the open-door movement during the early 1930s.

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Compensating Lack of Education and Money Swedish social democratic women were, similar to the FBA, dependent on the mobilization of members. The size of the membership was important for the movement’s legitimacy, movement-internal, party-internal, and external. Compared to the number of all women in the SAP or all men in the SAP, the movement was rather small during the 1930s. Membership was small compared to parties in other countries, such as the British, German or Austrian social democratic movements. Compared to other Swedish women’s organizations, it had become one of the largest during the 1930s. This means also that social democratic women managed to organize more housewives than the Swedish Housewives’ Association (Husmodersförbundet). Social democratic women did not have access to the same human resources as middle-class women or even working-class men had. They lacked education, and only a few of them had access to official gainful employment. Lack of education could be compensated for with political experience both on the local level and at the national level, as the backgrounds of female politicians show. This means that they did not have access to much money or time of their own that could be invested in the movement. Even in socialist women’s movements in other countries, the main shares of members were housewives. What differed was the background of the leadership. An investigation into the background of leaders in the LSI shows that the major share of the leaders were well-educated women with a middle-class background and with higher education, sometimes even doctoral degrees. Older leaders, such as Adelheid Popp and Marie Juchacz, had a similar background as the professional politicians in the Swedish movement.121 Even most of the Canadian leaders of the women’s movement during the late 1930s and 1940s had received their degree from universities and often had a middle-class background. But, similar to the Swedish movement, the radical housewives movement was their strongest competitor.122 British Labour women were well known even in Sweden for their different background. Agnes Söderqvist stated, in connection with the debate about the dissolution of the SSKF during the congress in 1928, ‘The well-known women in the British Labour movement are not of the same kind as those sitting here today. They come from totally different parts of society.’123 The women in the British Labour Party were well educated and had a larger share of members without a working-class background. This illustrates on the one hand the point made by Hannam and Hunt, and later even Marylin Boxer, that there was no such thing as a ‘clear cut’ between the socialist and ‘bourgeois’ women’s organizations. The four cases mentioned here illustrate the mul-

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tiple ways class and gender were expressed in these organizations and led to different strategies in using available resources. While larger parts of the movement’s leadership could be called professional politicians, experienced in mobilizing and organizing women in the movement, only a few of them were well-educated experts. Anna Lindhagen was one of the few who, due to her middle-class background, had also the financial means to become one of the first members of Stockholm’s City Council. However, Lindhagen also has to be regarded as a political professional; she was an exception in all respects. This made her especially valuable for the movement, whereas the first president and later honorary president, Anna Sterky, had been a worker herself and managed to climb up in the labour movement hierarchy by energetic political activity. Social democratic women gained several new platforms between 1906 and 1933. Their access to members of Parliament increased during the 1910s, when the general franchise for men was introduced. After 1922, the SSKF had access to women in Parliament who were members of the movement and worked as the voice of the movement. The SSKF became for many years the main base for recruitment of female social democratic politicians. In Parliament social democratic women were few compared to their male comrades, but still the largest share of women came from the SAP. This was similar to other socialist parties, as Camilla Norrbin (2004) has shown in her international overview. Socialist parties were for a short time the winners of democratization during the interwar period, and this made them win more seats in Parliament. In the end this made women who had been displaced downward on the candidate lists enter Parliament. The movement also got limited access to government when the SAP became the ruling party in 1932, but it took many years until the first woman was part of a social democratic government. A similar development took place at the local level: social democratic women had been members of local governments, but not in leading positions. While the social democratic women’s movement for a long time had a rather weak position in the SAP, the movement was no longer questioned after the party won its first real electoral victory. The SSKF used both class-crossing and gender-crossing strategies in order to mobilize a larger public for its cause. Social democratic women made from the beginning great use of the labour movement network. During the first years, contacts with the women’s trade unions were strong. One of the most important resources available, Morgonbris, was an inheritance from the Women’s Trade Union. During the 1920s, the movement lost the support of the women’s trade unions, and Anna JohanssonVisborg, an outstanding person in the women’s trade union movement, left the executive. As a consequence of this, the membership was drained of its gainfully employed members.

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While the movement for a long time had been part of the feminist network in Sweden, or at least Stockholm, it took until the 1930s for this network to be activated for its own purposes. The long list of cooperation with other women’s organizations demonstrates at the same time the relative independence from the SAP. Even in the international network of the socialist women’s movement, the status of the Swedish social democratic women’s movement improved over the years. This was not only a matter of increased status of social democracy in Sweden, but it was also due to the fact that many of the larger movements had been forced underground by growing European fascism. During the 1930s, Swedish women exported their ideas on an international level; an investigation on households’ fruit consumed and the needs of working-class households was carried out internationally. Earlier Swedish women’s separate organizing and political attitude in matters such as protection of working women was not common in this international network, and was probably a reason for a rather weak position. Human resources were especially useful during financially critical situations. Contacts with the Second International and the LSI women’s committees were important to conduct international events such as International Women’s Day, celebrated all over Sweden even when no money was left for other activities. International Women’s Day had a mobilizing effect and made socialist women feel that they were members of an international socialist community, at a rather low price. International contacts were important for socialist women’s movements, all publishing reports on the work of women in other countries. But some movements seem to have been especially internationally oriented, such as the German, Austrian and British Labour movements. While in the first two cases this was probably due to the well-known leaders such as Zetkin and Popp, in the British case the role of imperial power was important for the movement. British Labour women went to former white British dominions in order to help to organize the labour movement, and organized international conferences for the members of the British Empire.

The Price of Organizing Separately and the Income from Being Integrated The class and gender of members, as well as the form of organizing, were of major importance for access and strategic use of resources in mobilizing women. Swedish social democratic women had little access to free time when they organized working-class women. In order to buy this time, they

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had to mobilize monetary resources. Although the SAP contributed with money, this was not an income they could count on. From the beginning the Swedish SAP did not give priority to organizing women, as had been the case in the German or later the British party. They had access to a women’s secretary employed by the party. Separate organizing opened up a new source of income for the movement: membership fees. Membership fees made separate organizing a precondition. This decision on an organizational change shows the knowledge of the leadership about organizing and party economic matters. The first treasurer was married to the SAP’s treasurer, which must have given her access to knowledge in these matters without having received any education in bookkeeping or economics. The decision drew on women’s newly received power as voters in order to legitimize separate organizing in the SAP. Although separatism cut women off from positions in the SAP leadership, the SSKF was at the same time the most important recruitment base for female social democratic members of Parliament. While Swedish social democratic women had a strong position in the Swedish women’s movement, and their influence was also growing internationally, their position was rather weak in the SAP. Close contact with the SAP could have led to a stronger dependency in political matters, and may have left less space for cooperation with other organizations. Separatism opened up cooperation with other feminist organizations. Only when the SAP had won the elections and come into office, despite a separate women’s organization, was separatism accepted. Separatism cost money. While the movement during a later period emphasized its economic independence, it regarded contributions from the SAP as allowances for the campaigning work carried out among women. The SSKF also administrated the membership fees for the SAP. And while women, when summoned, paid much more than men in the SAP, women regarded this as important: to pay meant to do one’s duty, which in turn entitled them to rights in the SAP. In the end women paid more than they received from the SAP, but it was also a process of exchange between the two different parts of the labour movement that legitimized the work of the women’s movement. Exchange was important to show that it was not about allowances from one of the organizations to the other. As most of the members had only gone through basic education, courses and scholarships for courses were one of the keys to mobilization. Even the journal was an important tool in this educational strategy. Education also opened up cooperation not only with The Workers’ Educational Federation (ABF), but also with women from other political spectra. Many social democratic women had been on courses at the women’s citizen school in Fogelstad, directed by a group of radical liberal feminists.

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Separate organizing gave access to several networks. This strengthened their position in that they were informed on different activities, but it weakened their position in the labour movement both in Sweden and internationally. Integration in the labour movement and especially the SAP also had advantages. The social democratic women’s movement did not have many assets, which made them find different strategies to mobilize members during economically difficult periods. The assets lost during economic crises were, in the case of the social democratic women’s movement, mainly members. It was probably difficult for many working-class families to pay double membership fees when someone in the family became unemployed. Party integration could also be regarded as a form of asset. Several times both the women’s movement and the journal were saved by the SAP in the form of loans and contributions. The number of local clubs and member unions is difficult to identify for the period before 1920. According to the statutes every member organization was allowed to send one representative per fifty members. The figure used here is the number of representatives mentioned in the congress minutes. As there were probably not many organizations that were larger than fifty members, the number of representatives is equated with the number of organizations, which means that they are probably too high.

Notes 1. During the first years, personal contacts with women activists from German-speaking areas were most common, and, considering Zetkin’s prominent position, this is not very surprising. German women were against all class-crossing strategies, although we know that social democratic women in Parliament worked together with women from other parties, but were punished for this by the SPD. Later, contacts were closer with other Nordic movements and women in the British Labour Party. The middle-class background of some of the leading British women might be the reason for cooperation, but also the fact that independent women’s organizations needed to cooperate with other organizations. Crossclass strategies became more infrequent when the WLL was dissolved and women became individual members of the British Labour Party. 2. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 332f. 3. Micheletti, Civil Society and State Relations in Sweden. 4. ARAB SSKF Minutes Meeting with the party executive, 24 October 1927, cited also in Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 85–88. 5. ARAB SSKF Minutes Meeting with the party executive, 24 October 1927. 6. The share of Swedish women was estimated to be 13.8 per cent, and the number of members was 38,171 which was the total number of women in the party and not the number of members in the SSKF. The share of women in Germany was 22 per cent (228,179), Labour Party 23.3 per cent (700,000), Austria 33 per cent (228,179) and Denmark 33.6 percent

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(57,610). Vierter Kongress der Sozialistischen Arbeiter-Internationale Wien 25 Juli bis 1. August 1931, Bericht und Verhandlungen, 205. 7. Neunsinger, ‘Creating the International Spirit’. 8. K. Hagemann. 1990. Frauenalltag und Männerpolitik: Alltagsleben und gesellschaftliches Handeln von Arbeiterfrauen in der Weimarer Republik, Bonn: Dietz, 562. 9. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap, 85–88. 10. The enquiry was sent to 12,000 members in 1938; 5,679 were answered and returned, this covered 20 per cent of the membership. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1940, 14. 11. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1940, 14f., 22f. 12. The split was as follows:10.7 per cent were under the age of 30, 31.5 per cent were between 30 and 40 years old, 34 per cent were between 40 and 50 years old, and 23.8 per cent were over the age of 50. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1940, 14f. 13. L. Davidoff and C. Hall. 1992. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850, London: Routledge. 14. Glucksmann, Cottons and Casuals. 15. Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen, 109–12; A. Nyberg. 1989. Tekniken – kvinnornas befriare?: hushållsteknik, köpevaror, gifta kvinnors hushållsarbetstid och förvärvsdeltagande 1930-talet – 1980-talet, Linköping studies in arts and science, 45, Linköping: Tema Univ., 143–66. 16. I. Jonsson. 1987. ’Arbetssökande kvinnor göre sig icke besvär”: kvinnors arbete på industriorten Ljusne under 1930-talet’ i Historisk tidskrift (Stockholm). 1987 (107). L. Lane. 2004. Trying to Make a Living: Studies in the Economic Life of Women in Interwar Sweden, Meddelanden från Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet, 90, Göteborg: Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen; K. Åmark, ‘Familj, försörjning och livslopp under 1900-talet’, in H. Bergman and P. Johansson (red.), Familjeangelägenheter: modern historisk forskning om välfärdsstat, genus och politik, Eslöv: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion, 2002. M. Jonsson. 2006. Kvinnors arbete och hushållens försörjning: vävinkomsternas betydelse för hushållsekonomin i Siljansbygden 1938–1955, Uppsala studies in economic history, 77, Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. 17. The committee consisted of: Agda Östlund, who later became one of the first Swedish women in Parliament, and was also a member of the temperance movement, president of the Stockholm’s Public Women’s Club, and a member of several committees in Stockholm’s local government; Mrs Elin Lindley, who initiated a trade union for maids, was a member of Stockholm’s local government, chair of the organization for unemployed women (Föreningen Hem och Hjälp för arbetssökande kvinnor), married to Charles Lindley, leader of the Transport Workers’ Union and founder of the Swedish LO; Mrs Erika Lindkvist; Miss Alma Jansson from Stockholm’s Public Women’s Club; Mrs Anna Sterky, who was the only female representative at the Danish social democratic movement’s congresses, one of the first female Speakers at the Danish Day of the constitution, responsible for the edition of Ny Tid in Gothenberg, was working at the Social-Demokraten in Stockholm, and was married to Fredrik Sterky, one of the founders of the SAP whose work she was said to continue after his death in 1900; Miss Anna Johansson, later Johansson-Visborg, a member of Stockholm’s local government, leader of the women’s co-operative guild, and leader for the brewery workers’ union; and finally, Mrs A. Petterson and Miss Betty Strand from the WTU. ARAB SSKF Minutes 23 August 1906. See also S. Hansson (ed.) 1936. Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation, Stockholm: Lindfors, 1936. 18. Swedmark, Hulda Flood, 16. 19. Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 90–109. 20. See for instance: Annie Wallentheim, whose father was an academic and who was married to Adolf Wallentheim who also had an academic background; Eva Wigforss, who was educated as a teacher and was married to Ernst Wigforss, minister of finance and had a doctoral degree; and Signe Vessman (née Svensson), who was chair between 1920 and 1936, and had attended higher education.

