Jewish migration and the development of the Swedish and Finnish garment industry

ABSTRACT

This article traces the role that Jewish families with an Eastern European background played in the garment industry in both Sweden and Finland. It examines two cases of family firms with a Jewish ownership. From this starting point, it discusses why and how the family firms were important in shaping the Scandinavian Jewish Diaspora. I show how family ties are needed for understanding the entrepreneurial history of the community. Secondly, I discuss why these themes have been relatively absent in Nordic garment histories, as well as the tensions between Nordic business history and Jewish migration history.

KEYWORDS:

• Family ties
• Finland
• garment industry
• Jewish migrants
• Pukeva
• Schwartzman & Nordström
• Sweden

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Andrew Godley, “The Development of Clothing Industry,” Textile History, 28 no. 1 (1997): 3–10; Nancy L. Green, Ready-to-wear and ready-to-work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York, Comparative and International Working-Class History (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997); Mila Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion: Discourses and Displays in German Culture, 1918–1933 (Rochester: Camden House, 2008); Phyllis Dillon and Andrew Godley, “The Evolution of the Jewish Garment Industry, 1840–1940,” in Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism, ed. Rebecka Kobrin (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 35–61; on the relation between migration and entrepreneurship, see Robert J. Bennet, Harry Smith, Carry van Lieshout, Piero Montebruno and Gill Newton, The Age of Entrepreneurship: Business Proprietors, Self-employment and Corporations since 1851 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), especially 253–69.

2. John Klier, “Pale of Settlement,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, 2010, https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pale_of_Settlement (accessed 30 October 2022); Eric Goldstein, “Beyond the “Shtetel”: Small-town Family Networks and the Social History of Lithuanian Jews,” Jewish Social History, 24 no. 1 (2018): 34–74.

3. Andrew Godley, Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship in New York and London. 1880–1914: Enterprise and Culture. Studies in Modern History. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001); Adam Mendelsohn, The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed their way to Success in America and the British Empire (New York: NYU Press, 2014); Roger Waldinger, Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New York”s Garment Trades (New York: New York University Press, 1986).

4. Vibeke Kieding Banik, “The Faith of the Fathers, the Future of the Youth,” Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 27 no. 1 (2016): 153–72.

5. Rita Bredefeldt, Judiskt liv i Stockholm och Norden: Ekonomi, identitet och assimilering 1850–1930. (Stockholm: Stockholmia, 2008), 52.

6. Taimi Torvinen, Kadimah. Suomenjuutalaisten historia (Helsinki: Otava, 1989).

7. Boris Grünstein, Jude i Finland. Galghumoristiska berättelser (Helsingfors: Söderström, 1988), 41, translated by LE.

8. This popular discourse comes up for instance in the many comics depicting Jews selling garments. For Sweden, see Lars Andersson, En jude är en jude är en jude …: Representationer av ”juden” i svensk skämtpress omkring 1900–1930 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2000); for Finland, Laura Ekholm, “Jews, Second-hand Trade and Upward Economic Mobility: Introducing the Ready-to-wear Business in Industrializing Helsinki, 1880–1930,” Business History 61 No. 1 (2019): 73–92.

9. Concerning Finland, Simo Muir and Hana Worthen (eds.) Finland”s Holocaust: Silences of History (Basingstock: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014); S. Muir, “The Plan to Rescue Finnish Jews in 1944,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 30 no. 1 (2016): 81–104; concerning Sweden, see, for instance, Pontus Rudberg, The Swedish Jews and the Holocaust, Routledge Studies in Second World War History (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019).

10. Vibeke Kieding Banik and Laura Ekholm, “Culture, Context, and Family Networks: Values and Knowledge Transfers Among Eastern European Jews in the Nordic Countries, 1880–1940,” in Families, Values, and the Transfer of Knowledge in Northern Societies, 1500–2000, eds. U. Aatsinki, J. Annola, and M. Kaarninen (New York: Routledge, 2019), 120–41.

11. Gideon Reuveni, “Prolegomena to an “Economic Turn” in Jewish history,” in Gideon Reuveni and Sarah Wobick-Segev (eds.), The Economy in Jewish History: New Perspectives on the Interrelationship between Ethnicity and Economic Life (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011), 1–22.

12. Gideon Reuveni, “Prolegomena to an “Economic Turn” in Jewish history,” 8.

13. Kent Olsson, En västsvensk industrihistoria: Tiden fram till 1950 (Gothenburg Studies in economic History 6, Göteborg: University of Gothenburg, 2008), 360–61.

14. Until 1969, Kappa-Keskus OY, since then OY PUKEVA, Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola, Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (Pukeva yhtiö, 2006).

