Commerce in Sweden, Part 3, The trading stalls

The rural trade changed lives

Countryside store in Glava in Värmland around 1912.

During the second half of the 19th century, countryside traders became more common. Here you had most of what was offered on the Swedish product market of that time - from spices to utensils.

It was the smells and odors older people, who in the early 1940s were interviewed about the countryside trade in their childhood and youth in the 19th century, best remembered. The smells of kerosene and turpentine, salted herring and dried fish were perhaps not so pleasant in themselves, but they went up in a symphony of fragrance from other goods: spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and coriander, new cotton fabric, school leather and celery, coffee and cigars .

In the spring, the open seed bags with clover and timothy gave a foretaste of the coming summer, and in the autumn candles from Liljeholmen gave a taste of the Christmas atmosphere.

The countryside shops began to emerge after the business freedom reforms of 1846 and 1864. The great expansion came in the 1870s, and continued during the 1880s. In 1890, there were about 9,000 rural trade movements in Sweden.

It happened that farmers opened a shop at home on the farm, but most shops started where people used to meet: at an important road junction, at the church or at a railway station.

The connection between the expansion of the railway network and the emergence of new rural business movements - two lines of development that coincide in time - is clear. It often gave a good start for those who wanted to establish trade to start selling food, snus (moist snuff) and spirits to the rallies at a railway construction. When the track was completed, the location at a station became ideal. People and companies moved there, and it was easy to get goods home by train.

In the trade stalls in the countryside, there was most of what was offered on the Swedish goods market of that time, including tools for agriculture, tools and household utensils. If something was missing, the trader could usually "take it home".

Fabric and yarn were included from the beginning. Clothing such as trousers, shirts and blouses, vests, mens and womens coats, made their entrance in the last decades of the 19th century. The same was done by factory-made shoes, rubber boots and boots.

But it was the basic goods that were important in all households, such as flour of various kinds, groats, sugar, salt, salted herring and coffee that dominated the purchases and accounted for the largest turnover in the stores. All such was sold in bulk. The trader or assistant weighed up and wrapped in cones or wrapped paper. It was one of the professional requirements for a sales assistant to be able to make such tight paper cones that they did not even let water through.

Even spirits were usually sold in "loose weight" until the 1880s. The spirit was measured in jugs, which held almost two liters. But you could also buy half and quarter jugs. The customer had to bring bottles or other containers himself.

Goods ready in packaging from the factory, arrived later. The same applies to products marketed under a particular brand name or brand. Tobacco, snus (moist snuff) and cigars were among the first to go on sale under special brand names. Towards the end of the 19th century, there were about ten different snus (moist snuff) brands to choose from.

Fresh produce such as vegetables, fruit, fresh meat, fresh fish and milk were only sparse. It was too difficult to store before the time of the refrigerators and freezers. In addition, many had access to such on their own farm or plot. Others could buy or exchange with neighbors.

The trading stall was often also a post office and newspaper office, and a meeting place in general. Especially on pay days with many men in the store, it could be lively. Liquor consumption was not allowed inside, but you could always do it outside around the corner. The scales' five- and ten-kilo weights were used for strength tests, lifted on the middle finger and swung around with the grip between the thumb and forefinger.

The era of the old-fashioned countryside trade lasted for about a hundred years. In the decades after the Second World War, the customer base in the countryside was thinned out through the increased relocation to cities and towns. Many who lived in the countryside got a car and started shopping in the town's supermarket, where they themselves picked up factory-packaged goods from shelves, refrigerators and freezers. The small countryside traders could not keep up with that development. The investment costs of modernizing the stores had become too high in relation to the low turnover. One countryside store after another was closed down, missed by many, even those who themselves did not shop there so much towards the end.

//Daniel

Commerce in Sweden, part 2, The Trots

The Trots

Nasaren, Painting by Pehr Hilleström (1733-1816)

In this blogpost I've taken the freedom to write the swedish slang as it was used in Sweden back in the days and I have tried to translate it into the closest words in English. You will see both the Swedish and the closest English translated words in here.

Something that the Swedish people often get wrong is in they go to a marketplace (old market) and say: "Ser du alla knallarna på marknaden?" (Translation: "Do you see all the trots in the marketplace?") refering to the market stalls and the poeple who sells things there but the are not really "knallar" or "trots".

Hardly any farm in Sweden's elongated country was too small or too lonely to be visited by a farm trader. The walkers, as they were also called, usually came once or twice a year.

The farm people flocked around the merchant as he spread his goods in the house or on the trolley. The women thumbed on fabrics, held them in front of them to see what they would look like skirts or aprons. The men turned and turned on bowls and tin plates, tapped them to listen to the quality, felt with their thumbs on knife edge. Children were discouraged so as not to stain the trappings. Prices and qualities were negotiated.

Most farm traders came from Sjuhäradsbygden, ie the seven districts Mark, Kind, Ås, Redväg, Veden, Bollebygd and Gäsene in southern Västergötland, and were therefore called "Västgötaknallar".

The term "Knalle" has been given various explanations. The closest is probably the word "trots" which is synonymous with walking, still alive in expressions like "Det knallar och går" = "It walks and goes" or "Jag ska knalla hem" = "I'm going to trot home". In their own secret language, Månsing they called themselfs "Nasare" and to sell "nasa".