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21. Hulda Flood was sometimes working as a cleaner in order to pay for her political work during the early 1920s. Hansson (ed.), Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation, 110. 22. Two such women were Amanda Frösell and Anna Lindhagen, the vice chair and chair of Stockholm’s suffrage organization FKPR. Anna Lindhagen was also founding member of the organization; moreover her brother, Carl Lindhagen, who was Mayor of Stockholm and a member of Parliament, was also the first in Parliament to demand women’s suffrage in 1902, a question that had not been discussed since 1880. 23. Signe Vessman had been chair of the WTU and treasurer for Morgonbris when it still belonged to the WTU. Hansson (ed.), Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation, 1110; B. Ney and K. Lundgren. 2000. Tidningskvinnor 1690–1960, Lund: Studentlitteratur, 162ff.; Anna Sterky and Kaj Anderson were employed by the Labour movement. Swedmark, Hulda Flood, 57. Hulda Flood was employed as the party’s chief women’s officer from 1929. 24. Anna Lindhagen was, amongst many other committees she belonged to, chair of the Save the Children (Rädda barnen); Elin Lindley was responsible for a committee for the holiday children’s clothing (Feriebarnens beklädnadskommittee), a member of the HSB board, the Committee for Food for Children (Barnbespisning-kommittén) inspector of the Poor Relief Board (Fattigvårdsnämnden); Signe Vessman had many local responsibilities within the church communion and the Poor Relief Committee; Agda Östlund worked in the Poor Relief Board, and the pensions committee; Hulda Flood was also active within the temperance movement. Hansson (ed.), Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation, 110. 25. Glucksmann, Cottons and Casuals, 112. 26. Ibid., 119. 27. Ibid., 118. 28. Hagemann, Frauenalltag und Männerpolitik, 562. 29. Björk, Att förhandla sitt medborgarskap, 66. 30. ARAB SSKF Minutes 9 November 1906, 13 February 1907, 19 September 1907. 31. ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 June 1932. 32. ARAB SSKF Minutes 30 September 1907, 16 December 1907, 6 November 1908. 33. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 18, 51 and 66. 34. ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 April 1908, 2 July 1908, 16 July 1908, 3 December 1908, 3 March 1909, 13 May 1912, 12 November 1911, 2 July 1915, 18 November 1920, 26 September 1921, 6 June 1922, 28 June 1925, 24–25 August 1929, 13 January 1930, 15 December 1931, 23 February 1932. 35. ARAB SSKF Minutes 10 June 1907, 11 November 1907, 30 April 1908, 20 August 1908, 22 September 1910, 15 May 1918, 1 March 1923, 6 March 1924, 3 April 1924, 3 May 1930, 29 January 1932, 16 June 1932, 22 February 1933. 36. For some examples of when the women’s executive met with members of Parliament, see ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 April 1912, 7 January 1922, 1 March 1923, 6 March 1924, 25 August 1932. 37. Carlsson. Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 119; C. Carlsson-Wetterberg. 1997. ’Med eller utan fäder och bröder?: kvinnor i 1900-talets politiska liv’, in I. Hagman, (ed.) Mot halva makten Statens offentliga utredningar, 1997:113 50. 38. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopolitik, 266. 39. Frangeur, ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’; Frangeur, Yrkeskvinna eller makens tjänarinna; B. Hobson. 1993. ‘Feminist Strategies and Gendered Discourses in Welfare States: Married Women’s Right to Work in the United States and Sweden’, in S. Koven and S. Michels (eds), Mothers of a New World, New York/London; Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen. 40. ARAB SSKF Minutes of the 11 December 1907.

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41. ARAB SSKF Minutes of the 30 April 1908. 42. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1 March 1923, 6 March 1924. 43. ARAB SSKF Minutes 1 September 1913, 28 June 1925. 44. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. 45. Signe Vessman, Ruth Gustafson, Disa Västberg, Nelly Thüring, Agda Östlund, Hulda Flood. Karlsson, Från broderskap till systerskap. 46. ARAB SSKF Minutes 29 January 1932. See also Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering. 47. ARAB SSKF Minutes 29 January 1932. 48. C. Norrbin. Från isolering till integrering. 49. G. Karlsson. Från broderskap till systerskap. 50. Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 191. 51. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 July 1933. 52. ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 September 1933.This was also a strategy used by the LSI women’s committee. Neunsinger, ‘Creating the International Spirit of Socialist Women’. 53. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 March 1917; 1 April 1928. 54. Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 204. 55. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 June 1926. Ibid. 56. Norrbin. Från isolering till integrering, 206. Even the leadership of the social democratic SSKF met there to discuss with female members of Parliament. ARAB SSKF Minutes 3 April 1924; 29 January 1932; 22 February 1933, 1 July 1933; 27 November 1933. 57. Norrbin, Från isolering till integrering, 207. 58. Anna Lindhagen, Gertrud Månsson, Anna Johansson-Visborg, Hulda Flood, Ruth Gustafson, Nelly Thüring. Flood, Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige; Hansson (ed.), Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation. 59. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1920–1928, even the Annual Reports from 1930 contain information. 60. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 November 1908, 12 August 1912. 61. ARAB SSKF Minutes 6 November 1908. 62. A. Norberg, B. Asker and A. Tjerneld. 1988. Tvåkammarriksdagen 1867-1970: ledamöter och valkretsar. Bd 1-5, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 63. Frauenbeilage der Internationalen Information. Herausgegeben vom Sekretariat der Sozialistischen Arbeiter-Internationale. Vol. IV, No. 53, October 1927, Vol. X, Nr 42, April 1931. 64. ARAB SSKF Minutes of the 16 April 1912 and 18 February 1914 §6. Hjalmar Branting promises to speak at the International Women’s Day, Minutes 12 May 1919; Branting has to speak at the celebration for women’s franchise, Minutes 9 January 1908 §7. 65. Frangeur. Yrkeskvinna eller makens tjänarinna?; Frangeur. 1998. ‘Social Democrats and the Woman Question in Sweden’, 425–49; Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen. 66. ‘Som ett medel ibland flera att åstadkomma mera upplysningsarbete bland kvinnorna framhåller konferensen vikten av att på rörelsens nuvarande ståndpunkt börja söka utbilda och anställa kvinnliga funktionärer i partiets tjänst, i synnerhet betydligt flera kvinnliga journalister, då den skriftliga propagandan är mest försummat’ statement of Malmö kvinnliga diskussionsklubb to the 1908 party congress cit. in Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 32. 67. B. Peters. 1994. ‘Öffentlichkeitselite – Bedingungen und Bedeutungen von Prominenz’, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie Sonderheft 34 (Öffentlichkeit, Öffenliche Meinung, soziale Bewegung). 68. ARAB SSKF Minutes 9 November 1906, 22 January 1907, 15 January 1919, 18 November 1929. 69. ARAB SSKF Minutes 24 April 1927, meeting with the party executive; Karlsson. Från broderskap till systerskap, 88. 70. ARAB SSKF Minutes 2 November 1922, ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1922–1923, 10f. The papers that had agreed to publish a women’s column were Dala-Demokraten, Häl-

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singlands Folkblad, Norrländska Socialdemokraten, Ny Tid, Skånska Socialdemokraten, Smålands Folkblad, Sydöstra Folkblad and Örebro Kuriren. 71. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1922–1923, 11. 72. Elin Engström was working at the social democratic paper Social Demokraten between 1887 and 1935 and was a member of the women’s committee between 1908 and 1911. Also Kaj Andersson worked at Social-Demokraten during the war. Anna Sterky was working at the office of Ny Tid, and her husband was not only the LO leader during this time but had also for a long time worked as a journalist. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 167; Hansson (ed.), Nykterhetsrörelse, Politisk Arbetarörelse, Fackföreningsrörelse, Folkbildning, Kooperation; B. Åkerman. 1983. ‘Journalisten som såg mot en ny tid: intervju med Kaj Andersson’, in Y. Hirdman, B. Åkerman and K. Pehrsson (eds), Vi kan, vi behövs! Kvinnorna går samman i egna föreningar, Stockholm: Förlaget akademilitteratur AB, 65f. 73. Carlsson, Kvinnosyn och kvinnopoliti, 63. 74. ARAB SSKF Minutes 10 August 1932. 75. The meeting ‘Kvinnorna inför världskrisen’ was held on 26 October 1933 at the concert hall in Stockholm with following women’s organizations: Akademiskt bildade kvinnors förening; Fredrika Bremer-Förbundet; Frisinnade folkpartiets kvinnogrupp; Föreningen Ekonomiföreståndarinnor vid större anstalter; Föreningen Kvinnor i statens tjänst; Kvinnliga kontoristföreningen i Stockholm; Kvinnliga telefontjänstemannaföreningen; Stockholms fackliga centralorganisationens kvinnosektion; Svenska kvinnors medborgarförbund; Svenska kvinnornas nationalförbund; Svenska kvinnors vänsterförbund; Svenska OpenDoor gruppen; Svenska sektionen av Internationella kvinnoförbundet för Fred och Frihet; Svenska skolkökslärarinnornas förening; Sveriges socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbund; Sveriges folkskollärarinneförbund; Telegrafverkets kvinnliga kontorspersonals förening; Vita Bandet. The keynote speakers were Lydia Wahlström, Elisabeth Tamm, Ingeborg Wallin, Signe Vessman, Andrea Andreen-Svedberg and Kerstin Hesselgren. 76. ARAB SSKF Minutes 14 December 1906, 10 July 1907, 16 December 1907, 19 March 1909, 15 December 1909, 30 September 1913, 12 August 1913, 4 August 1914, 25 March 1918, 2 April 1918, 2 April 1919, 24 January 1921, 13 March 1922, 7 September 1922, 20 November 1922, 4 January 1923, 23 March 1923; 4 or March 1926, 31 December 1926, 17 March 1927, 5 February 1928, 21 October 1928, 28 January 1929, 13 January 1930, 10 February 1931, 14 July 1931, 15 December 1931, 29 January 1932, 16 June 1932. 77. ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 September 1913 and 30 September 1913. 78. ARAB SSKF Minutes 31 March 1915. 79. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 August 1914, 5 February 1928. 80. ARAB SSKF Minutes 10 February 1913, 30 September 1913. 81. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 50. 82. Ibid., 85. 83. In November 1906 a meeting was held with the Stockholm-based FKPR. The discussion centred around to what degree the suffrage organization would support the social democratic tactic of a general strike for general suffrage. ARAB SSKF Minutes, 9 and 14 December 1906. 84. Social democratic women demanded to have reduced membership fees for working-class women in the suffrage movement. ARAB SSKF Minutes 14 December 1906. 85. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 88. 86. Evans, The Feminists, 166. Evans refers to Die Gleichheit, the German journal, which was at the same time the journal for the socialist women’s international movement. Zetkin was the editor of the journal. 87. See e.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 2 December 1913, §3. 88. Evans, The Feminists, 149.

