ABSTRACT
Eighteenth-century Sweden was a small country at the European fringes. The iron industry was the main link to global markets and developments, with Swedish iron supplying industrialising Britain. In the second half of the century, this gradually changed, with signs of both material and institutional modifications. It was an approaching modernity, with technological improvement, a market economy, or even ideas of progress, but the intellectual understanding of the process was hardly one of change. Instead, contemporaries used the concept of Hushållning, to describe Sweden as a static society, and where change was not visible. Towards the end of the century, however, a new approach was in the making, and this chapter discusses how the idea of an unchanging society gave way to one in which progress was not only visible and achievable, but also desirable. This chapter studies how the Swedish iron industry, integrated into a wider global framework, was portrayed, and explores three interrelated aspects of Swedish iron making: the development of a free market, technology, and ideas about industrial development and progress.
