Photo Sara Lundström

Wallpaper makers in 18th century Stockholm

Historian Mia Skott has conducted an in-depth study of eleven women who were granted permission to run their own wallpaper factories in Stockholm between 1739 and 1759. The women, the actors around them and the scenes that took place in courtrooms, households and public spaces offer us many surprises.

Wallpaper makers in 18th century Stockholm

From the large puzzle Mia Skott has put together with the help of countless sources, new perspectives on the ability and possibilities of wallpaper makers to be skilled and independent during this time are evoked.

In 1739, the Stockholm Hall and and Manufactory Court. Housed on the second floor of the south wing of the South Town Hall, its its members and officials worked to encourage and regulate the capital's manufactory production.

In the 18th century there were around fifty different manufacturing industries in Stockholm. They made everything from playing cards and feathers, to tobacco and woolen fabrics. A manufactory could just as easily have consisted of a single master craftsman with a bench and toolbox, as a large textile factory with hundreds of workers playing different roles in the production process.

The performance of the wallpaper makers

Newer types of goods, particularly crafts in particular, were introduced on a regular basis during the 18th century, many which came to be regulated under the Hall Act. Wallpaper was one of these. Before the the Hall Act, wallpaper was only produced on a small scale; it was only after 1739 that the popularity of paper wallpaper in particular increased dramatically.

Stockholmers who wanted to establish a had to argue in writing or in person for their professional skills, or the possibility of hiring a master, before the hall court or comskollegium. It was also important that they could show that they had sufficient funds for production.

Shortly after the Hall Court had opened opened its doors in the South Town Hall on October 1, 1739, the wallpaper maker Elizabeth Rosendahl took advantage of this opportunity. Her husband had closed down his years earlier and in the spring she had buried him in Maria Magdalena church.

On October 25, Elizabeth told members in the session hall about her great 'poverty and barrenness and debt and debt'. Hard times had forced her to sell 'her most and best tools', but she tools', but she had managed to keep some and with these she now wanted to "to make what wallpaper she could". The members of the court were convinced, not only of Elizabeth's need to earn a living, but also of her skill. When she walked out of the gates afterwards, she was thus a wallpaper maker with privilege in her own name.

The stamp office was on the same floor as the session hall. Goods were approved and valued there before they could be sold. This applied to both orders and sales in stalls and markets. Each manufacturer's production in type, volume and sales value was recorded. These statistics, along with the number and sometimes types of workers, were then written written down in long columns - often in beautiful handwriting - in the annual hall reports.

Södra Stadshuset Photo 1890-1910.
(Stockholms Spårvägsmuseum, Object ID Spårvägsmuseet SM1-1021. Stockholmskällan.)

Thanks to these hall stories, it is possible it is now possible to see that the first paper wallpapers approved at the made by the Virgin Mary Berg. The following year, 1741, almost two-thirds of the of the capital's authorized paper wallpapers were made by her and another wallpaper maker - Madame Inga Catharina Bruhn. Four wallpaper makers accounted for the remaining third.

In light of the fact that men's dominance of the Stockholm art scene in the 18th century has been interpreted as almost total, the success of these two women is surprising. Moreover, the collective competitiveness of the tapestry makers remained strong for the next twenty years.

That said, not everyone fared equally well. Some of the women were extremely excluded and vulnerable. Some did not even manage to make a single wallpaper because illness and old age prevented them. Nor was success a guarantee of continued activity. In the hall court session room, for example, the Virgin Maria Berg later experienced massive resistance. But she was smart. By taking her case to a higher court, she got her license back.

Other wallpaper makers navigated like virgins Maria Berg, navigated both strategically and decisively between decision-making institutions. They also created and maintained networks of credit and sales within the different social strata of the city.

The agency of women

In addition to the relative achievements of wallpaper makers and influence on the wallpaper-making industry in the mid-18th century, the most remarkable result of this study is the agency of women. What emerges with all clarity is their ability to act on their own and make the best of available resources. Most often with the goal of earning a living, but also social status.

However, the differences between women were large, and they do not follow the expected pattern based on accepted theories about the the importance of marital status and birth. These were not unimportant for wallpaper makers either, but the consequences were different.

A complex palette of social identities, material resources and internal characteristics has instead resulted in three quite distinct - and in comparison with existing research somewhat divergent - profiles of female agency. Among the most important factors emerge women's own creativity and drive. The importance of inherent ability has therefore risen to the surface, while the framework of norms has sunk back somewhat.

The complex agent has been possible to identify thanks to the micro-historical nature of the study. By twisting and turning sources, piecing together different kinds of evidence and weighing them for and against each other, it becomes clear what was rhetoric and what was practice. When the women's and everyday life of the women are allowed to take place in the biographical form causes and actions materialize that cannot be seen only in the materials of the other legal material.

In this collective biography, to be published by Stockholmia - research and publishing house in 2020, several of the tapestry makers will, for the first time in almost three hundred years, partly tell their own story. After all, these women often spoke for themselves, which fortunately was sometimes noted for posterity.

Text: Mia Skott