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89. J. Hannam and K. Hunt. 2002. Socialist Women: Britain, 1880s to 1920s, London: Routledge; Hunt. Equivocal Feminists: The Social Democratic Federation and the Woman Question: 1884–1911; Boxer. ‘Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept “Bourgeois Feminism”’. 90. Gerhard, Unerhört, 186. 91. ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 March 1909. 92. ARAB SSKF Minutes 22 September 1909. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 88. 93. M. Pugh. 2002. The March of the Women: a Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866–1914, Oxford: Oxford University Press; compare Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser. 94. ARAB SSKF Minutes 22 September 1910, §1. 95. ARAB SSKF Minutes 8 April 1912, §4. 96. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser, 88. 97. ARAB SSKF Minutes 4 August 1914, 17 August 1914. 98. From other activities besides the suffrage the Baltic Exhibition is a good example. ARAB SSKF Minutes 10 February 1913, 30 September 1913. See also M. Lidestad. 2005. Uppbåd, uppgifter, undantag: om genusarbetsdelning i Sverige under första världskriget, Stockholm studies in history, 79, Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis: Almquist & Wiksell. 99. ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 December 1919. Letter from LKPR demanding a statement from social democratic women on the dissolution or reorganization of LKPR. 100. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1920–1932, ARAB SSKF Minutes see, e.g., 7 September 1922, 23 March 1923, 4 March 1926, 17 March 1927, 8 October 1929, 10 February 1931, 14 July 1931, 15 December 1931, 7 June 1932. 101. ARAB SSKF Minutes 13 March 1922, 31 December 1926, 5– 6 May 1930. 102. ARAB SSKF Minutes 21 October 1928. 103. See, e.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 17 September 1914, 30 December 1919. 104. See, e.g., ARAB SSKF Minutes 18 November 1920, 3 July 1925, 13 May 1926 and 14 April 1927. 105. In 1933 one of the questions for cooperation was married women’s right to keep their nationality, the meeting against Nazism held together with other women’s organizations, ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1932, 25. 106. ARAB Hulda Flood’s papers include letters from Clara Zetkin to Ruth Gustafson; although the letters were send personally to Gustafson they were reports about the German women’s movement and asked for information about the Swedish socialist women’s movement. The requested information was to be published in Gleichheit under ‘Internationale Korrespondenz’ where information on the development of socialist women’s movements in countries all over the world was published. Gleichheit was then also the official journal of the Second Socialist International Women’s Conference, edited by Zetkin until 1917. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 324; ARAB SSKF Minutes 15 April 1908, 21 June 1910, 20 January 1912, 2 April 1914. They also sent Morgonbris to Zetkin. Letter from Zetkin to Gustafson, 10 May 1910. 107. ARAB Hulda Flood’s papers. Letter from Zetkin to Ruth Gustafson, 10 May 1910. 108. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 325. 109. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1915–1917, 7. 110. ARAB SSKF Minutes 14 August 1907. 111. The LSI women’s congresses were constructed with the LSI as a model. The expenses were paid by the different national parties for their representatives SAI Kongressprotokolle, 21–25 May 1923, Hamburg, Statuten der Arbeiterinternationale. IISG SAI Frauenkomittee, letter from general secretary Friedrich Adler to SAI members, 19 March 1926. See also E.C. DuBois. 1998. Woman Suffrage and Women’s Rights, New York: New York University Press, 529; T. Kaplan. 1988. ‘On the Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day’, in M.v.d. Linden and F.L.v. Holthoon (eds), Internationalism in the Labour Movement 1830– 1940, Leiden: Brill, 188–94.

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112. Flood. Den socialdemokratiska kvinnorörelsen i Sverige, 324 and 331. See also for a coordination of International Women’s Day IISG LSI Women’s Bureau Minutes 11 and 12 January 1930: in order to use International Women’s Day in the best way for propaganda, it should be celebrated at the same time in all the countries, but as it is impossible to organize one day it should be celebrated in every country at the same time. 113. ARAB SSKF Minutes 16 April 1912, 4 September 1913, 9 February 1914, 10 March 1915, 21 March 1917, 24 April 1924, 14 January 1926, 5 March 1928, 28 March 1930, 10 February 1931, 26 February 1932, 20 February 1933. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1924–25, p. 3, Ibid. 114. In the Minutes of the LSI, Swedish meetings were mentioned as very effective, IISG LSI women’s committee Minutes 27 August 1933 in Paris. 115. ARAB SSKF Minutes 24 February 1915. 116. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1908–1933. 117. See Die Gleichheit and Frauenbeilage der Internationalen Information, 1927–1939. For salaries and pensions see Vol. XIII, nr 4, May 1936. Also social democratic women being appointed to parliamentary committees is mentioned in international connections, one example is Agda Östlund who had been one of the first women in the Swedish Parliament, who was appointed to a parliamentary committee in 1933, IISG LSI Women’s Bureau Minutes, 27 August 1933 in Paris. 118. During the 1930s, Swedish social democratic women launched several ideas at the international level using the women’s committee as a vehicle. The Annual Reports of the LSI women’s committee reported about an investigation on the needs of working-class households after the Swedish and Belgian model, which was carried out in France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Great Britain. IISG, LSI Women’s Bureau Minutes, 15 July 1936 meeting in Brussels. Hulda Flood demanded an International Women’s School, Frauenbeilage zur Internationalen Information, Vol. XIII, nr 7, September 1936. 119. ARAB SSKF Annual Reports 1917–1919, 11. 120. Neunsinger, ‘Creating the International Spirit of Socialist Women’. 121. Ibid. 122. Jonsson and Neunsinger, ‘Funding the Process of Initial Mobilizing’. 123. ‘Den engelska arbetarrörelsens kända kvinnor äro icke av samma slag som sitta här idag. De kommer från helt andra samhällsklasser’ Agnes Söderqvist, SSKF Congress Minutes 1928, 17. 124. Neunsinger, Die Arbeit der Frauen, 103.

Conclusion Gendered Money

In the historiography of the women’s movement, and in different attempts to theorize women’s struggle for full citizenship, few have paid attention to the impact of funds and the concept of money. The reasons for the longstanding silence might be due to the women’s movement’s own historiography. Political citizenship in terms of votes for both men and women was a demand that united a splintered American women’s movement. The ‘women’s question’ was turned into a question of political citizenship and exported to the international arena, where it started to dominate discussions on gender equality, overshadowing demands for economic citizenship.1 However, demands for what Alice Kessler-Harris has defined as economic citizenship had a prominent place on the agenda of the first wave’s women’s movement. This is not only true for the liberal feminist movements but has also been the case for socialist women. The lack of the same rights to run businesses and inherit and own property as men, the lack of access to a non-discriminatory labour market, and the lack of a right to education, vocational training and social welfare have been obstacles in the political work of the women’s movements. Women’s lack of full citizenship has limited their independence and autonomy. According to Kessler-Harris, the results of economic citizenship ‘can be measured by the possession and exercise of opportunities necessary for men and women to achieve economic and social autonomy and independence’.2 The minutes and correspondence we have studied point in the same direction – money and other resources did matter. Discussions on funding show how the lack of women’s economic citizenship curtailed the organization’s abilities to fight for and use their political citizenship. We would like to propose that both access to funds and legal or social restrictions on how women could handle money could be stated as crucial for Notes for this chapter begin on page 236.

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women’s opportunity to engage in politics. The financial situation was a matter discussed in the everyday lives of the activists and organizations. How to make ends meet was a problem both on an organizational and a personal level. Our results show at the same time some general patterns indicating the need for independent sources of income and the loss of autonomy when they were not available. Economic and social autonomy means, for organizations and movements, the freedom to act economically and the freedom to choose with whom to cooperate. Social movement theorists have utilized resource mobilization theories, although mainly to study a movement at a certain moment. The development of the social movements studied here shows that we need to take the historical context and the development through different stages of social movements into account in order to understand the special needs for resources and access to them, as well as the consequences of a lack of independent resources for the movement’s political power. Moreover, our study also shows that we need to take the consequences of citizenship and especially gendered citizenship into account in order to understand the dynamics of political struggle. The restrictions class and gender put on the way money could be handled illustrate that resource mobilization theories need to add the social values of money in order to understand how norms could put limits on how money (dependent on source and who was receiving it) could be used. In addition, the Swedish women’s movement was able to take advantage of the favourable structure of political opportunities.

Income Even if money is just one of many kinds of useful resources and alone cannot build a social movement, money is crucial to do political work. What makes money important in politics is its convertibility – the fact that it can easily be transformed into other valuable political resources.3 However, not only the income as such but also its source is of major importance for the independence of an organization or movement. As expected, the liberal middle-class women had higher incomes and more funds than the socialist working-class women (see Table 7.1). However, there was also a prominent national difference. Regardless of class, the Swedish women amassed more income during the first years of organizing than other studied organizations in West European and North American countries, even though the per capita income was lower.4 The Swedish middle-class women’s first years of fundraising were extraordinarily successful, even in comparison with liberal women’s organizations

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State subsidies

Interests

25 23 31 26 13 3 0 10 – 31 0 18 20 1 0 0 15 0 84 92 2 98 94 –

6 25 23 16 9 4 0 0 – 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – – – – – – –

18 6 20 15 42 48 21 35 – 18 73 39 69 82 0 3 4 98 10 0 43 – – –

0 0 0 3 5 35 0 0 – 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – – – –

2 6 10 17 18 5 0 0 – 1 0 0 1 2 0 11 0 0 0 0 – – – –

Total incomes (US $)

Donations

49 40 16 23 13 5 79 54 – 49 26 43 10 16 100 86 81 0 2 5 4 – – –

Other income

Bureau

1885/87 1891/93 1899/00 1905/07 1913/15 1923/24 NCWGB 1891/93 1899/00 1913/15 1923/24 NCWC** 1893 1899/00 1913/15 1923 BDF 1896 1914/15 1924 SSKF 1907 1921 1932 WLL 1907 1921 1925 CCF’s No own women means

Printings & press

FBA

Member-ship fees

In US $

Table 7.1  Incomes and income sources of women’s organizations in Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1933, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914)

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 3 51 2 6

9,700 7,300 6,400 5,900 7,000 15,000* 300 5,000 – 3,500 490 1,300 2,300 1,200 200 2,000 (n) 0*** (n) 540 4,100 19,000 200 550 2,650 –

Sources: See Table 3.1; Figure 6.10, 6.11 and 6.12. Created by the authors. Note: Donations to the FBA’s schools are included here, but the outlays for the schools are not included in Table 7.2 since the rest of the schools budget was recorded separately. Income for WLL from 1921 was embedded in the BLP’s accounts and refers only to posts that could be identified as specified for women in the party.

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in Germany, Switzerland and Canada. In their fundraising effort, the Swedish women had more similarities with British and American organizations.5 This was true for the Swedish social democratic women too. For example, in 1907 they earned the same amount as the income of the Women’s Labour League that same year, while we know that other social democratic women, like in Germany and Canada, did not have any money at all for their meetings. However, one reason for the difference could be that the financial arrangements were more formalized within the Swedish organization. More effort may have been put into formal bookkeeping and financial issues, which demonstrate ‘professionalism’ and its priority. However, not only the amount of income but also the source of income determines the independence and autonomy of an organization. Independent sources of income are the most usable as they guarantee the highest degree of autonomy, which can open up a more autonomous framing of subjects and choice of political strategies from the very beginning. Even if a state is suppressive and makes social movements illegal, access to independent sources is of major importance as social movements are especially sensitive to restrictions in autonomy during their start-up. Moreover, independent resources allow for autonomous decisions about building up a long-lasting and even bureaucratic organization. A lack of independent resources will lead to less autonomy and often fewer resources for administration. A high dependency on membership fees ensures that the members’ interests are routinely taken into account in decision-making processes, while coalition partners and other outside interests become less influential. Other income sources that could be regarded as autonomous were interest, revenues from the sale of publications and the journals, as well as fees received at the advisory bureau. The Fredrika Bremer Association (FBA) had, from the beginning, access to independent income sources, such as a high share of membership fees until the 1910s (see Table 7.1). Then it changed. Over time the liberal middle-class women became more dependent on donations and outside coalition partners, while the socialist women’s income sources became more and more autonomous. When a separate Social Democratic Women’s Federation (SSKF) was established in 1920, it provided opportunities to mobilize its own funds independent of the male party. This made the SSKF different from their sister organizations in other countries. However, the price of integration into the Social Democratic Labour Party (SAP) was never to be totally independent and never to be totally autonomous in its financial strategies.