Had a secret language

Far back in time, in some cases even today, slang words are used that have long since been intercepted from the secret language of the Västgöta trots. Some examples; fika, fjälla (girl, fiancée), snut = copper (old english word for cop) (police), snuthäck (police station), borst (shot), karda (hand), snok (nose) and tjacka (buy). It is one of two old and long secret languages, which differ so much from normal Swedish that they can be seen as their own languages. The other is the chimney sweepers "knoparmoj".

One reason why the Knallars developed their secret language was that they could consult with colleagues or any accompanying tradesman about goods, prices and qualities, without revealing trade secrets to outsiders. Therefore, månsing contains a lot of arithmetic words and expressions for money. Two examples that are still "Stålar" (Something like dibs, money) and hacka (Tjäna sig en hacka in Swedish is making a little extra money from something).

We do not know for sure what the word månsing comes from. Some believe that it is connected with the Västgötland dialect, where our speech organ is called the "månnen". Then speaking can be "månsa", and the language "månsing". According to another theory, månsing is related to the old word "måla", which meant to measure, still alive in place names such as Blomstermåla and Eriksmåla.

It is certain that the elongated cane that the trots used to measure fabric was called Måns.

The trots commerce had its origins in the early Middle Ages. The lean fields in Västergötland's forest areas did not provide enough grain to feed the population. Thus there was plenty of pasture, even in rocky pastures, meadows and forest clearings. This gave a surplus of cattle, which could be driven to the plains and exchanged for grain. Enthusiastic ox-drivers then also brought crafts and handicrafts of various kinds, made on the farm, to sell or exchange.

From being a sideline to ox farming, over the centuries handicrafts and trade trips grew into a main industry in the Sjuhäradsbygden, alongside agriculture.

The trips were extended to the whole of Sweden, for some also to Norway or Finland.

An early product was carved or turned bowls and wooden plates. The bowls were exchanged for the amount of grain that could be contained in them. Other early products were reeds and wool combs. But it was the textiles that came to dominate the trots assortment.

Wool and linen were spinned and woven in homes, and fabrics of various kinds filled the sacks of the trots. In the 19th century, imported cotton fabric became the largest product.

To begin with, when the roads were bad or non-existent, the trots went on foot with their goods in a double sack hung over their shoulders. Otherwise they split. It meant a large double sack was hung over a horse and the trot went next to it. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when road maintenance began to improve, the trots often rode horses and had carriages. Some had depot (a warehouse), with larger consignments within their districts, with employed trade servants to help them and they became "big trots" (merchants).

Over the centuries, the government made many attempts to maintain the cities' trade monopoly. The two towns in Sjuhäradsbygden, Borås and Ulricehamn, were added in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively, mainly for this purpose. The trots would move into one of those cities and become citizens, it was thought.

Borås and Ulricehamn also got an emerging bourgeoisie, but the peasantry did not want to become city dwellers. Instead, their numbers and trade increased in the enclosure of the privileges of the two cities.

The Västgötatrots travel trade was controversial and a constant source of debates in the Parliment. Representatives of the bourgeoisie did not like the competition and demanded a ban. The priests agreed, but with moral, or rather moralizing, arguments. They believed that the sale of farm trades led to sinful luxury consumption and vanity, especially among women. Attempts were also made to regulate and restrict, but the people of Västergötland trotted as before.

Being a peddler was a dangerous profession. Both their stock and money were coveted booty for muggers, robbers and thieves. In church books and court books, there are many notes about trots that were killed on their travels. Some examples: In Borås church register for 1661 it can be read that Anders in Gethult and Erik Håkansson at Rönnebo were assaulted and killed by robbers. Johan Bergman from Borås was killed in 1773 in Östmark parish in Fryksände. Four years later, Toarp's church records testify that Anders in Andare was "murdered at Karlskrona". According to Ulricehamn's court book in 1833, the sales clerk Erik Medin had been found murdered in Hällefors and his books with written debts burned.

Almost all the trots were men. The few women in the profession traded in their homes or in the immediate vicinity. But women still played a crucial role in Sjuhäradsbygden's thriving travel trade. They were the ones who carded and spun the wool, woven and dyed the fabrics. And they were the ones who looked after the farms and the animals when the men were out on their trade trips.

The travel trade reached its peak in the 19th century. Many farm traders had then expanded their business and became big trots. The new means of communication, steamboats and trains, began to be used for the larger and longer transports. A new link was added in the production chain: Publishers who bought the raw material, outsourced manufacturing assignments to the weavers in the homes and delivered the finished products to the trots.

Beginning with the capital that big trots and publishers could collect, as well as centuries of tradition and know-how, Sjuhäradsbygden's flourishing textile industry emerged during the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Borås and Ulricehamn became - alongside Norrköping - Sweden's leading textile industry cities.

By then, the conditions for the farm trade had also changed. More and more of the trade in the countryside passed to the country traders who established themselves around the country. The last Västgötaknallarna maintained their district's ancient tradition of travel trade until around the turn of the century 1800-1900.

//Daniel