ABSTRACT
The period 1870-1939 was decisive for industrialisation and for the creation of an industrial society in Sweden. It was also a period of comparatively rapid economic growth in Sweden in a European perspective. The annual average per-capita growth was above 2 per cent, placing Swedish growth clearly above any other European experience in this period. This was basically due to successful industrialisation. At the same time, agriculture met new pressures to transformation, both internally and externally. New competition arose on the labour market from emigration and from expanding industries and services as well as on the market for grain from foreign suppliers. There were also transformation pressures of a positive character. Rising income, urbanisation and infrastructural development created new markets while industrialisation and foreign trade supplied new inputs and new technology to agriculture.