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Independence through Membership Fees Membership fees were crucial. As can be discerned from Table 7.1, the dominant income source during the first decades of organizing in the FBA was membership fees. Even though the organization could be regarded as an ‘organization of prominent citizens’, the organization, at least initially, was highly dependent on membership fees. Also, other ‘bourgeois’ women’s organizations seem to have been rather dependent on membership fees, especially during the initial phase of organizing. This was a matter of fact in organizations such as the National Council of Women of Great Britain during its initial decades, and in German bourgeois women’s associations. The Swiss suffrage movement was even more dependent on membership fees. On the other hand, membership fees were not as important to the National Council of Women of Canada.6 The organization appears to have followed a similar subscription history arc as many other ‘bourgeois’ organizations, with a rapid increase of members and, with that, funds from membership fees initially, and a ceasing mobilization of new members when the organization had been running for a few decades. Mass mobilization does not seem to have been on the agenda during the first decade; instead, the organization relied on a more restricted class base of middle- and upper-class women able to pay a high membership fee. However, the annual membership fee was not raised until 1925, which means that the organization over time chose, in real terms, a lower fee to be able to mobilize broader groups in the society. The same strategy with high membership fees initially could be discerned also in the SSKF and in male-dominated Swedish organizations. Thus, the economic threshold to become a member was rather high in the beginning and demanded strong commitment. However, the membership fee was a lighter burden for an upper- or middle-class woman to carry than for a working-class woman, even though the fee of the socialist women’s organization was a third of the fee of middle-class organizations, with partial payments over the year. However, compared to socialist men, socialist women carried a heavier burden, since members of the SSKF had to pay an additional fee to the party as well. Male union members, on the other hand, did not have to pay extra for their party membership. Thus, the political organization of the working class, with a separate women’s organization, made women’s access to politics more expensive. Thus, high membership fees can be seen as a more general strategy to achieve steady and high income in a society with few wealthy donors, at a time when mass mobilization was not yet in reach. However, when mass mobilization became more attainable, both organizations held their membership fees at the same rate for many decades. Thus, the member-

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ship fees were lowered in real value. To achieve more members, agitation and canvassing were crucial. From a more general perspective, this meant that an investment in mobilization of members gave, in the long run, returns in the form of more independent income and more autonomy to use it. The more independent the income, and the more autonomy for a movement, the stronger it would become. It is also interesting to note that both the studied women’s organizations transformed from networks into formalized organizations with the arguments that this would secure a steady flow of income. However, during periods of economic crisis, organizations dependent on membership fees were vulnerable. Both the studied organizations used ways to segment the ‘market’ in times of financial constraints. On the one hand, the FBA tried to gain extra income from the wealthier segment of supporters by introducing permanent and supporting membership fees. On the other hand, the socialist women tried to raise all possible funds from the economically vulnerable lowest strata. Sweden was, during the period studied, rather poor, with both low GDP and low income level per capita. A high share of single women and married women were gainfully employed. In Sweden women’s economic citizenship was far from making them entirely autonomous and independent, but the money paid in the form of individual membership fees shows that there was some degree of independence among larger parts of the female (single) population and probably an agreement between spouses to spend money on membership fees for organizations. The tradition of strong Swedish popular movements with broad organization might be one of the factors that can explain high membership among women. However, our results also show that the money spent by women on membership fees was a fragile financial basis, especially when considering the implications of class. During periods of unemployment and economic crisis, women left organizations because the money for membership fees was saved before their spouses’ membership fees to their trade union. It would mean that women’s organizations should have gained more access to independent resources at the same pace as women’s economic citizenship improved. This is, of course, only the case if we use ideal types of organizations and societies, assuming that the status of organizations does not decrease and that gender equality follows a linear development.

Donations, Bequests and Successful Coalitions Donations and financial contributions, although needed to keep an organization going – especially during economic crisis – were less secure and

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independent income sources than membership fees. A characteristic of the studied Swedish women’s organizations, in contrast to other countries’, was the low share of their income originating from donations during the first decades of organizing (see Table 7.1). This fact is especially surprising in the case of middle-class women, since their organizations in other countries, such as Canada and Germany, relied heavily on donations. Nonetheless, in the 1910s and 1920s donations and bequests provided two-fifths of the annual income of the FBA. At the same time, another income source opened up to be exploited. With its close connections to liberal politicians, the organization could draw on an increasing opportunity to get state subsidies for its actions. The strategy was so successful that state subsidies in the 1920s became the second largest income source. In the early 1920s, their share reached a third of the annual income. It seems as if the organization successfully managed to frame its goal in a way that even an emancipatory women’s organization under liberal and social democratic party governments could be included in the earlier totally male-dominated corporatist Swedish model. The liberal and social democratic governments of the late 1910s and early 1920s, operating in a political context characterized by unstable alignments, seem to have opened up new political opportunities. During the same period the labour movement was included in the corporatist model on a broad scale, and the political context was characterized by electoral instability. However, state subsidies as a main income source could also be interpreted as a cooptation of the liberal women’s organization at a time when the male political elite was threatened by the vote for Parliament gained by women. The chosen strategy was in many ways successful and may have helped the Swedish women’s movement to achieve an influential political position in society. The reliance on resource-rich friends was especially pronounced at times of economic crisis or special activities, but the coalitions influenced how the organizations allocated their funds. Their autonomy, or lack of autonomy, determined how funds could be used and invested. Since both state subsidies and bequests were earmarked for special actions, the board had smaller funds to use for its more mundane administration and political work. Wealthy supporters and the state preferred philanthropic work, and the regulations for state subsidies did not allow political propaganda. In this way, the sources of income available clearly affected the type of work done by the organization. The special demands for state subsidies made only the middle-class nonparty organizations considerable, at least in Sweden. Similar to discussions among women’s organizations today, state subsidies changed the content of the political work. They are a less independent form of income, but they could be very useful to make an organization survive with other types

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of activities during times of otherwise empty cashboxes. Since the 1970s, women’s organizations have been discussing state subsidies as making the women’s organizations more dependent. In order to stay as radical as possible, many German organizations decided not to apply for state subsidies.7 However, the opportunity to choose state subsidies or not did not open up for the SSKF until the 1960s. Before that they were excluded from the possibility of obtaining state subsidies since their actions were defined as political and because of that not approved for state subsidies. The sSSKF women received financial contributions from the party and the trade unions; the Swedish social democratic women had closer relations to resource-rich trade unions than in many other countries.

From Needlework to Lotteries A very small portion of the income was due to more ‘traditional’ fundraising, such as sales, bazaars and fairs (see Table 7.1). This type of income can be regarded as an independent income source. The money earned could of course not be used for everything, but the decision about what the money could be used for was up to the organization. Sales were a way to compensate for the lack of women’s economic citizenship. This kind of fundraising was used in male-dominated ‘bourgeois’ and socialist associations too, but, as stated by Claire Midgley, often to a lesser extent.8 Yet in all kinds of organizations, sales, bazaars and fairs seem to be female coded. Women were often making the products for sale, such as needlework and cakes, working the sale, and were also the target group. Here the economic reality, differences in the concept of time between those employed and those not in gainful employment, and a gendered concept of money might come into play. However, we have not been able to compare this with male-dominated organizations. We could only conclude that the share in the studied Swedish women’s organizations was very low. Our results also show that sales and bazaars were in the first place an economic strategy for the poorer SSKF women, and of the local rather than the central organizations. On a local level, several times they saved the economy of the organization, and the return was invested in the organization’s autonomy. On the central level, this kind of fundraising did not account for more than, at best, a few per cent of the income until lotteries were accepted as ‘respectable’. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, lotteries became an important income source and a way, at least for the middleclass women, to extend fundraising outside of their own class. In summary, the studied Swedish women’s organizations were relatively successful in raising funds and in ways distinguishing them by class and from similar movements in other European countries. The fact that

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the Swedish organizations managed to raise income rather quickly during the first years, compared to women’s organizations in other countries, shows that the income strategy’s success cannot be understood without considering the impact of economic citizenship. However, income did not necessarily mean successes in the strive for political reforms. How big was the problem of losing autonomy in action due to a less independent income source, compared to the lack of money that would have posed problems for action? It is the combination of income and spending that tells us something about the degree of independence and autonomy of action.

Spending In later work inspired by resource mobilization theory, the strategy for use of resources has been emphasized, rather than just the amount of mobilized resources. Underspending, if not invested for future funds, could be evidence of a strategy not fully utilizing the possibilities of action.9 However, the choices about how much to spend could also have consequences for the success and long-term stability of an organization. In contrast to women’s organizations in other countries, such as in Germany, Canada and Switzerland, both the FBA and the SSKF had rather expansive spending patterns. However, the fact that socialist women had, of course, smaller funds to spend created a difference in their spending pattern.10 Table 7.2 shows that there was a rather large difference in the sums spent during the start-up of the two organizations. However, the difference in spending between the organizations decreased over time. There were also similarities in spending patterns. Both organizations spent a large share on prints and periodicals. However, the real value the SSKF spent on prints was lower than the FBA’s spending, but rose tremendously, especially during the 1930s. Specific to both Swedish organizations was that they prioritized professional lobbying early on. This might have helped Swedish women to establish an influential and long-lasting position in politics. As shown in Table 7.2, a large share was spent on employees who could undertake their own investigations, write petitions, mobilize, and keep up the spirit among members. Although there were differences in priorities and the amount of money spent on administration, both organizations had employees or, as in the case of socialist women, compensated for loss of income when working for the movement from the very beginning. This was the case in the much wealthier American and British women’s organizations as well. However,

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in Canadian, Swiss and German women’s organizations, hired staff and professional-run offices did not exist for several years.11 Socialist women in other countries often had a women’s secretary employed and paid for by the party, but had no financial responsibility for the secretary. Employed staff also paid off when necessary in a well-run administration, and thus increased the probability of the survival of the organization in Table 7.2  Expenses of women’s organizations in Great Britain, Canada and Germany 1885–1933, in per cent and USD in real value (base year 1914). Created by the authors. In US $

FBA

NCWGB

BDF

NCWC

SSKF

WLL

The CCF Women

Office, Meeting Printings Interest Other Total bureau, & travel & press & taxes expenses expenditures & salaries costs (US $) 1885/89 1891/93 1899/00 1905/07 1913/15 1920/24 1891/93 1899/00 1913/15 1923/24 1896 1914/15 1924 1893 1899/00 1913/15 1923 1907 1921 1932 1907 1921 1925 No

53 63 58 46 51 57 11 68 – 76 – 91 54 39 46 68 69 11 11 6 24 10 52 own

6 2 1 3 1 1 65 3 – 1 – 5 23 31 2 7 16 45 21 3 50 – – means

41 33 37 35 35 20 24 29 – 22 – 4 22 29 44 25 15 43 67 91 25 90 48

0 2 4 10 12 12 0 0 – 0 – 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 – – –

0 0 0 6 0 10 0 0 – 0 – 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 6

3,000 6,400 6,800 4,900 5,400 4900 300 4,600 4,500 200 4,100 (n) 0* (n) 50 600 2,700 3,700 440 3,860 18,500 220 2,100 6,800

Notes and sources: See Table 3.2, Figure 6.13, 6.14 and 6.15. Expenses for WLL from 1921 were embedded in the BLP’s accounts and refer only to posts that could be identified as specified for women in the party.

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the long run.12 In this way, the Swedish organizations could obtain stability over time and a professional administration, facilitating lobbying and communication with potential or existing members. Yet an organization cannot survive without members. Meetings, lecture tours, and the press were used to reach potential new members. Having many members was, as in other social movements, a resource important for both legitimizing their claims and filling their treasuries. Here, at least as measured by money spent, the organizations’ own periodicals were especially prioritized (see Table 7.2). This could have been a less costly alternative to recurrent campaigning all over a vast country, since Sweden also had rather low postage. However, strategies with their own periodical, and a periodical as a key part of the mobilization, were seen in both small and vast countries. Mass mobilization was far more prioritized by the SSKF. As the rest of the labour movement, SSKF spent most of their funds on agitation during the first years. This was because of the simple need for more members, but it was at the same time the only activity sponsored by the party. More members in the SSKF meant more members for the party, as well as more voters, something that over time became more and more important. The party contributed funds earmarked for agitation. This shows how economic contributions in the case of integrated women’s organizations could impact the work undertaken by the member organization. However, it is not clear that the organization would have used a more independent income source for different purposes; campaigning was at the centre of socialist women’s ideology and agenda. As a consequence, earmarked money from the party led to a transfer from the party’s model of political work as standard to the women’s organizations’ model. This was especially emphasized when social democratic women only had access to a female agitator or a women’s secretary. The budgetary priority was, in this case, already made by the party. Yet compared to Germany, Britain and Canada, the Swedish labour movement provided the SSKF with some more space to find and spend independent resources. When social movements have reached a stage of being more or less established, the mobilization of members is no longer the main focus of work. An established movement does not necessarily spend more money per member, but some of the expenses will stagnate, which leaves more resources free to use than earlier. These resources are therefore of major use to broaden a movement’s activities. To maintain the interest of existing members, both organizations invested in education or ‘enlightenment’, which was partly sponsored by state contributions. The FBA ran schools for women’s vocational training and provided women with scholarships and ‘study loans’. The SSKF

