ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes collective action organizations in the first period of modern civil society history from the 1850s to 1890s. Sweden underwent extreme transformation from the mid-1800s. Swedish demography changed greatly when a law was passed that permitted parcelling out of land. This land reform led to destruction of old Swedish society, with the state church as the village focal point, and displacement of vast groups of people, through what would later be called unemployment. The political order of the time viewed the followers of the first non-conformist or free church religious associations as deviants and threats to society. An important decade for Swedish unions is the 1870s. The cutting edge of unionism was skilled craftsmen; typographers were at the forefront. Workers in the capital city of Stockholm were among the first groups to unionize. Social democrats were very successful unionizers. The social democratic trade union movement used many of the same tactics as the teetotaling and free church movements.
