ABSTRACT
Remarkably, Alva emerged from a background that did not nurture young women’s aspirations, support their education, or offer them models of achievement. Born in Uppsala in 1902, she was the first child of a young couple from rural Sweden who were struggling to gain a foothold in the expanding industrial economy. Her father, Albert Reimer, was deeply involved in working-class movements for temperance, secularism, universal suffrage, and socialism, while her mother, Lowa Larsson Reimer, strove to maintain a genteel, middle-class façade and was politically conservative. Their differing political perspectives and values were rooted in the two families’ histories, which provide a window on the experiences of ordinary people in this time of social transformation. The Reimers were landless agricultural laborers and artisans, and their marital and intergenerational relationships were marked by incidents of conflict and shame. Yet the optimistic Albert was committed to self-improvement and mutual aid. The Larssons, in contrast, were landowning family farmers. But Lowa’s life was shadowed by the early deaths of her mother, sister, and brother, making her fear emotional attachments.
