Author(s)

Anders Gustavsson

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

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.

Early Industrialization, Illicit Liquor Shops, Insider Perspective, Ruining of Family Economy, Self Experienced Stories, Wives of Workers

Gustavsson, A. (2023) Alcohol Misuse: Stories from the Early Industrialism in Sweden. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 11, 354-384. doi: 10.4236/jss.2023.115023.