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offered some courses in cooperation with the Workers’ Educational Federation (ABF) and the School of Female Citizens (Kvinnliga Medborgarskolan) at Fogelsta. Investments in education, which were prioritized in both women’s organizations studied and in male-dominated Swedish organizations, may mirror a national tradition of education of broader strata, but were also part of the struggle for full economic citizenship both for the working class and for women. Education and enlightenment projects were less class-oriented than in other countries, as both men and women got access to basic education early on. However women were excluded from public higher education for a longer time than they were in many other European countries. Although men from the working class were not formally excluded from higher education as women were, access was still restricted by lack of means.13 The spending pattern of the Swedish women’s organizations fits well with social movement theory. Money was spent on mobilization of consensus and later on members. The question is, of course, how autonomous decisions on spending patterns could be made. Both the studied organizations had difficulties in raising funds for administration, which is still today one of the most difficult activities for organizations to finance. However, rather than cut its coat according to its cloth, the Swedish middle-class women’s organization fought to expand its income. When the income sources could not fill the gap, the middle-class women took out loans, mostly against the interest from their own permanent funds, but also from banks, to cover their spending in harsh financial times, such as in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The socialist women had less financial means, and therefore had fewer opportunities to create permanent funds or achieve loans, but did nevertheless turn to new income strategies rather than decreasing their ambitions. During periods of economic crisis, they borrowed money from the journal and also from the SAP. How autonomous were the decisions on how much money to spend, and for which purposes? As we have seen, some of the money was earmarked by the state, by rich donors and by the labour movement. The leaders of the FBA used clever strategies to create as much independent financial space as possible out of earmarked resources. The purpose for which the earmarked money from the SAP was given was not in opposition to the SSKF’s agenda and did not necessarily lead to a loss of autonomy. As long as party and women’s organizations agreed on the agenda, the money could be used, for there was space for autonomous financial strategies for socialist women. Compared to other countries, Swedish socialist women had much more space for their own financial strategies, as they had access to their own monetary resources, something socialist

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women in other countries totally lacked. Thus, a separate women’s organization did pay off in financial freedom.

Feminist Activists as Economic Agents Can class- or gender-specific financial strategies be discerned? In the case of class, there were clear-cut differences in financial strategies and how the funds of the organizations were held. The middle-class women had more funds and invested them as a diversified portfolio for future yearly cash flows, while the socialist women used what can be considered a hand-tomouth strategy. In the case of gender, the answer is less evident. Women had special restrictions in terms of financial education and what was considered respectable. However, both organizations developed similar strategies to overcome these difficulties, and cooperation with men was one solution during the first decades of organizing. The board members of the FBA were well educated, but lacked access to formal economic education. We do not know if the choice to have a man as treasurer was a consequence of lack of knowledge or a way to gain legitimacy for a new organization in a male-dominated society, but we know that at least some of the women on the board took an active part in financial decisions. Several of the women had experience in running associations, or had husbands with their own businesses or own experience running a business. At the turn of the twentieth century, women also held the positions as treasurers. The socialist women were less educated and none of the social democratic women on the board had any experience in running a business. This could explain why they were highly dependent on men in financial matters, even though they organized several decades later than the middleclass women. The knowledge of financial strategies was often a matter of family relations. For example, the first treasurer of the movement was married to the treasurer of the party. The lack of experience in running a business also had an influence on the organization later on, such as when the social democratic women’s journal was not put on a more stable footing, and record keeping was out of control in the 1930s. Hence, the women in the movements were active economic agents. Yet their strategies, tools, and financial conditions seemed to be marked by class. Middle-class women could partly use their class to compensate for their gender. The differences in the use of financial strategies between the SAP and the middle-class women’s organizations were smaller than between the two women’s organizations.

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The middle-class women’s organization held its funds in a bank account during the first years. Later, when its income increased, its funds were held in several different bank accounts at the same time. However, over time the holding of assets became more differentiated. During the initial decades the usual way of holding assets was guarantor loans directed to women, such as study loans and loans to set up small businesses. These kinds of loan funds also occurred in, for example, German middleclass women’s organizations and as philanthropic projects in other European countries.14 The loans could be regarded as a translation of the FBA’s political demands on women’s economic and educational rights into practice, at the same time as they provided a great and secure annual income flow from interest. The organization also used other ways to invest its funds: bonds, real estate, and shares. This strategy could be compared to early American women’s organizations, where businesswomen dominated the leadership and applied their knowledge of how to avoid the negative effect of slumps by using a diversified portfolio with investments in real estate, as well as stocks in bank, insurance and transport companies.15 In contrast, the socialist women held their modest means in a bank account, and some scholarship funds were set up. Mostly their funds were spent at the end of each year, and there were few opportunities to set up permanent funds for future needs. This hand-to-mouth strategy made them vulnerable to economic slumps and high rates of unemployment among their members. However, that was also true for the liberal middleclass women. Since the organization held a large share of its assets as bonds and lending, inflation dramatically decreased their value in the late 1910s, which forced the organization to put more effort into mobilization and to turn to new coalition partners such as the state. However, even if an economic crisis hit the two organizations in different ways, it always meant a loss of autonomy, and often implied a reduction in activities. Hence, in Sweden the general economic situation had an impact on the feminist political work and the action of the studied organizations, but a backlash of the women’s movement, such as stated by Dölle (1995) in the German Weimar Republic, could not be claimed in the Swedish case.16

Compensating the Lack of Money to Keep the Organization Going During periods of economic crisis, independent income sources normally decrease, and this leads to less autonomy. This means that intangible resources become even more important. Social movements mobilizing

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women from the poorer strata, are especially dependent on the mobilization of a diversified resource portfolio. Social movements depending entirely on monetary resources are very vulnerable during economic crises. These first decades, before stable funds and yearly cash flows were established, both organizations showed a need for intangible resources, or human resources. Members’ cultural capital or special skills were especially valuable. On the other hand, social capital in the form of allies in government, political parties and the press, which initially often emanated from members’ personal social networks, were important, as well. Both the studied organizations had access to politically experienced women who served on boards and had access to experts through their networks. The social capital of the early members was something that was explicitly calculated. Regarding human resources, the different political cultures and the dominating class identity brought resources from two, mainly separate, networks: the labour movement on the one hand, and liberal networks on the other. However, in both the studied organizations men were often the most important allies, as Swedish parliament, the press and party politics were mainly male arenas during the first decades of mobilization. Cooperation with men could partly compensate for women’s lack of full citizenship, although at the cost of low autonomy and independence. The liberal middle-class women, who organized three decades before the social democratic women, even had men on the board. These men were well known in the movement as experts on women’s issues or could serve as door-openers into arenas closed for women, such as politics, finances and the press. Also the nobility and people in court, with a great deal of symbolic capital useful in many different fields, played an important role to legitimize the organization. Even though they were established nearly three decades later, socialist women also had to rely on male party members or other well-known people in the movement, who could provide prestige or symbolic capital within the movement. The value of a contact changed, however, with the political and cultural context in society. If we take a closer look at the two different organizations’ networks, the shift in the 1930s that gave socialist women access to their own members in parliament and government is the major difference. While the FBA managed to use its male networks in parliament until women gained the franchise, they did not have access to this new platform through their own members. Democratization put them in a less favourable position compared to party-political women’s organizations. The liberal women’s network was adapted to an older form of politics, while socialist women gained more independence through democratization. Although socialist women made up the largest group of women in most European parlia-

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ments, the benefit for Swedish socialist women was hardly as large as in other countries such as in Germany or England, as the share of women in parliament was very small. Less direct influence with their own political platform in parliament seems to have been preferred in exchange for a separate organization and their own budget. However, a large effort was put into lobbying. Here the professional running of the organization and the ‘Swedish Model’ with committees consisting of a mixture of members of parliament and experts from outside parliament prepared political decisions, paving the way for Swedish women’s organizations’ influence. Over time more formal contacts developed between employees in the office and the ministries. Even though industrial, labour and the agricultural cooperation interests dominated, both social democratic women and liberal middle-class women were invited as members of these committees. However, the topics were mainly limited to education, morality and other ‘women’s questions’. Media relations were important to both organizations, but highly correlated with their political affiliation. The liberal and social democratic newspapers were used to inform about the women’s organizations’ work, as well as to formulate their political demands. The middle-class women used the liberal press, first by close personal connection and later in more formal ways. Initially the organizations could draw on having the editor of one of the larger newspapers in the capital city on the board. Other ways to achieve publicity and start an opinion on different issues were to distribute circulars, a periodical, or offprint, and to write official letters to news editors of newspapers in Stockholm, provincial newspapers, and foreign periodicals and newspapers. In a similar way the socialist women could draw on the Labour Press and female journalists. An arena open for women, and which seems to have been an important ‘nursery’ for leaders of the first-wave women’s movements, was other organizations. They contributed with social networks, administrative skills, and organizational structure. Both organizations were dependent on older organizations serving with premises, journals, and an organizational structure or skills to copy.17 The later start of social democratic women had the advantage that they had access to already existing feminist mobilizing structures within the labour movement, but also within the women’s movement. SSKF could also compensate for the lack of formal education with political and organizational experience, both on the local and at the national level. However, in both organizations women who held professions, such as lawyers and medical doctors, were willing to serve with their knowledge for the ‘woman’s cause’. But not all activities were marked and separated by class. An earlier underestimated resource was transnational contacts. The women’s movement,

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liberal, more conservative and socialist women were part of a larger transnational movement. Before formal organizations for the ‘woman question’ in Sweden, as in all of Europe, personal connections to literary circles at home and abroad were important. Later they participated in international congresses despite high costs. Even though international contacts demanded skills in language and could be costly, these contacts were of major importance both for active support in political issues, as well as when funds were not available at a national level. Social democratic women used the international dimension several times when the cash box was empty to keep up solidarity among their members and to mobilize new members. The lack of access to monetary resources during the start-up can also be compensated for by national and international networks, providing external and internal legitimacy for a movement. Political ideas can strengthen national members’ solidarity with the movement, and the number of members in an international organization provide both external and internal legitimacy. The discourse on the international scene could, however, also put restrictions on women’s work at home. Within the Swedish women’s movement, as in the British, the effect of Clara Zetkin’s proclamation of no cooperation between socialist and liberal middle-class organizations seems to have had less influence than in, for example, the German social democratic women’s movement. Although Swedish social democratic women withdrew from cooperation a few years after 1909, they continued to cooperate, which opposes Evans’ statement of the clear-cut divide between the middle-class feminist movement and socialist women.18 After the First World War, class differences were not discussed in the same way as earlier; instead cooperation intensified. Until 1933, however, the cooperation in Sweden was characterized by liberal middle-class women’s organizations inviting socialist women for joint actions, such as public meetings, signing petitions, and participation in conferences. Most of the time, the leadership of the social democratic women’s movement agreed on cooperation, despite the difficulties in combining socialist ideals with cooperation with middle-class feminists. Gender-crossing strategies became rarer when social democrats became the ruling party. However, the socialist women continued to cooperate on issues not supported by the SAP. Only then could gender be regarded as more crucial for common action than class. The fact that Swedish women could use class-crossing strategies to cooperate shows some form of autonomous actions despite ideological frames of international socialism. Swedish socialist women were also more autonomous than their sisters in many other countries except Great Britain, as they were able to decide by themselves how much the recommendations and decisions of international networks should affect their

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work on the national level. Class-crossing strategies also show that Swedish women had access to social capital that was usable in several different networks, including both gender-crossings and class-crossings. Hence, both the studied organizations had access to political, maledominated networks. Both networks were important sources for donations and information, as well as organs for their political demands, which gave them positive prospects for their political work. Moreover, these men legitimized the work of the first organizing as important by letting the women’s organizations draw upon their status in politics. Not all resources were accepted, and by that not of the same value, to use for political action. The framing put limits to their usability. However, it seems as if the borders of class were easier to cross in Sweden than in some other countries.

