This document traces the history of a Swedish slum district from the 17th century to present day. It describes how: 1) The district originally housed wealthy manufactures but declined into a slum in the 19th century, with poor living conditions, disease, and social unrest including bread riots. 2) Excavations revealed the living spaces of the poor, who struggled with overcrowding, malnutrition, and epidemics like the 1834 cholera outbreak. 3) Tensions culminated in the 1948 Travellers Riots in which two girls were targeted, though the causes were as much about class as ethnicity. 4) Urban renewal in the 1950s demolished the slum but also erased its

1. From TB to SD – tracing a tainted history of a Swedish slum district
EAA Glasgow 2015 – Session SA 21
Claes Pettersson, archaeologist
Jönköpings County Museum
Sweden
claes.pettersson@jkpglm.seControl mark, issued for “legit
beggars” in Copenhagen 1625
Martin Ericsson, Ph.D.
Researcher at the
Department of History,
University of Lund
martin.ericsson@hist.lu.se

2. The Apeln site in 1904 with tenements for several poor families, tucked away in former workshops and storehouses
Excavations in Jönköping, Sweden
between 2004 and 2007.
Sites originally being part of wealthy
17th century manufacture districts
Rapid decline in status during the 19th
century
Described as “among the worst slum
districts in the country” in 1936
Scene of numerous instances of social
unrest, the latest (and most serious)
was The Travellers Riots in 1948…

3. A new town built in the aftermath of the Kalmar War (1611-13).
• Replaces a medieval town destroyed in 1612
• Intended to become an important border fortress
• A supply base for the Swedish army
• A centre for strategic production to fulfil the needs of the Armed Forces
• An administrative centre for a reformed, more efficient government
The New Jönköping becomes a major investment for the Swedish Crown in the 17th century
However, the plots and blocks
allotted to the Royal Manufactures
(firearms and cloth) eventually
became low status districts in the
town. It has been possible to follow
this process of social decline in the
18th and 19th centuries through
excavations and written sources

4. Aftermath of a catastrophe. Detail from an aquarelle painted a few months
after the town fire of 1790.
The constant risk of disaster in a wooden town – photo from 1902.
Blocks destroyed by the fires of 1785 and 1790. 3/5 of the town
gone…
1721 – The collapse of the Swedish Military Power results in rapid economic
decline for Jönköping, a town based on a war economy.
18th century – Six major fires between 1690 and 1790. High quality building
materials and craftsmanship becomes rare and expensive.
Consequence => grand residences built on properties along the Main Street
/ makeshift houses in what becomes low status areas.
Town fires

5. I
II
III
A tenement from the early 19th century. A secondary addition
to a former storehouse. Total living space = 20 m2
I = entrance
II = storage
III = room with wooden floor. Heated by a simple tile stove
Stable
Charcoal
shed

6. Bronze ingots – almost 23 kg of precious metal,
forgotten in the dirt floor of a 19th century workshop.
The bottle – one way out…
1834 – Cholera in Jönköping
• 1/3 of the population ill
• 1/6 dies
• 636 out of a total
population of 4200
A new structure of ownership in
the aftermath of the epidemic:
• Former properties of craftsmen
and merchants divided
• The new owners seldom have
their professions defined
• They appear in the registers as
“working-man”
• Unskilled labour becomes
visible…
Rats and stock-fish – ingredients of daily life
Overpopulation, substandard living conditions,
bad food, alcoholism and a low state of health…

7. Frekvens mellan arter i %
baserad på NISP
Gadus morhua
Melanogrammus aeglefinus
Molva molva
Gadidae
Clupea harengus
Pleuronectidae
Anguilla anguilla
Salmonidae
Esox lucius
Perca fluviatilis
Rutilus rutilus
Herring
Ling
Haddock
Cod
While Lake Vättern is famous for its char (sp. Salvelinus)…
Stock fish!Cheap food for poor people

8. Axe and a crude execution block – left by the mob on the doorstep of the grain merchant Lindmans’
house as a subtle warning….
The Bread Riots of 1855
• Escalating food prices
• Caused by speculation in the
grain market during the Crimean
War
• An urban population close to
starvation
• Riots begin in September
• Workers confront jobbing
merchants
• Troops from the garrison called
in to stop the unrest
• Severe punishment for the
insurgents

9. Tanneries, tenement and dirty water. Photo from 1908
A report from the Swedish Residents’ Association, written
in 1936 describes the situation in poor parts of Jönköping as
“just terrible; without any equivalent in this country”
• T.B. and a number of other diseases are shown to be common
among the population
• At least 20% of the tenements are infested with vermin
• 30% of the tenements lack any form of heating
• The sanitation is found to be substandard in the district
Both the local social welfare board and the National Board
of Health and Welfare initiated studies in Jönköping during
the 1940s with the aim to define and examine the local
population of Travellers (sv. Tattare). When the results were
published in 1944 it became evident that no such
distinctions could be made.
However, social tensions and prejudice did remain…

10. Barbro Gustavsson and Birgitta Hellström. Aged 13 and 9
in the summer of 1948. Two targets for the riots…
Just an ordinary riot?
…with strong support
from the local leftist
newspaper! A case of
social engineering – not
everyone is welcome into
the post-war Paradise…

11. The old city centre in 1950 – a change is about to begin…
Get rid of the problem – as well as blocks of 18th century houses…
Instead of poverty and T.B. - shopping malls and parking lots

12. The monument – “Here no-one needs to be afraid” 2014
Recognition through archaeology.
Finds from the excavation of a
travellers campsite at Snarsmon,
western Sweden 2004-2007. A co-
operation project.
Barbro Gustavsson and Birgitta Hellström in
2014. They finally received an official excuse
from the municipal board of Jönköping.
Speeches and music, August 8th 2014

13. August 12th – Sverigedemokraterna (SD) – election meeting
August 27th – Svenskarnas Parti (SvP) – election meeting
Both meetings were held on the Hovrättstorget square, just a few
meters away from the 1948 monument…
The reaction against xenophobia
and having neo-Nazis in our
streets was strong!

14. The Eastern Square – scene of the riots in 1948 as it is today
Urban renewal …and amnesia
How can we – as historians & archaeologists – deal with the painful narratives???