15. The Diet, the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland, discussed the Jewish civil rights several times, Jacobsson 1951, Taistelu ihmisoikeuksista (Porvoo: Gummerus, 1951).

16. A methodological self-reflection on the literature of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, Christhard Hoffmann, “Jewish History as a History of Immigration: An Overview of Current Historiography in the Scandinavian Countries,” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 27, 203–222.

17. Ruth Illman and Mercédesz Czimbalmos, “Knowing, Being, and Doing Religion: Introducing an Analytical Model for Researching Vernacular Religion, Temenos – Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion, 56 no. 2 (2020): 171–99.

18. This can be compared to Edvard Balleisen”s frame for business historians. Edward Balleisen, “The Prospects for Collaborative Research in Business History”. Enterprise & Society 21/4 (2020), 824–52.

19. The manager, Robert Schwartzman died in a car accident in 1961. Gunnar Klasson, “Tiger of Sweden,” Uddevallabloggen, text posted on 27 October 2007, https://www.uddevallabloggen.se/2007/10/tiger-since-1903.html (accessed 30 August 2022).

20. “Tiger of Sweden”, Uddevallabloggen, posted on 27 October 2007. https://www.uddevallabloggen.se/2007/10/tiger-since-1903.html (accessed 30 August 2022).

21. Emma, “Tiger of Sweden,” Formverk.se, posted on 2019, http://formverk.se/2019/04/29/tiger-of-sweden/ (accessed 30 August 2022).

22. Virve Rissanen and Joonas Laitinen, “Pukeva-tavaratalon henki elää: Henkilökunta kokoontuu yhä vuosittain laulamaan tv:stä tuttua mainoslaulua,” Helsingin Sanomat, 17 January 2016.

23. Paloma Fernández Pérez and Andrea Colli, The Endurance of Family Businesses: A Global Overview (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Jimy M. Sanders and Victor Nee, “Immigrant Self-Employment: The Family as Social Capital and the Value of Human Capital,” American Sociological Review, 61 no. 2 (1996): 231–49; Mark Casson, “The Economics of the Family Firm,” Scandinavian Economic History Review, 47 no. 1 (1999): 10–23.

24. Sven Cele and Tekoindustrierna, Tekoindustrierna 1907–2007 (Tekoindustrierna 2007), 76; The son, and successor, Robert Schwartzman was the chairman of Konfektionsindustriföreningen from 1956 to 1961, 79.

25. Luhtala, Hakola and Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva, 9.

26. Schwartzman & Nordström”s archives are deposited at the Swedish National Archives section in Gothenburg and Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla.

27. Aktiebolaget Schwartzman & Nordström. En storindustri i Bohuslän. Festkrift utgiven med anledning av firman 40-årsjubileum. MCMXLIII.

28. Kivistö, Terhi, “Jaari, Fabian”, Teollisuusneuvos Fabian Jaari (1907–1962) | SKS Henkilöhistoria (kansallisbiografia.fi); Marjatta Pohls, “Jaari, Ruben”, http://urn.fi.libproxy.helsinki.fi/urn:nbn:fi:sks-kbg-004789. Both are listed in the National Biography of Finland, online collection of Finnish biographies, Studia Biographica 8 (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2008). (accessed, 7 November 2022).

29. Pohls: “Jaari, Ruben”.

30. Kivistö: “Jaari, Fabian”.

31. LeChaim! Kuvia Suomen juutalaisten historiasta, Helsingin juutalainen seurakunta (Hämeenlinna: Karisto, 2006).

32. Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola, and Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (2006). The late son of Ruben and Irene Jaari, Ralph Jaari, had a central role in the making of this publication, which barely mentions the Jewish background of the family.

33. Harry M. Koritzinsky, Slektsregister over familiene Lapidus, Nissalowitz, Schwartzman (1946).

34. Miriam Seligson, “Vi” En släktkrönika [unpublished] (1981). Today, the other Jewish congregation is in Turku (Åbo, in Swedish). Until the Second World War, there was a congregation in Viipuri. The congregation was evacuated to Tampere, but never really took root there.

35. Meliza”s genealogy, A genealogy website by Meliza Amity, https://www.amitys.com/webtrees/index.php?ctype=gedcom&ged=Gedcom.ged (accessed 30 November 2022).

36. Eric Goldstein, “Beyond the “shtetl”: small-town family networks and the social history of lithuanian Jews,” Jewish Social Studies 24 no 1 (2018): 34–74.

37. For instance, Gunnar Klasson, Uddevallabloggen, (accessed 20 November 2022). https://www.uddevallabloggen.se/2007/10/tiger-since-1903.html;; Svensk Industrikalender 1947; Mercators Handelskalener för Finland, 1910.

