Popular literacy in Scandinavia about 1600 - 1900

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Utilizing the poetic image of the growing tree, this essay examines the old reading tradition in Sweden. By stressing the religious origin and practice of reading it corrects the misconception that literacy developed only with the industrial revolution. Although it draws on the rich quantitative Umea database, this paper takes an im portant step towards exploring the quality of the reading experience through close attention to popular culture and the content of the books. I like to picture Scandinavia as an enormous tree on the nup of history. The roots penetrate deeply into the livelihood and culture of the continent. The trunk marches through Denmark and southern Sweden. The enormous crown stret ches high up in the east, north and west, covering land and sea. This picture need not offened anybody. It will be of great help to me as I try to piece together the development of popular literacy and education in Scandi navia during the last three or four centuries. This puzzle shows an abundance of observations and ideas. It encourages the play of thought. That is why I chose the picture of Scandinavia as a tree. It is not only the land itself which can become this image. Scandinavia's population growth, its economic political and cultural life as well as the growth of popular lite racy and education can borrow the same simile.(i) The growth in population Certainly the growth in Scandinavia's population gives the impression of a growing tree. The number of people living in Scandinavia around the year 1600 can be assumed to have been slightly more than two million. Of these a third each lived in Denmark, Sweden and the rest of the Scandinavian coun tries (Finland, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, etc.) Around the year 1750 the number had increased by a million. In Denmark and Sweden the population remained nearly steady. The increase was spread over the rest of Scandina via. At the turn of the 19th century there were around five million Scandi navians. Almost half of them lived in Sweden and roughly a fifth each in Denmark, Norway and Finland. The Danish population remained barely a million and Norway and Finland with their rapidly growing populations caught up with Denmark. During the next century these three countries grew at the same rate. They almost tripled their populations to approximately 2.5 million each by the end of the last century. During the same time, Sweden doubled its population to roughly five million. And Iceland had since the 18th century doubled its population to approximately 80,000. Greenland's popula tion was at that time around 10,000. Thus the population, its density and growth evoke the picture of a growing tree on the map over Scandinavia, where first the trunk, then the branches and finally the whole tree flourish. The real meaning of this picture, however, is in its use for depicting the cultural and educational traditions of these peoples. Naturally one's thoughts lead to the conditions of these people's lives and livelihood. First, the proportion of city dwellers could be of importance. A (+) Address all communications to: Egil Johansson, Demographiska Databasen, Umea University, S-90187 Umea This content downloaded from 207.46.13.111 on Sun, 22 May 2016 06:04:30 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms