Mixed feelings

Abstract

At the turn of the 20th century, women in Norway possessed all the necessary rights to engage in business. An important reason for this legal development was the principle that unmarried women should be able to provide for themselves and avoid being an economic burden on their families or the authorities. The result was that in the first decades of the 20th century, many women were engaged in business and small-scale trade in Oslo, the Norwegian capital. However, social acceptance of these businesswomen did not follow automatically. With a departure point in theories of emotion, we demonstrate that businesswomen evoked mixed feelings in the public, as well as amongst the female proprietors themselves. By analysing the naming of their businesses, the rhetoric in the female trade society, and magazines, as well as their chosen areas of trade, we observe that while emotions such as shame guided their behaviour, material needs and the joy of work tended to even out these feelings. As Oslo was an immigrant city at the time, we have included a comparison with female members of the Jewish community, an important part of the entrepreneurialism of the times.

Keywords:

• entrepreneurship
• emotions
• women
• gender
• Jews
• commerce
• Norway

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In 1925, Kristiania was renamed Oslo.

2 The census of Oppland Faaberg, 1865 (http://www.rhd.uit.no/folketellinger/ftliste.aspx?ft=1865&knr=0524&kenr=004&bnr=0092).

3 The census of Kristiania, 1910 (http://da.digitalarkivet.no/ft/person/pf01036392067746); Rygh, ‘Kvinder i Hotelbedrift’, 465–6.

4 For instance, http://digitaltmuseum.no/things/mennesker-i-bygate-sidsel-aanruds-hotell-ant/NF/NF.01065-473

5 See, for instance Kay, The Foundations of Female Entrepreneurship; Gamber, The Female Economy; Sparks, Capital Intentions; Buddle, The Business of Women; Lewis, Unexceptional Women; Craig, ‘Petites Bourgeoises and Penny Capitalists’; Beachy, Craig, and Owens, Women, Business and Finance; Fridriksson, ‘Kaupkonur og búdardömur’; Ericsson, ‘Limited Opportunities?’; Vikström, ‘Transgressing Gendered Spheres’.

6 Larsen, ‘Selvgjorte kvinner’.

7 Stearns and Stearns, ‘Emotionology’, 813.

8 Lindgren, ‘Kjønn i bevegelse’; Grønstøl, Hulda Garborg, 87. Garborg also expressed her dislike of the commercial sphere in public interviews, such as in the twice-monthly Kvinnelig Handelsstands Blad (no. 4,1919, 190), issued by the Female Trade Society of Kristiania (FTSK). The Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset (1882–1949), had a similar view on the rising number of hired businesswoman. In her collection of short stories, Poor Destinies (1912), the office girls were depicted as sad and grey, possessing only the dream to marry and procreate (See Sigrid Undset, Fattige skjæbner, 19, 67, 81). However, like many other women, Garborg and Undset both had previously worked in commerce themselves, in order to make a living. Garborg worked as a saleswoman for seven years after the divorce of her mother, while Undset worked as a commercial secretary for 10 years after the death of her father.

9 Shield, ‘Gender: An Intersectionality Perspective’, 301.

10 Henden, ‘Tidlig norsk kriminallitteratur og det antisemittiske arkiv’.

11 Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl.

12 Rosenwein, ‘Problems and Methods’, 11; Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions’, 842.

13 Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions’, 842.

14 Haavet, ‘Hustruen – fra profesjonell partner til trøstende engel?’.

15 Ibid., 173.

16 Larsen, ‘Næringsfrihet som likestilling’.

17 Hyman, Gender and Assimilation.

18 Some of these publications have previously been used by Norwegian gender historians as a source of knowledge into women’s past, but their frequent referencing to the self-employed woman in interviews, commentaries, and adverts has gone unnoticed until now. Why this is so is not up to this article to answer, but it might indicate that historians of women and gender have also been carriers of the mixed feelings that the capital-seeking women arose at their time.

19 See, for instance, Fløystad, ‘Kvinnehistorie i Norge’, 598–621; Blom and Sogner, Med kjønnsperspektiv på norsk historie. One exception is Gerd Mordt’s study from 1993 on the women’s paragraphs in the handicraft law of 1839 and the trade law of 1842, including women’s use of these rights in the Norwegian capital Christiania until 1850 (Mordt, Kvinner og næringsrett).

20 Larsen, ‘Selvgjorte kvinner’, 128–32; Larsen, ‘Forretningskvinnene inntar næringslivet’, 139–41.

21 Kvinnelig Handelsstands Blad, no. 8, 1928, 68.

22 Ibid., 1918–1940.

23 Ibid., no. 6, 1927, 49.

24 Ibid.

25 Larsen, ‘Næringsfrihet som likestilling’, 83–7.

26 Larsen, ‘From Economic to Political Citizenship’.

27 The Archive of Oslo; Borgerrullene for Christiania By, 1879–1889.

28 Hoff, Law, Gender, and Injustice. In a number of European countries and throughout the USA, limited autonomy for married women was adopted in the years to come.