38. Kenneth Hermele, En shtetl i Stockholm (Weyler, 2017).

39. Carina Gråbacke, Kläder, shopping och flärd, 170–193; Kent Olsson, En västsvensk industrihistoria. Tiden fram till 1950 (Gothenburg Studies in economic History 6, Göteborg: University of Gothenburg, 2008), 360–361; Lena Andersson-Skog. Otyg (2021), 18–19.

40. Anders Weidung, Frihandels dilemma: aktörer och intressen i den offentliga politiken kring textil och konfektionsindustrierna under åren 1970–83 (Acta Universtias Upsaliensis, diss. 1987); Kristoffer Jensen and Carina Gråbacke, “Appropriate Reactions to Globalisation? Interest Group Theory and Trade Associations in Clothing between 1970 and 2000 – A Comparison between Denmark and Sweden,” Business History 55 no. 2 (201), 215–235.

41. Carina Gråbacke, Kläder, shopping och flärd; Ulrika Kyaga. Swedish Fashion 1930–1960: Rethinking the Swedish Textile and Clothing Industry (Doctoral dissertation, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, 2017).

42. Anna Brismark and Pia Lundqvist: “A Textile Web: Jewish Immigrants in Gothenburg in the early Nineteenth Century and their Impact on the Textile Market,” Scandinavian Journal of History 40 no, 4 (2015), 485–511.

43. Jutta Ahlbeck, Ann-Catrin Östman, and Eila Stark (eds), Encounters and Practices of Petty Trade in Northern Europe, 1820–1960: Forgotten Livelihoods (Springer 2022).

44. Laura Ekholm, “Reading the Margins of Business Censuses,” in Home-base Work and Home-Based Workers 1800–2021, eds. Malin Nilsson, Indrani Mazumdar, and Silke Neunsinger (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 31–51.

45. Laura Ekholm, “Jews, Second-hand Trade and upward Economic Mobility: Introducing the Ready-to-wear Business in Industrializing Helsinki, 1880–1930.” Business History 61 No. 1 (2019): 73–92.

46. Piippa Lappalainen and Mirja Almay, Kansakunnan vaatettajat (Helsinki: WSOY, 1996).

47. Marjatta Rahikainen, “Anticipating the Globalisation of Labour: Finnish Women as Immigrant and offshore Labour for the Swedish Economy,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33 no 1 (2007), 95–112.

48. Johan Svanberg, “Migration at the Multi-level Intersection of Industrial Relations: the Schleswig-Holstein Campaign and the Swedish Garment Industry in the early 1950s,”. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2018, 66 no 1 (2018), 54–72.

49. Svanberg Johan, Migrationens kontraster: Arbetsmarknadsrelationer, Schleswig-Holstein-aktionen och tyskorna vid Algots i Borås under 1950-talet (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2016); see also, a recent biography of Ester and Leon Rytz, both survivors from Poland, had their first jobs at Schwartzman & Nordström”s and at Algot”s, Snezana Bozinovska, Vad dina ögon såg. Berättelsen om hur Ester och Leon överlevde (Stockholm: Nordstedts, 2021), 204–212, 215–216.

50. Phyllis Dillon and Andrew Godley, “The Evolution of the Jewish Garment Industry, 1840–1940,” in Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism, ed. Rebecka Kobrin (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 35–61; Roger Waldinger, Through the Eye of the Needle: Immigrants and Enterprise in New York”s Garment Trades (New York: New York University Press, 1986).

51. Erik Dahmén, Svensk industriell företagsverksamhet: Kausalanalys av den industriella utvecklingen 1919–1939, [Entrepreneurial activity in Swedish industry] (Uppsala: IUI 1950), I: 154.

52. Dahmén, Svensk industriell företagsverksamhet, 152; for Finland, for example, Jorma Ahvenainen and Antti Kuusterä, “Teollisuus ja rakennustoiminta,” in Suomen taloushistoria 2, eds. Jorma Ahvenainen, Erkki Pihkala and Viljo Rasila (Helsinki, Tammi: 1982) 254–55.

53. Phyllis Tortora, Dress, Fashion and Technology: From Prehistory to the Present (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 145–50.

54. Gråbacke, Kläder, shopping och flärd; Gudrun Grenander-Nyberg, “Sömnadsindustrier. En översikt av dess uppkomst och utveckling i Sverige,” Daedalus Tekniska museets årsbok (Stockholm: Tekniska museet, 1946), 75–132.