How Did Resources Matter for Swedish Feminist Politics? Because women historically have not had full economic citizenship, they have had more obstacles to overcome when they organized. Women not only had restrictions in their legal rights to inherit, hold and invest money and property during the studied period; they were also circumscribed by a gendered concept of money. Money and the earning of it could be considered a male sphere. This could be exemplified in the metaphor of the businessman, the capitalist, and the breadwinner as a man. Or it could be exemplified in legal restrictions where not all occupations were open to women, women’s salaries were just half of men’s, and so on. Money has, as well, been regarded as something women should not soil their hands with. Of more decisive character was the attitude regarding women’s charity work, which was renowned but not a profession to gain a salary. This attitude was explicitly expressed by the grand old lady of the German middle-class women’s movement, who was not pleased with the younger generation of activists who wanted to be paid for their work in the movement.19 Within the studied Swedish organizations we have, however, not seen any discourse on women as separated from economy. There was no trace of a negative attitude regarding the employment of women activists or women in gainful employment in general. However, the way money was raised was to some extent circumscribed by norms in society: collections were undertaken in private or semi-private spheres suitable for ‘respectable women’ and mostly within one’s own class. However, in many cases class, rather than gender, divided the different strategic choices. The lack of resources could be compensated for by close ties to persons of importance, feminist networks inside and outside the country, and the commitments of their members. Nevertheless, funds were crucial to engage in politics. Both the Swedish liberal middle-class and socialist

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women bought skilled staff to turn political commitment into long-lasting stable organizations, and professional lobbying to achieve their goals. Even if access to money could not be claimed as the only or even the most important resource for the women’s movement to succeed, our results show that it mattered. On an organizational level we have found examples of strategic use of funds or disputes over the allocation of resources affecting power relations within the different organizations. Lack of money led several times to a lack of democracy. When the organizations could not afford to pay for travel expenses of representatives from the rest of the country, the organization became Stockholm-centered and controlled. Representation abroad was a similar subject regarding the lack of resources leading to non-democratic representation. Several times organizations could not afford to send representatives to congresses and meetings abroad. The solution was sometimes to send a person who was living close by the meeting, or else to use a wealthy member who went on vacation to the place. Other times the person who could get the most donations from wealthy supporters for the journey, or who had their own well-filled purse, was the one to go. Choices in politics and the actions due to who could supply resources are harder to point out with certainty. On a broader level it is, however, clear that the heavy reliance on wealthy supporters and state contributions directed the FBA to more ‘philanthrophic’ work than during earlier decades. As well, in both studied organizations’ discussions it can be discerned on who was offered funds, or whose name attracted or repelled advertisers, or affected decisions about the content of the journals. Money, or rather the notion of money, among the activists working for women’s emancipation, may be influential on a broader social level as well. The financial matters were vividly discussed, and could not fully be discerned as circumscribed through gender codes. The focus on financial matters in the Swedish women’s movement seems to have facilitated the adoption of successful strategies for fundraising and allocation of resources, that early on gave them the advantage of professional lobbying. Full-time employees enhanced joint actions and petition writing, and advanced fundraising. How could an organization in a poor country mobilize resources for employed staff? When established the Swedish women might have been able to allocate resources for employees since other costs of mobilizing were lower in the Swedish society, even if it was still a patriarchal and undemocratic society at the turn of the twentieth century. Different from other countries, Swedish women’s organizing had not been prohibited, as was the case in Germany and Austria. None of the Swedish organizations used any radical protest methods such as the British suffragettes, who had to pay for them with imprisonment. Still commitment was important in

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another way. Many of the women active in the Swedish women’s movement worked until they were exhausted. Some were under the threat of losing their jobs because of their political strife. However, did it matter for the political outcome? Measured as women gaining their vote, a goal both the studied organizations were working for, the answer seems to be no. The women’s franchise was not won until 1921, even if it was close in 1895.20 On the other hand, we would like to propose that there might be a relationship between the early professional lobbying and administration and the success of the Swedish women’s movement during the twentieth century in legislative committees and the development of a strong ‘state feminism’.

The Costs of Gendered Citizenship? Some of these results show that the differences between similar organizations in other countries were larger than between the two Swedish organizations. Although the nation-state is not the mother of all historical change, our results indicate that the specific Swedish setting for citizenship, and especially economic citizenship, did matter in two ways. First, the high rate of labour market participation in Sweden gave individuals more autonomy regarding private financial means. This does not mean that married women had any more access to their own money, but widows and single women did. The large share of women being providers for themselves or their family members made a difference in the degree of independence and autonomy regarding some of the rights included in what Alice Kessler-Harris has defined as full economic citizenship. However, it is important to note that we are talking about degrees and not general economic citizenship. Second, the fact that Sweden lacked a strong middle class and gentry led to a levelling of class difference. This does not mean there was not any major difference between working class and middle class; rather, it means that Sweden was a comparably poor country during the studied period, with fewer wealthy individuals than in other countries. As a consequence, many Swedish middle-class women had to work for their living unlike in other countries such as Germany, England, Canada and the United States. Moreover, the lack of a large wealthy middle class also left its imprints on Swedish social movements even before women’s organizations were started. The Swedish popular movements are well known for their strength, their broad mobilization and their corporatism. However, the differences between the two organizations are mainly due to class. This means in the first place that the size of income and the

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way in which money could be raised differed. The difference in economic citizenship between middle-class and working-class women gave middleclass women as individuals more autonomy to spend and raise money. Moreover, middle-class women could buy private education and compensate for the lack of higher education and vocational training. Socialist women in Sweden were for a long time dominated by working-class women, different from, for example, British and Canadian labour organizations that to a larger extent mobilized middle-class women. This indicates that class – not only the social background of members organized, but also their identity as working-class women – had an influence on accessible income. However, it is, of course, not only a matter of class but a matter of class in combination with gender. As we have seen, trade unions mobilizing working-class men were, and are, rather rich organizations, as their members have access to their own income or property, which women still do not have to the same extent. It is likely that the reason for this is not so much a Swedish women’s surplus but a special national economic development and Swedish women’s relatively high participation in the labour market.21 In Swedish towns, just about half of the women were married at the end of the nineteenth century, and a large share of the female population had to support themselves. In the studied organizations, a large share of the board members were either unmarried women or widows. This left a large share of middle-class women with less spare time to invest in volunteer work for organizations if they were not being paid. What was the reason for this early professionalization in the Swedish women’s organizations? It was outspoken in both Swedish organizations that they could not solely rely on volunteers. Instead the women in important positions claimed that either they or other women should be expected to be able to give their work for free or work for a low salary. Money for women was important for women’s organizing, as we have seen in our analysis of income. But also the spending pattern and the highly professionalized organizations are connected to women’s economic citizenship in Sweden.

The Resources Mobilization Theory and Women’s Organizing Our results illustrate that money and other resources did matter. Discussions on funding show how the lack of economic citizenship curtailed both liberal and socialist women’s abilities to fight for and use their political citizenship. However, new political opportunities opened up and with

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them resources changed in value and new resources could be exploited. The resources available were, however, dependent on class, gender and the historical context. Moreover, class and gender put limits on how resources were mobilized and used. This illustrates the importance of linking the analysis of mobilizing and collective action to the material and cultural contexts in which activists acted. Resource mobilization theories, combined with the concept of the social value of money and a more thorough examination of the members’ contribution of tangible and intangible resources, has shown to be fruitful to deepen our understanding of the early mobilization for women’s emancipation.

Notes 1. Marilley, Woman Suffrage, 6f., 159–61, 168. About economic citizenship’s decreasing role over time in the international women’s movement see U. Wikander. 2007. ‘Suffrage and the Labour Market: European Women at International Congresses in London and Berlin, 1899 and 1904’, in J. Sangster, S. Neunsinger and P. Jonsson (eds), Border Crossing, 21–49. 2. A. Kessler-Harris. 2007. Gendering Labor History, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 257. 3. Schlozman and Tierney, Organized Interests and American Democracy, 89. 4. P. Jonsson and S. Neunsinger. 2007. ‘Comparison and Transfer – A Fruitful Approach to National History?’, Scandinavian Journal of History 32(3), 172. 5. Wikander, ‘Suffrage and the Labour Market’. 6. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 77–78; Jonsson and Neunsinger, ‘Comparison and Transfer’; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 100. 7. G. Dölle. 2000. ‘Weiberwirtschaft: Einblicke in die Finanzgeschäfte der Frauenbewegung’, Ariadne 37–38. 8. About bourgeois associations in Britain, see Midgley, Women Against Slavery. 9. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 73–80. 10. Ibid., 79f. and 96; Wikander, ‘Suffrage and the Labour Market’. 11. Banaszak, Why Movements Succeed or Fail, 81; Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 221; Wikander, ‘Suffrage and the Labour Market’. 12. Kriesi, ‘The Organizational Structure of New Social Movements in a Political Context’, 154f. 13. Widerberg, Kvinnans rättsliga och sociala ställning i Sverige 1750–1976. 14. Schepeler-Leffe and Hirsch, ‘Germany’, 104. See also Hollis, ‘Women and Micro-Credit in History’; Hollis and Sweetman, ‘Microcredit in Prefamine Ireland’, 361f. and 369. 15. Boylan, The Orgins of Women’s Activism, 174 and 188f. 16. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 221. 17. See also Freeman and Johnson, ‘A Model for Analyzing the Strategic Options of Social Movement Organizations’. 18. Evans, The Feminists; See also Gerhard, Unerhört. 19. Dölle, Die (un)heimliche Macht des Geldes, 51–52. 20. Rönnbäck, Politikens genusgränser. 21. Nyberg, Tekniken – kvinnornas befriare.

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Index

A Årsta Club, 45, 52, 74n35 Årsta, 44, 74n31 Åtvidaberg, 90, 103n43 Adelborg, Gertrud, 54, 87, 92 Adelsvärd, baron, 90, 103n43 Adlersparre, Axel, 56, 89 Adlersparre (née Leijonhufvud), Sophie, 17, 27−33, 35n9, 41−42, 44, 50, 56−58, 64, 74n20, 76n68, 83, 87−93, 96, 100 administration, 7−8, 13, 230, 234 (FBA) 43−55, 63, 67, 71, 80n158, 87−88, 95, 101, (SSKF) 120, 135−45, 150, 158−62, 166−7, 172, 174, 175n7, 180n134, 184, 204, 218, 221−26 advertisement, 57, 59, 60, 77n103, 79n125, 79n129, 84, 91−92, 138, 143, 155−7, 180n118, 221−6, 230, 233−4 advisory bureau, 31, 38, 54, 56, 68, 71, 84, 87, 91−92, 218 advisory committee, 121, 185 agenda, 3, 19, (FBA) 27, 30−33, 39, 59−60, 91, 94, 97, 102n31, 112, 114, 118, (SSKF) 124−6, 200, 215, 219, 225−6 agitation, see also canvassing, campaign, and touring, 111, 117, 120, 130n84, 136−7, 143, 147, 149−52, 156, 165, 170, 176n21, 177n48n56, 177n59, 178n70n77, 220, 225 Akademiskt bildade kvinnors förening, 212n75 Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein, 25n66 allowance, 40, 54−55, 137−9, 147, 150, 161−2, 168, 207 Almqvist, Carl Jonas Love, 28

American women’s movement, 6, 8, 20n4, 21n4, 32−33, 35n16n24, 67, 73, 76n65n68, 82n189, 99, 143, 215, 218, 223, 228 Andersson, Kaj, 181n163, 212n72, 123 Andreen-Svedberg, Andrea, 212n75 Ankarsvärd, Ellen, 34n9 Apelryd (horticulture school), 42, 44−46, 68, 81n180 Arbetarnas bildningsförbund (ABF), Workers’ Educational Federation, 115, 153, 207, 226 Austria, 105n80, 116, 186, 204, 206, 209n6, 233 autonomy, 20n1, 68, 71, 110, 118, 215−6, 218, 220−3, 226, 228−9, 234−5. See also independence B Baltic Exhibition, 44, 52, 70n31, 95, 198, 213n98 bazaars, 43, 108, 117, 142, 144−5, 222 Beckman, Ernst, 35n9, 91 beehive, 34n9 Belgium, 214 Benedictsson, Victoria, 89 bequests, 9, 38, 41−43, 63, 67−68, 220−1. See also donations Berlin, 111, 202 Björkman, Maria, 190 Börtzell, A., 40, 73n9 Boston, 20n4, 67, 74n27 Bremer, Fredrika, 28, 44 Britain, 11−12, 18−19, 32, 69−70, 72, 88, 112, 142, 214n118, 217, 219, 224−5, 231, 236n8. See also England British antislavery movement, 142