29 Aas, ‘Kvinnebyen Bodø før 1940’, 111; Larsen, ‘Selvgjorte kvinner’.

30 Myhre, Hovedstaden Christiania, 40, 386.

31 Ibid., 237–45.

32 Statistiske meddelelser angaaende Christiania, 78; Statistisk aarbog for Kristiania 1902, 72; Statistisk aarbok for Kristiania 1912, 67; Frølich, F.H. Frølich og hans samtid, 163–4.

33 Danielsen, ‘Den kjønnsdelte arbeidsdagen’, 219–74; Danielsen, Larsen, and Owesen, ‘Likestillingslandet – hva nå?’, 388. This is also the main finding of Spark’s studies of female proprietors in San Francisco during the period 1850–1920. See Sparks, Capital Intentions; ‘Married Women and Economic Choice’.

34 For an account of Jewish women and paid labour, see Banik, ‘A Gendered Integration Revisited’.

35 Compare with the references in Morawska, ‘A Replica of the “Old-Country”’, 33. See also Godley, Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship, 68; Neu, ‘The Jewish Businesswomen’, 146.

36 Baum, Hyman, and Michel, The Jewish Women in America, 67.

37 For the exclusion of Jews until 1851, see Harket, Paragrafen; Mendelsohn, Jødenes historie i Norge.

38 Gjernes, ‘Dei fyste jødane’, 258.

39 For numbers, see Banik, ‘A Gendered Integration Revisited’.

40 Langestrand, Ekspeditriser i Kristiania, 65.

41 Lorentz, ‘Vi har ikke invitert jødene hit til landet’, 41–2; Henden, Tidlig norsk kriminallitteratur og det antisemittiske arkiv, 65.

42 Henden, Tidlig norsk kriminallitteratur og det antisemittiske arkiv.

43 This corresponds to the findings of other historians including Edith Sparks, who has studied female proprietors in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.

44 Melby, ‘Husmortid, 1900-1950’, 259–60.

45 Kay, The Foundations of Female Entrepreneurship, 119.

46 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 277–8.

47 Vikström, ‘Transgressing Gendered Spheres through Business’, 269.

48 Adressebok for Kristiania, 1904 ‘Berta Meszansky’, Hatikwoh no. 10, 1935.

49 Kvinnelig Handelsstands Blad, no. 8, 1928, 68.

50 Kristiania Adressebog for 1885, 107; Kristiania Adressebog for 1891, 95; Kristiania Adressebog for 1892, 98–9; Kristiania Adressebog for 1915, 738. However, the trade directories listed many female business holders, making them into important sources in the study of female entrepreneurs at the turn of the last century.

51 The National Library (Klipparkivet/newspaper cuttings), for instance: U46/2, U 228/141, U 513/91, U 548/16, U 1138/58 among others.

52 Morgenbladet, 25 February (morning issue), 1890, 3.The complete notice in Norwegian was: ‘Kristiania handelstands kvinder indbydes af Norsk kvindesagsforening til møde i Studentersamfundets store sal torsdag den 27de februar kl. 9 aften til diskusion om mulig dannelse af fagforening. Referat frabedes’.

53 Moksnes, Likestilling eller særstilling?, 157, 163–4.

54 Altern and Lie, Oslo Kvindelige Handelsstands Forening, 9.

55 Ibid.

56 By 1914, similar societies had been established in Drammen, Trondheim, Bergen, and Kongsberg.

57 Owesen, ‘Fra lukkede til offentlige rom, 1880-1900’.

58 For instance, Nylænde, 15 March 1908, 92, 1; February 1909, 43; no. 16, 1917, 243; 15 August 1919, 243–7.

59 Nylænde, 15 November 1912, 433–43; 1 May 1919, 139–40.

60 Nylænde, 15 April 1918, 126.

61 Nylænde, 15 February 1915, 41.

62 Urd, 1897–1920.

63 Kvinnelig Handelsstands Blad, no. 6, 1927, 49.

64 Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, 75.

65 For the account on May Aubert, see Kvamme, May Aubert – en dame med hatt.

66 Hatikwoh, no. 5, 1938.

67 Ibid.

68 Scheff, Shame in Self and Society, 255.

69 Elias, The Civilizing Process, 414.

70 Hatikwoh, no. 1–2, 1939.

71 Kvinnelig Handelsstands Blad, no. 8, 1928, 68.

72 Ibid.

73 Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, 16.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eirinn Larsen

Eirinn Larsen holds a PhD from the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy. She is currently a research professor at the Business History Unit at the Norwegian Business School, BI.

Vibeke Kieding Banik

Vibeke Kieding Banik holds a PhD in history from the University of Oslo. Her research interests include modern Jewish history, migration, integration, and gender history. She currently has a scholarship from The Norwegian Non-fiction Writers And Translators’ Association and is writing a book on the history of the Norwegian Jews.