55. Lennart Schön, An Economic History of Modern Sweden, Routledge Explorations in Economic History 54 (London: Routledge, 2012).

56. Folke Kristensson, Studier i Svenska textila industriers struktur (Stockholm: Handelshögskolan, IUI, 1946); Grenander-Nyberg, “Sömnadsindustrier”.

57. Erik Dahmén, Svensk industriell företagsverksamhet, 154, translated by LE.

58. Kristensson, Studier i Svenska textila industriers struktur; Mila Ganeva, Women in Weimar Fashion: Discourses and Displays in German Culture, 1918–1933 (Rochester: Camden House, 2008).

59. Kent Olsson, En västsvensk industrihistoria. Tiden fram till 1950, Gothenburg Studies in Economic History 6 (Göteborg: University of Gothenburg, 2008), 360–61.

60. Aktiebolaget Schwartzman & Nordström.

61. Aktiebolaget Schwartzman & Nordström, 15.

62. Lena Andersson-Skog, Otyg: Algots (Dialogos, 2020).

63. Harry Koritzinsky, Slektsregister over familiene Lapidus, Nissalowitz, Schwartzman.

64. Vibeke Kieding Banik and Laura Ekholm, “Culture, Context, and Family Networks: Values and Knowledge Transfers Among Eastern European Jews in the Nordic Countries, 1880–1940”, 120–41.

65. Koritzinsky, Slektsregister over familiene Lapidus, Nissalowitz, Schwartzman, 57.

66. Unto Suhonen, Invandrare i Borås (Borås: Fenno i samarbete med Immigrant-institutet 1990).

67. Suhonen, Invandrare i Borås.

68. Aktiebolaget Schwartzman & Nordström.

69. Bredefeldt, Judiskt liv i Stockholm och Norden.

70. Dillon and Godley, “The Evolution of the Jewish Garment Industry”.

71. Pia Lundqvist, Marknad på väg: Den västgötska gårdfarihandel 1790–1864 (Göteborg: Historiska institutionen, Göteborgs universitet, 2008).

72. Grenander-Nyberg, “Sömnadsindustrier.

73. The town is on the border between what was then Prussia (now Russian Kaliningrad) and Lithuania. Banik and Ekholm, “Culture, Context, and Family Networks”.

74. Banik and Ekholm, “Culture, Context, and Family Networks”.

75. Goldstein, “Beyond the “Shtetel”: Small-town Family Networks and the Social History of Lithuanian Jews”.

76. “Jakobowskys handelsbolag,” Bohusläningen, 21 December 1971.”

77. Koritzinsky, Slektsregister over familiene Lapidus, Nissalowitz, Schwartzman. 1 1.

78. Svensk industrikalender 1947 (Stockholm: Sveriges industriförbund, 1947).

79. Carlsson, Medborgarskap och diskriminering.

80. Carlsson, Medborgarskap och diskriminering.

81. Muir, Yiddish in Helsinki: Study of a Colonial Dialect and Culture, Studia Orientalia, Vol. 100 (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2004).

82. Petrovsky-Shtern, “Military Service in Russia,” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (accessed. 31 October 2022 <https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Military_Service_in_Russia>. (2 September 2010). In contemporary Finnish sources these were also referred to as Nicholai”s soldiers. Simo Muir and Riikka Tuori, “The Golden Chain of Pious Rabbis”: The Origin and Development of Finnish Jewish Orthodoxy,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 30 no. 1 (2019): 8–34.

83. Muir and the Jewish congregation of Helsinki, “Fenno Judaica”, [An online collection of the history of the Finnish Jews]. http://fennojudaica.jchelsinki.fi/se/se_about.html Judiska församlingen i Helsingfors, 2009.

84. The Diet, the legislative assembly of the Grand Duchy of Finland, discussed the Jewish civil rights several times, Jacobsson 1951, Taistelu ihmisoikeuksista (Porvoo: Gummerus, 1951).

85. Santeri Jacobsson, Taistelu ihmisoikeuksista (Porvoo: Gummerus 1951).

86. Slate Radevitsch (1860–1938); Moses Jankelow (1840–1916) Meliza”s genealogy, A genealogy website by Meliza Amity, https://www.amitys.com/webtrees/index.php?ctype=gedcom&ged=Gedcom.ged (accessed 30 November 2022).; Seligson, “Vi” en släktkrönika.

87. Shraga Feivush “Faiba” Radsevitsch (1830–1887) Meliza”s genealogy, A genealogy website by Meliza Amity, https://www.amitys.com/webtrees/index.php?ctype=gedcom&ged=Gedcom.ged (accessed 30 November 2022); Seligson, “Vi” en släktkrönika.