Index

254

British Labour Party (BLP), 110, 169−71, 173−5, 202, 204, 206, 208n1 Brunnsviks folkhögskola, 115 budget, 3, 7, 12, 71, 76n65, 132−3, 135, 139, 144, 153, 155, 157, 159, 160, 165−6, 168−9, 173, 225, 230 Bund Deutscher Frauenverein (BDF), 18 bureau, see office businesswoman, 21n6, 66−67, 76, 89, 228 Butler, Josephine, 198 C campaign, 4, 31, 42, 44, 47, 51, 53, 55, 92, 99, 119−21, 135−9, 145−52, 155−8, 161, 165−6, 170, 177nn55−56n59, 181n151, 183−6, 190, 192, 207, 225. See also agitation, touring, and canvassing Canada, 11−12, 18−19, 26n86, 69−72, 76n81, 97, 106n88, 142, 195, 217−9, 221, 223−5, 234 Canadian women’s organizations, 49, 76n65, 168, 171, 204, 224, 235. See also Canada canvassing, 143, 146, 220. See also agitation, touring, and campaign Carnegie, James, 79n143 Casselli, Hilda, 90 casual worker, 189 Central Association for Social Work, 94 chairman/-woman, 28−29, 31−32, 35n9, 42, 44, 48−49, 54, 57−58, 74n19, 94, 99, 103n49, 209n17, 210nn20−24 Charity Organization Society (Fattigvårdsförbundet, FVF), 54, 75n45, 103n41 clear cut, 199, 201, 204, 227, 231 commitment, 2, 9, 59−60, 84, 86−87, 147, 150, 155, 186, 190, 219, 232−34, 236 communication, 2, 4, 8, 25n66, 84, 94, 100, 143, 157, 225 complementary feminism, 31 Congres des Oeuvres et Institutions des France, 96 Congress FBA, 17 SAP, 116−222, 124−5, 129n52, 138, 140, 142, 195, 211n66 SPD, 111



SSKF, 133, 135, 140, 156, 152, 158−65, 176n30, 181n151, 185−6, 191, 196 congress fund, 162, 165 conservative, 5, 16, 20, 32, 94−95, 114, 125, 198−201, 231 cooperation state, 15, 46 men, 29, 32−33, 89, 99, 227, 229 other Swedish organizations, 36n28, 44, 46, 48, 53, 59, 85, 93−96, 100, 104n65, 105n71, 123−4, 152−3, 192−5, 197−201, 206−7, 208n1, 226, 231 transnational, 96−98, 202, 213n105 Cooperative 151−2, 157, 166, 180n133. See also guarantee fund Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), 18−19, 195, 217, 224 cooptation, 69−70, 221 corporatism, 46, 234 cross-class, 12, 40, 59, 93, 123−6, 197−201 cross-gender, 12, 32−33, 89, 99, 126, 227, 229 Crown Princess, 42, 48 cultural capital, 7, 88, 96, 99, 229 cultural manifestation, 149. See also ritual communication D Dagny, see also Hertha and Tidskrift för hemmet, 17, 42−43, 47, 52, 56−61, 78n115−8, 92−94, 96, 104n52, 104nn66−67 Dahlgren, Lotten, 58 Dalström, Kata, 117, 178n59, 195, 199, 202 Danielsson, Axel, 116, 129n47 Denmark, 24, 32, 96, 105n80, 114, 116, 186, 209n6, 209n17 districts (SSKF), 112, 117, 120, 140, 142 domestic employment, 187 domestic school, 31, 46−47, 68. See also Rimforsa donations, 9, 37−43, 47, 54, 58, 61−63, 65, 68−71, 74n20, 77n100, 79n143, 95, 98, 100, 109, 175, 217−8, 220−1, 232−3. See also bequests Dress Reform Association, 93, 104n5 Dyrssen, Lizinka, 32, 79n144

Index

E earmarked resources, 42, 48, 117, 139, 146, 150, 168, 171, 173, 221, 225−6 economic citizenship, 1, 14−15, 20n1, 27, 33, 215, 220, 222−3, 226, 229, 232, 234−5, 236n1. See also economic rights economic rights, 1, 12, 31−33. See also economic citizenship education, 1, 7, 9, 15−16, 18, 28−33, 42−43, 46, 48, 55−56, 61−62, 64, 66, 71, 73, 87−88, 90, 97, 99, 102n17, 102n30, 109, 112, 115, 120, 124, 137, 142−5, 148, 152−4, 164−8, 179n102, 183, 186−8, 190, 194−8, 204, 207, 210n20, 215, 225−8, 230, 235 educational fund, 153, 164−5, 167, 179n102. See also scholarship election, 26n84, 32, 93, 108−11, 115, 120−1, 123, 135, 142, 146−7, 150−2, 166, 169, 177n40, 177n55, 179n86, 197, 201, 207 employed staff, 53, 71, 74n24, 86, 90, 117−8, 139, 148, 160, 165−8, 195, 207, 210n23, 224, 233 employment, 8, 14−15, 31−33, 43, 48, 55−56, 93, 97, 102n17, 121, 140−1, 147, 187, 189, 191−2, 200, 204, 222, 232 England, 26n86, 28, 70, 76n81, 96−97, 105n80, 126, 130n99, 186, 230, 234. See also Britain Engström, Elin, 212n72 equal rights, 6, 26n81, 30, 43, 90, 122, 140, 215, 220. See also women’s emancipation European, 14, 16, 28, 30, 33, 49, 56, 91, 96−97, 126, 185, 206, 216, 222, 226, 228−9 Executive, (SPD) 111, (FBA) 17, 44, 53, 58, 84, (SAP) 117−22, 136−8, 147, 149−50, 176n22, 181n162, 185, 195, 206, (SSKF) 150, 153, 156, 160−1, 178n64, 179n113, 190, 193, 197, 210n36 F female representation, 120 female voters, 152 fêtes, 117, 142, 144, 163. See also bazaars Finland, 32, 96, 105n80 First of May, 163

255

Flood, Hulda, 12, 112−3, 121, 135, 147, 149, 177n56, 195, 210n21, 210nn23−24, 211n45, 211n58, 214n118 Föreningen ekonomiföreståndarinnor vid större anstalter, 212n75 Föreningen kvinnor i statens tjänst, 212n75 France, 28, 32−33, 86, 96−97, 101n15, 105n80, 214n118 Frederiksen, Kristine, 105n80 Fredrika Bremer förbundet (FBA), 11−12, 17, 27−107 Friends of Handicraft (Handarbetets vänner), 35n9, 93, 51, 86, 93 Fries, Ellen, 41, 44, 90−91, 96−97, 106n81, 106nn84−86 Frisinnade folkpartiets kvinnogrupp, 212 fundraising, 6, 10, 38, 41, 43−45, 58, 68−69, 74n26, 86, 88, 135, 142−5, 147, 151, 163, 166, 189, 218, 222, 233. See also sale and bazaars G gender equality, see equal rights and women’s emancipation general strike, 135, 161, 163−4, 176n11, 184−5, 200, 212n83 German social democratic women, 18−19, 111, 127n16, 197, 231. See also Germany German women’s movement, 20n4, 69, 71, 99, 213n106, 224. See also Germany Germany, 11−12, 18, 25n66, 26n86, 28, 32, 34, 64, 70−72, 76n81, 77n94, 80n148, 81n175, 96−97, 102, 105n80, 106n88, 111−2, 116, 126, 186, 192, 209, 217−25, 230, 233−4 Gillner, Sigrid, 197 Gleichheit, 111, 213n86, 213n106, 214n117 government, 7, 9, 15, 33, 46−48, 55−56, 70−71, 89−91, 123−5, 191−6, 205, 221, 229 Grand Hotel, 53 Great Britain, see Britain and England guarantee fund, 43−44, 56−57, 65−66, 68, 87 Gustafson, Ruth, 119, 211n45, 211n58, 213n106, 213n107

Index

256

H Handicraft Association (Slöjdföreningen), 51 Hansson, Per Albin, 122 Headquarter, see office health care, 31 Heike, Rosina, l05n80 Hemtrevnad (Hemtrefnad), 43, 61−62, 79n140 Hertha, 47, 56, 60−62, 77n87, 78n120. See also Dagny and Tidskrift för hemmet Hesselgren, Kerstin, 193, 201, 212n75 Hiertha, Lars Johan 34n9, 89 Hildebrandt, Hans, 29, 31, 35n9, 44 Holland, see Netherlands Holmgren, Ann-Margret, 201 home study classes (hemstudieprogram), 30, 87 homosocial, 29 Hotel Anglais, 53 household money, 7, 143, 145 Housewife Association (Husmodersförbundet), 32, 125, 160, 201, 204 housewives, 8, 61, 86, 113, 122, 125, 126, 140, 151, 154, 166, 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 204 Husmodern, 154, 160 I independence, 113, 120, 137, 141, 168, 185, 198, 206−7, 215−20, 223, 229, 234. See also autonomy industrialization, 14, 116 inflation, 40, 45, 47, 63, 69, 164, 186, 228 intangible resources, 8−9, 20, 33, 99, 228−9, 236 international congress, 33, 53, 96−98, 100, 203, 231 Washington 1888, 76n61, 96−97, 106n85 Copenhagen 1888, 116 Paris 1889, 96 Stuttgart 1907, 199, 202 Toronto 1909, 47 London 1910, 199−200 International Council of Women (ICW), 18, 25n66, 47, 77n85, 96, 106 International Suffrage Alliance, 97, 199 International Women’s Bulletin, 203 International Women’s Congress, 76n61, 97, 102n22 international women’s day, 149, 178n64, 195, 203, 206, 211n64, 214nn111−2 internationalism, 119, 202

Italy, 54 J Jansson, Wilhelm, 202 Johansson-Visborg, Anna, 205, 209n17, 211n58 Jolin, Mrs J., 62, 79n133 journal, 8, 17, 218, 223, 225−7, 230, 233. See also Tidskrift för hemmet, Dagny, Hertha, Hemtrefnad, Morgonbris, Gleichheit, Women’s Journal FBA, 29, 56−57, 76n66, 83, 87, 89, 91−96, 99, 105n80 SSKF, 118, 120, 122, 133, 135, 143−4, 146, 148−9, 151, 153−7, 160, 162−3, 165−7, 170, 173, 175n9, 179n113, 180n126, 185, 188, 191, 203, 207−8. Juchazc, Marie, 204 K Kersfeldt, Amanda, 78n114, 79n133 Key, Ellen, 31, 201 Kiruna, 198 Kleman, Ellen, 59 Kommittén för den kvinnliga agitationen, 117 Kvinnliga kontoristföreningen i Stockholm, 212n75 Kvinnliga Medborgarskolan (Fogelstad), 153, 226 Kvinnliga telefontjänstemannaföreningen, 212n75 L Labour and Socialist International (LSI), 121, 125, 168, 185, 202−6, 211n51, 214n111 labour market, 1, 7, 32, 90, 124, 215, 234−5 Labour Woman, 110, 169−70, 173 Larénska foundation, 163 le Congrès francais & international du droit des femmes, 106n81, 106n84 le Congrès international des œuvres et institutions feminines, 106n81, 106n84 League Leaflet, 169 legitimacy, 2, 4, 8, 10, 25n69, 29, 37, 84, 86, 89, 93, 95, 99, 100, 109, 112, 118, 137−8, 144, 146, 166−7, 183, 185, 191, 195−7, 202−4, 207, 225, 227, 229, 231−2 Leijonhufvud, Sophie, see Adlersparre lending business, 31, 64, 67, 71, 73

Index

Letterström, bank director, 79n144 Lette-Verein, 64 Levy, 142, 144, 166 liabilities, 17, 63−64, 134, 157, 163−4, 167, 170, 173 liberal, 1, 5−7, 11, 15−16, 20n4, 28, 30, 32−33, 35n16, 70, 88, 91−3, 97, 105, 114, 193, 201, 208, 215−8, 221, 228, 229, 230−2, 235 Liebknecht, Karl, 111 Limnell, Fredrika, 74n20, 80n149, 34n9, 42 Lindhagen, Anna, 104n62, 199, 202−3, 205, 210n22, 210n24, 211n58 Lindhagen, Carl, 210n22 Lindley, Charles, 209n17 Lindley, Elin, 209n17, 210n24 literacy feminism, 32, 100 lobbying, 69, 71, 73, 90, 101, 120, 223, 225, 230, 233 local clubs FBA, 27, 30, 32, 35n14, 41, 45, 52−53, 84−85, 99 SSKF, 112, 117, 119−21, 125, 143, 150, 155, 159, 161−2, 164−5, 183−4, 194, 197, 208 local parliaments, 194 Lund, 87, 102n21, 117 Lutheran faith, 30 M MacDonald, Margaret, 169, 175 MacDonald, Ramsay, 175 Macdonell, Annie, 105n80 Malmberget, 198 Malmö, 30, 44, 55, 74n31, 84, 87, 92, 102n21, 104n53, 113, 117, 176n18, 196, 211n66 Månsson, Getrud, 117, 221n58 marriage legislation, 32, 90 Married Woman’s Property Rights, The Association for (Föreningen för gift qvinnas eganderätt), 29, 84, 93, 103n34, 104n58 married women, 15, 27, 32, 125, 187, 192, 200, 213n105, 220, 234 mass mobilization, 2, 39−40, 83, 219, 225 mass organization, 109, 114−5, 134, 141 Medical Scientific Association (Läkarsällskapet), 51, 163 Members of Parliament, 29, 86, 90, 99−100, 103n38, 109, 123, 188, 192−3, 205, 207, 208, 209n17, 210n35, 230. See also Parliament

