The beginning of the transatlantic market for Swedish iron

Abstract

From the commencement of the American Revolution until the expiration of the treaty of 1783,¹ the diplomatic relations of the United States with Sweden were determined mainly by political circumstances arising out of the relations of each of the two countries with the great powers of Europe. By the time the treaty expired in 1798, both the United States and Sweden had broken with Revolutionary France, and since Gustavus Ill's high hopes for Swedish-American commerce had failed to materialize, there was little direct intercourse between the two countries. With the turn of the century, however, a great change took place as the American market suddenly began to assume an increasingly important role for Sweden's greatest export product, iron. Within the first decade of the nineteenth century the United States became one of the greatest purchasers of Swedish iron, and Swedish-American commerce was to continue expanding well into the middle of the century. From this time to the outbreak of the Civil War, the political factors, which had previously been the link between the two countries, were overshadowed by the predominant part that the transatlantic market played in Swedish-American diplomacy.