The dreaming boy and the waking city: alcohol consumption and the construction of a working-class identity in late nineteenth century Stockholm

Lawrence, Stewart B. (2019) The dreaming boy and the waking city: alcohol consumption and the construction of a working-class identity in late nineteenth century Stockholm. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Sweden’s capital city of Stockholm grew in commercial importance in the second half of the nineteenth century as the country experienced rapid industrialisation. This resulted in high labour mobility as people migrated to the city seeking work. The sanitary and housing conditions of the working class varied according to income and the availability of employment. Stockholm’s administration and middle-class imposed its authority on transitory workers with the passage of the Vagrancy Act of 1885 and the introduction of lease agreements. The working class resisted this oppression by drinking. They actively resisted the authority of their employers and middle-class morality by drinking on the job and during their leisure time in the tavern. The act of consuming alcohol brought men of different occupations together and enabled the construction of a working-class identity.

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