257

membership fee, 3, 37−41, 47−48, 56, 59, 68−69, 83, 109, 121, 135−6, 139−42, 144, 154−6, 165, 167, 169−70, 183−6, 207−8, 212n84, 218−21 micro credit, see loan fund and small loan Minister of Health and Social Affairs, 48 Minister of Public Administration, 98 Ministry of Civil Service Affairs, 45 Möller, Gustav, 185 Montelius (neé Reuterskiöld), Agda, 28, 31−32, 35n9, 42, 48, 54, 74n20, 74n24, 94, 103n49 Montelius, Oscar, 31, 79n144 Morgonbris, 118−9, 122−5, 135, 143−5, 149, 151, 153−8, 160, 162−7, 170, 173, 179n105n110, 180n111n113, 180n121, 180n127, 180n133, 188, 196, 202, 205, 210n23, 213n106 Myrdal, Alva, 125 Myrdal, Gunnar, 125 N National American Women’s Suffrage Association, 76n65 National Council of Women of Canada, 18, 69−70, 72, 97−98, 219. See also Canada National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, 18, 69−70, 72, 97, 219. See also Britain National Council of Women of Sweden (Svenska kvinnors nationalförbund), 68, 93−94, 97, 106n87, 212n75 National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet), 29, 31, 79n144 Natural Right, 30 Netherlands, 32, 34n6, 34, 77n94, 35n21, 214n118 New York, 67, 74n27 night work prohibition, 90, 104n60, 125, 192, 203 Nordgren, Olivia, 195 Nordic Women’s Collaboration (Nordiska kvinnors samorganisation), 98 Nordic women’s movement, 28, 98, 105n80, 106n90, 116, 126, 203, 208n1 Norway, 28, 35n21, 89, 96, 106n90, 130n99 Nyström, Carl, 88

258

Index

O Östlund, Agda, 137, 160, 209n17, 210n24, 211n45, 214n117 office, 8, 30−31, 47−58, 71−72, 77n83, 84, 87, 92, 97−98, 114, 121, 138, 147, 158, 160, 162, 168, 173, 175, 181n151, 188−9, 195, 202, 207, 224, 230 Olivercrona, Rosalie, 29, 34n9, 35n9n12, 56, 64 Open-Door, 7, 203, 212n75. See also Svenska Open-Door gruppen order of Knights, 29 organization of prominent citizens, 37−38, 41, 69, 219 organizational structure, 11, 19−20, 40, 47, 60, 111, 114, 118, 120, 124, 158, 165, 185, 230

regional agricultural societies (hushållningsällskap), 48 regional party organizations (SAP), 136, 149 remuneration, 57, 86−87, 102n17, 151, 155, 160−1, 168, 181n144 respectability, 10, 19, 29, 68, 86, 93, 101n15, 149, 222, 227, 232 Retzius-Hierta, Anna, 34n9 Reuterskiöld, Agda, see Montelius Riksdag, see Parliament Rimforsa (domestic school), 42, 44−47, 68, 90 ritual communication, 143. See also cultural manifestation Rosenbad, 53 Rossander, Jenny, 35n9 Rothlieb, Molly, 35n9, 80n147 Rules, see statutes

P paid labour, see employed staff Palme, Olof, 122 Paris, 96, 102n22, 106n81, 106n84, 111, 203 Parliament, 9, 15−16, 26n84, 29, 70, 89−90, 99, 120, 126, 163, 191−5, 197, 221, 229, 230. See also Members of Parliament party contribution, 137−9, 142, 147, 149−50, 155, 158, 168−9, 175n9 Patriotic Society (Patriotiska sällskapet), 48, 61 pension fund, 31, 64, 94 People’s houses (Folkets hus), 52, 115, 144, 148−9, 162, 181n151, 200 Periodical, see journal Petterson, Mrs A., 209n17 philanthropic organization, 28, 35n9, 43, 45, 54, 61−62, 66, 69, 74n26, 93, 97, 100, 228, 233 philanthropic work, 31, 68, 71, 221 Phillips, Marion, 173 Popp, Adelheid, 204, 206 popular movements, 15, 46, 120, 220, 234 population question, 125, 196 press, 9, 17, 19, 29, 86, 88, 91−92, 99, 100, 103n49, 145, 154, 157, 166, 225, 229 print run, 57, 154

S sale, 10, 38, 41, 43, 60, 68, 108, 142−5, 148, 153, 155−7, 166, 177n40, 180n111, 180n113, 218, 222. See also fundraising and bazaars sales agent, 155−6, 179n111n113 Samarbetskommittén, 153 Särström, Anna, 190 Scandinavian countries, 14, 16, 33. See also Norway, Sweden, and Denmark scholarship, 31, 42−43, 46, 50, 52, 63, 84, 91, 152−4, 165, 179n102, 207, 225, 228. See also educational fund Second International, 23n33, 76n61, 199, 202, 206 self-help programme, 31, 64 separate women’s organization, 19, 113, 118−20, 122, 126, 137, 183, 196−7, 207, 219, 227 Silow, Mathilda, 84, 87 small loan, 31, 64−65, 69 social capital, 7, 88, 99, 229, 232 Social-Demokraten, 162, 209n17, 212n72 social movement, 1−10, 14, 20, 85, 91, 99, 114−5, 122, 124, 216, 218, 225−6, 228−9, 234 social reform, 15, 31, 125 socialism, 110−1, 113, 116, 145, 177n54, 199, 231 socials, 45, 53, 85, 144, 189 Söderqvist, Agnes, 179n111, 204, 214n123 solidarity, 2, 7−8, 13, 114, 120−1, 129n52, 137, 141, 143−4, 153−4, 158, 161, 191, 203, 231

R rank and file, 7, 109, 123, 186−7, 191 Red Cross (Röda korset), 35n9, 93, 198

Index

Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), 111, 208n1 specialized resources, 8−9, 37, 48 sponsor, 43, 49 Stanton, Theodore, 64 state subsidies, 10−11, 38, 41, 45−48, 52, 54−55, 57, 59−60, 69−71, 75n45, 88, 98, 100, 135, 152, 168, 217, 221−2 statutes, 4, 32, 35n14, 50, 56, 60, 84, 110−1, 119, 141, 148, 159, 161, 164, 180n138, 181n146n148, 208 Sterky, Anna, 118−20, 130n75, 205, 209n17, 210n23, 212n72 Sterky, Fredrik, 209n17 Stockholm, 14, 28, 30, 34n9, 45, 50−51, 53, 83−91, 93, 102n30, 103n32, 106n90, 112−9, 123−4, 126, 149−50, 152, 156, 161−2, 167, 176n18, 181n144, 188, 191−2, 194, 198, 200, 206, 230, 233 Stockholm City Council, 205 Stockholm’s Reading Room (Stockholms läsesalong), 34n9, 50 Stockholm’s Women’s Club (Stockholms allmänna kvinnoklubb), 117−8, 199 Stockholms Dagblad, 91−92 Stockholms fackliga centralorganisationens kvinnosektion, 212n75 Strand, Betty, 209n17 strike, 114−5, 135, 143, 149, 159, 161, 164, 176n11n18, 184, 188, 191, 200, 212n83 subscription fee, 57−62, 154 suffrage, 6, 15−16, 20n4, 32−33, 40, 52, 59, 69, 85−86, 90, 93−101, 104n65, 112−4, 118, 120, 124−5, 130n75, 176n35, 184, 188, 192, 194, 197−201, 210n22, 210nn83−84, 219, 233 suffragettes, 200, 233 Sundsvall, 84, 91 Svedbom, Hilma, 74n20 Svedbom, Vilhelm, 74n20 Svenska kvinnors vänsterförbund, 212n75 Svenska Open-Door gruppen, 212n75. See also Open Door Svenska sektionen av internationella kvinnoförbundet för fred och frihet, 212n75

259

Svenska skolkökslärarinnornas förening, 212n75 Sveriges folkskollärarinneförbund, 212n75 Swedish Association for Temperance and People’s Education (Svenska Sällskapet för Nykterhet och Folkuppfostran), 62 Swedish Handicraft Alliance (Svensk slöjdförening), 35n9, 93 Swedish neutrality, 203 Swedish Nurses’ Pension Association (Svenska sjuksköterskornas pensionsförening), 52 Swedish Runic Association (Svenska fornskriftssällskapet), 75n45 Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), 16, 129n64, 135, 161−2, 176n18n21, 185, 187, 195, 209n17, 212n72 Swedish Women’s Citizen Alliance (Svenska kvinnors medborgarförbund), 85, 95, 212n75 Swedish women’s cooperation (samorganisation), 98 Swedish Women’s Suffrage Association (Landsföreningen för kvinnans politiska rösträtt, LKPR), 40, 59, 93−101, 104n65, 112−4, 118, 120, 124−5, 130n75, 176n35, 184, 188, 192, 194, 197−201, 213n99 Switzerland, 69, 71, 76n65, 105n80, 218−9, 223−4 symbolic capital, 89, 229 T Tamm, Elisabeth, 212n75 tangible resources, 8−9, 20, 33 Telegrafverkets kvinnliga kontorspersonals förening, 212n75 Tidskrift för hemmet (Home Journal), 29, 43−44, 56−57, 87−88, 91, 96. See also Dagny and Hertha Toronto, 47 touring, 145, 150, 168. See also agitation, campaign, and canvassing travel expenses, 96, 98, 100, 147, 150, 161−2, 165, 178n69, 192, 202, 233 treasurer, 88−89, 99, 160, 163, 166, 207, 210n23, 227 Tschudi, Clara, 105n80

260

U United States of America (USA), 21n5, 26n81, 27, 60, 68, 81n175, 86, 96, 99, 105n80, 110, 142, 211n39, 216, 234 unmarried women, 15, 116, 125−6, 186, 192, 235 unpaid labour, 8, 62, 86, 189 unspecialized resources, 8, 9 V Västberg, Disa, 123, 211n45 Vessman, Signe, 122, 210n20, 210nn23−24, 211n45, 212n75 Vita Bandet, 103n41, 212n75 W Wahlström, Lydia, 112, 212n75 Wallenberg, A.O., 89 Wallenberg, Amalia, 42 Wallenberg, Anna, 34n9 Wallenberg, Marcus, 42 Wallentheim, Adolf, 210n20 Wallentheim, Annie, 190, 210n20 Wallin, Ingeborg, 212 Washington DC, 76n61, 96−97, 106n85 Whitlock, Sophie, 35n9, 58, 78n109, 79n144, 88n147n155, 89, 103n32 Wicksell, Anna, 200 Wigforss, Ernst, 210n20 Wigforss, Eva, 210n20 Winge, Hanna, 35n9 Woman Question, see women’s emancipation and equal rights women organizer, 147, 149, 152, 171 women’s bureau (SPD), 111 women’s chief officer, 121, 135, 147, 168, 195, 202

Index

women’s clubs, 28, 108, 117−8, 135, 143, 147, 149−50, 153, 155, 158−9, 161, 164−5, 177n55, 180n133 women’s conference, 82n187, 86, 96−98, 104n68, 110−1, 116, 118, 120, 127n12, 139, 147, 162, 168, 176n11, 177n59, 185, 191, 193, 195−6, 199, 202, 206, 213n106, 231 women’s emancipation, 15, 19, 27−32, 56−57, 60−61, 64, 90, 92−94, 100, 221, 233, 236. See also equal rights Women’s Journal, 78n125 Women’s Labour League (WLL), 12, 18−19, 110, 168−75, 181nn173−5, 218 Women’s Night Work Prohibition, 90, 104n60, 125, 192, 203 Women’s Peace Sunday, The, 202 Women’s Trade Union (Kvinnornas Fackförbund) WTU), 117−9, 156, 205, 209n17, 210n23 women’s trade unions, 32, 93, 140, 155, 181n151, 184, 187−8 Women’s Troop (Kvinnornas Uppbåd), 105n72, 200 working conditions, 31, 48, 90 World Exhibition, 96, 102n22, 106n81, 106n84 Z Zander, Emilie, 79n143 Zander, Hilma, 79n143 Zetkin, Clara, 5−6, 111, 119, 199, 202−3, 206, 208n1, 213n86, 213n106, 231 Zietz, Louise, 203