TITLE:
Alcohol Misuse: Stories from the Early Industrialism in Sweden
AUTHORS:
Anders Gustavsson
KEYWORDS:
Early Industrialization, Illicit Liquor Shops, Insider Perspective, Ruining of Family Economy, Self Experienced Stories, Wives of Workers
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.5,
May
29,
2023
ABSTRACT: In the present investigation, misuse of alcohol during the early
industrialization in Sweden from the 1870s
and onward has been front and center. New ways of living emerged among
male workers. Alcohol received a prominent role.
A main objective here is to find and analyze stories from self experienced
situations where alcohol misuse was widely common and excessive. I want to get
an insider perspective from those misusing to the stories told by those being
around them. It was commonly considered that certain working class individuals
were the ones being misusers. During the late 1800s, it was easy to get
your hands on large quantities of cheap alcohol in stores, illicit liquor shops, taverns and from mobile pushers. Adverse
effects of drinking in the new
industrial communities could be both violence towards individuals around
and ruining of the economy of the workers’ families. Workers’ associations,
sobriety associations and the wives of workers became active counterbalancing
factors against excessive alcohol drinking.