Preliminary Programme

This study forms part of the research-project Fashion, luxury, credit and trust. Early-modern and modern bankruptcies in Stockholm, led by professor Klas Nyberg at Stockholm University.
The book printing industry in Stockholm was relatively small but extremely important as it was the main provider of printed material in the Swedish Kingdom during the early-modern period. Stockholm had six print-shops in 1700, 13 in 1800 and 32 in 1883. The industry in Stockholm was more highly developed in comparison with the rest of the country, where printing techniques remained simple up until the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time machine-presses became more common in the print-shops across the nation. This development transformed an industry based on traditional handicraft-methods into an industry in the modern sense of the word. The introduction of machine-presses of the type introduced by Friedrich König in London in 1810 came to Stockholm in late 1835 when a completely new print-shop was established for the state-controlled newspaper Statstidningen. This event was important for the Stockholm book printers and resulted in a relatively large of number of bankruptcies for members of the Book Printers Guild, as they struggled with economical pressure due to old-fashioned book printing techniques. The Book Printers Guild society had a unique position in the Swedish economy at the time because of its close association with the state. The normal case was that craft-guilds sorted under one of the city´s four mayors and that its member formed part of the burghers estate. This was not the case for the Book Printers Guild, as it had developed from the office of the Royal Printer and the privileges that were granted to this printer from the King.
The Book Printers Guild controlled all establishment of new print-shops up until 1846, when the system with guilds and societies in the burghers estate was discontinued. This study begins in 1750 and ends circa 1850, when completely new features regarding both production and marketing was introduced in Sweden. Two events during this era are important. The first is the introduction of the Swedish Freedom of Press Act in 1766. The market for printed materials increased dramatically during the years after this act and five new print-shops were started between 1768 and 1772. The second important event is the introduction of the machine-press in 1835. The total number of bankruptcies among the book printers between 1750 and 1849 are 25, of these 11 occurred before 1835 and 14 after that date. The argumentation in the bankruptcy acts registered from 1835 to circa 1845 offer a unique glimpse of an early modern industry rapidly changing into its modern counterpart.
This study is a part of a project that has mapped and recorded all early-modern bankruptcies in Stockholm between 1687 and 1849. www.tidigmodernakonkurser.se In Sweden the early-modern institutions were reformed from the end of the eighteenth century only to be finally abolished in 1846. The research-group consists of Klas Nyberg (Stockholm University), Mats Hayen (The City Archive of Stockholm), Axel Hagberg (Stockholm School of Economics),
Håkan Jakobsson (Stockholm University) and Paula von Wachenfeldt (Stockholm University). (Show less)

At the end of the early-modern period, credit and creditworthiness were still concepts that had complex social and cultural meanings, besides their obvious economic significance. In this session we ask how the concept of credit changed, in the wake of the reformation of the bankruptcy institution that took place from the end of the eighteenth and in the beginning of the nineteenth century across western Europe and in North America. While this modernization is known in broad terms, the development is complex and far from fully understood.
Drawing inspiration from the resarch of among others Margot Finn, Laurence Fontaine, Craig Muldrew and Clare Haru Crowston, this paper outline and problematize the research problem of the session Fashion, luxury, credit and trust. Early-modern and modern bankruptcies in Europe and North America. The session focuses on how the early-modern concept of the credit market – ’credit’ (Fontaine), ’economies of regard’ (Haru Crowston) och ’the economy of obligation’ (Muldrew) – was affected by the early modernization of the preindustrial economy. How did this development happen in different parts of the world, and in different judicial traditions? To what degree did social and economic positions affect the change?
Our investigations into the situation in Stockholm, a city in economic stagnation during the period 1760 and 1850, have shown how a new modus operandi was established in the handling of bankruptices, as part of a comprehensive revamping of the existing legislation during the earlier part of this period. The new legislation changed the way in which bankruptcies were managed by the municipal authorities, leading up to a more structured and time-efficient system, where the average days from application to verdict in a bankruptcy case were substantially shortened, and where new checks and balances removed legislative ambiguities and loopholes.*
This growing efficiency can be contrasted to a continued lack of economic realism, however, a trend that for British circumstances has been shown to have continued well into the nineteenth century. How did the new credit market for example affect ideas of luxury, fashion, and consumption, concepts that were linked to social standing and the construction and assertment of rights for various groups in society, but most importantly a type of extravagance that was intimately connected to the existence of credit? More broadly speaking, how should the new economic reality that followed from the changes in the concept of credit in the early modernization of the preindustrial economy be understood when viewed against various existing and new trends in society, including concepts such as consumption and fashion?
NOTE
* As part of a project that has mapped and recorded all early-modern bankruptcies in Stockholm between 1687 and 1849. www.tidigmodernakonkurser.se In Sweden the early-modern institutions were reformed from the end of the eighteenth century only to be finally abolished in 1846. The research-group consists of Klas Nyberg (Stockholm University), Mats Hayen (The City Archive of Stockholm), Axel Hagberg (Stockholm School of Economics), Håkan Jakobsson (Stockholm University) and Paula von Wachenfeldt (Stockholm University). (Show less)