that the most flexible and beautiful forms of all kinds of baskets are found,
even among the coarsest qualities.
Small sloyd' (whisks, brooms, wooden spoons, etc.) are manufactured on a
very large scale in the south of iVlvsborg Lan, especially in the hundred of
Bollebygd, and also in the hundred of Ostra Goinge in Kristianstad Lan.
The production of toys as a domestic industry carried on for profit is an unimportant
one, and the only place where it is pretty generally carried on is the
parish of Oderljunga in Kristianstads Lan.
Pottery manufacture as a domestic industry in connection with small, independent
farming, was formerly carried on in the south of Halland, and is still
found in the hundred of Asbo in Kristianstad Lan.
Wrought-Iron manufacture (nails, tacks, horse-shoes, knives, scissors, etc.) was
formerly carried on in the parish of Lerback in Örebro Lan and in the parish
of Godegard in Ostergotland Lan, but nowadays it is rarely found. Scythes are
still made in the Lans of Kristianstad and Kronoberg; locksmith's work and
girdler’s work are carried on in the parish of Loshult in Kristianstad Lan and
in Hallaryd parish in Kronoberg Lan. Stirrups and other fine smith’s-work for
horse trappings were, until some ten years ago, supplied to the army from these
places. Their sale is, for the most part, now carried on by means of shopkeepers
living in the neighbourhood.
The hand-manufaeture of wire-netting and bolting cloth is still carried on in
the parish of Gnosjo in Jonkoping Lan, but the once widely-spread domestic
industry carried on for profit, in the shape of the manufacture of hair-pins,
hooks-and-eyes and purses, etc., is nowadays pursued only by a few elderly
persons.
The manufacture of fishing-tachle is carried on everywhere in the neighbourhood
of the coasts.
The malcing of shoes and boots as a domestic industry, pure and simple, was
once of great importance in the whole of Örebro Lan, especially in the parish
of Kumla, but now it has been more and more transformed into factory-work
or a sweated trade. — Lappland-shoes and skis for sale are made in the northernmost
lans; this holds good also of skins, horn- and bone-work. The parish of
Malung in Kopparberg Lan is the seat of a leather-sloyd carried on on a large
scale.
In addition to these “sloyd-centres”, domestic industries for sale are still
carried on by persons who work to order or who themselves sell their productions
at fairs and on market-days. Over the whole of Sweden there are
women-weavers, basket-makers, carpenters and makers of small-sloyd who, as a
rule, carry on their domestic industry as a by-occupation in addition to their
agricultural pursuits. But, as a rule, they do not themselves know very exactly
how much they sell every year and, as they know still less how much they
earn by means of their domestic industries, the figures in this respect must
always be treated with a certain amount of caution. The distinction, especially,
between a real domestic industry on the one hand, and a handicraft and
sweated industry, on the other, is often a very fine one.
According to the investigation in 1911 by the Domestic Industries Committee,
the number of persons occupied in domestic industries pursued for profit
amounted to about 49 000, and the value of the articles sold to 16 million
kronor, one half of which comes from real domestic industry and the other
from similar work of sweated industry and handicraft. The total wages are
calculated at 7 x/ 2 million kronor about 5 millions of which can be assigned to
real sloyd and only 2 Vs million kronor to sweated industry and handicraft.
Domestic industry for the purpose of profit is most spread in the southern part
of Alvsborg Lan, with an annual production of 5 million kronor, the greater
part of which, however, is derived from sweated industry. Other districts
where domestic industries for the purposes of profit are of importance are the
Lans of Kopparberg, 1 289 000 kronor, Vâsterbotten, 1 288 000 kronor, and the
Lans of Jonkoping, Kristianstad and Halland, each of which has a productionvalue
of 600 0 0 0—800 000 kronor.
The domestic industries movement. It is certain that the production
of home-industry articles, especially those made with a view to sale, has, after
a long period of decline, considerably increased during late years, and this,
thanks to the modern home-sloyd movement, which has as its object the reawakening
of the old national love of work, the development of manual skill
and the creation, on the basis of inherited traditions, of a revivified home-sloyd
as a source of income for the great mass of the people. The movement may
be said to date from the foundation of the Northern Museum. By the. efforts
of the society called “Handarbetets vanner” (The Friends of Art Needle-work),
Jacob and Thora Kulle, and others, many beautiful textile designs and ancient
technics have been preserved from falling into oblivion, and the artistic productions
of domestic industries turned into articles of trade, chiefly by the efforts
of. fhe Association for Swedish Domestic Industries (Sw. Foreningen for Svensk
Hemslojd). The Agricultural Societies, which, ever since their establishment,
have had the improvement of domestic industries as one item of their programme,
began to work most zealously in the above-mentioned direction, aided,
s they were, by increased State grants. By means of co-operation between
the Agricultural - Societies, the Domestic Industries Associations (which, at the
present day, exist in most of the lans), and private persons, there have been
established within the districts of the various Agricultural Societies fixed schools
of domestic industries, and ambulatory sloyd-courses, where the peasants are
instructed in domestic industrial pursuits, especially in those peculiar to the province,
either gratis or for a very low fee; old designs have been imitated, new
ones drawn which were based on the old ones,- and steps have been taken to provide
for the sale of the objects produced by these domestic industries, by the
establishment of special shops for this purpose. But much remains to be done
ere domestic industries once more occupy the place they deserve — not in rivalry
with great manufacturing industries and handicrafts, but side by side with, and
supplementing these forms ' o f production, and as a weighty ethical, esthetical
and economic factor in , the life of the nation.'
13. INDUSTRIAL ART.
The flourishing condition of the industrial art of Sweden took its rise
more than forty years ago and has steadily developed ever since. The
first inspiring impulse in this branch of industry, after nearly half a century
of extreme decadence, came from England, where the Great E x hibition
of 1851 showed this decline in most discouraging aspect. The
reaction which then commenced, stimulated by artists and others interested
in art, found its first and momentous expression in the establishment
of the South Kensington Museum and the industrial art schools
associated with it. From England the movement extended to other coun-
62— 133179. Sweden II.