Liberals, Socialists, and Sobriety: The Rhetoric of Citizenship in Turn-of-the-Century Sweden

Abstract

Many years have passed since temperance was treated solely as an expres sion of status anxiety, social control, or internalization of bourgeois norms.1 In the past decade, historians have documented how temperance functioned as part of liberation and empowerment movements: in Char tism, Irish patriotism, women's suffrage, and Russian socialism.2 In this article, I will discuss the role of temperance in turn-of-the-century Swedish suffrage movements, with particular attention to its use by the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' party. In 1866, Sweden had a new, two-house parliament. An indirect fran chise reserved the Upper House for the rich: aristocrats, industrialists, and government functionaries. The Lower House was comparatively open; its electorate consisted of Swedish males either of substantial property or with an income of over 800 crowns a year (workers usually earned between 400 and 600). About 23 percent of adult males, or 6 percent of the total popula tion, could vote in Lower House elections.3 Until 1898, the only cohesive parliamentary group was the Farmers' party. The farmers were not illib eral: They opposed state spending and militarism and?at least un til the 1880s?were in favor of moderate suffrage reform. A more res olutely democratic opposition also existed in the cities, where progres sive notables, academics, and writers, as well as workers' and artisans' associations, maintained traditions of working-class or small folk repre sentation.