88. Jacobsson, Taistelu ihmisoikeuksista (Porvoo: Gummerus, 1951); Taimi Torvinen, Kadimah. Suomenjuutalaisten historia (Helsinki: Otava, 1989).

89. Here the line is borrowed from a Yiddish cabaret song from Helsinki played in the 1930s, translated by Simo Muir: Muir, “Merchants of Helsinki: Jewish Stereotypes on a Yiddish stage,” Nordisk Judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 30 no. 2 (2019): 27–45, 35.

90. When the city of Helsinki wanted to demolish the market place in the 1920s, protests were raised by the community. It was eventually closed in 1930.

91. Torvinen. Kadimah.

92. Seligson, ”Vi”. En släktkrönika.

93. The Law for the Citizens of Mosaic Faith, passed on 12 January 1918, Torvinen, Kadimah, 107, 243; ”

94. Seligson, “Vi” En släktkrönika; Simo Muir mentions that the author of the first Chronicle of the Helsinki Jewish community, Jac Weinstein, also fled to Copenhagen. Muir, “Who will laugh last: Jac Weinsteins Sketches, Poetry, and Songs during Finnish-German Co-Belligrency, 1941–44,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, 27 no. 2 (2022): 24–52, 26; Jankelow Samuel (1878–1942) Meliza”s genealogy, A genealogy website by Meliza Amity, https://www.amitys.com/webtrees/index.php?ctype=gedcom&ged=Gedcom.ged (accessed 30 November 2022).

95. Muir, Yiddish in Helsinki, 32, 47–8.

96. Laura Ekholm and Simo Muir. “Name Changes and Visions of “a New Jew” in the Helsinki Jewish Community.” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 27 (2016): 173–188.

97. One of the concrete forms of reforming the Jewish life in Finland was name changes. Finland had broad campaigns of translating the Swedish, but also Russian, family names into Finnish forms. Between 1933 and 1944 in approximately 16% of Jewish families someone had their family name changed. Ekholm and Muir. “Name Changes and “Visions of a New Jew”“, 183.

98. Simo Muir and Riikka Tuori, ““The Golden Chain of Pious Rabbis”: The Origin and Development of Finnish Jewish Orthodoxy,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 30 no. 1 (2019): 8–34.

99. Gunhard Kock, “Oy Pukeva ja Ruben Jaari,” Pörssitieto OY, https://www.porssitieto.fi/kirjoitus/pukeva.html (accessed 17 August 2022).

100. Skurnik was an influential businessman in Helsinki, whose generous donations were influential for the local Jewish institutions, for instance the Helsinki Jewish school. Skurnik passed away in an aircraft accident in 1934. Samuli Skurnik, Narinkasta Kiestingin mottiin. Juutalaisuvun selviytymistarina (Helsinki: Paasilinna, 2013), 218–226URN:NBN:fi-fe20051410;

101. Kock, “Oy Pukeva ja Ruben Jaari”, Pörssitieto OY, https://www.porssitieto.fi/kirjoitus/pukeva.html (accessed 17 August 2022).

102. Simo Muir, “Merchants of Helsinki: Jewish Stereotypes on a Yiddish Stage,” Nordisk judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies, 30 no. 2 (2019): 27–45.

103. Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola and Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (2006), p. 18.

104. Simo Muir ““Who Will Laugh the Last?”: Jac Weinstein”s Sketches, Poetry, and Songs during Finnish-German Co-Belligerency, 1941–44,” Jewish Social Studies 27 No. 2 (2022): 24–52.

105. Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola, and Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (2006); I also employ correspondence with Ralph Jaari, personal correspondence, 11 November 2018.

106. Pohls: “Jaari, Ruben”; Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola, and Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (2006), 14.

107. Pohls: “Jaari, Ruben”; Riitta Luhtala, Ida Hakola, and Ralph Jaari, Rubenin Pukeva (2006), 13.

108. Ralph Jaari, “Mallio Oy,” personal correspondence, 11 November 2018.

109. Simo Muir, “Modes of Displacement: Ignoring, Understating, and Denying Antisemitism in Finnish Historiography,” in Simo Muir and Hana Worten eds. Finland”s Holocaust, eds. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 46–68; Simo Muir and Malte Gashe “Discrimination against Jewish Athletes in Finland: An unwritten Chapter,” in Finland”s Holocaust, 128–50.

110. Karin Kvist-Geverts discusses the antisemitic background noise, K. Kvist Geverts, Ett främmande element i nationen: Svensk flyktingpolitik och de judiska flyktingarna 1938–1944 (Doctoral dissertation, Uppsala university, Universitetsbiblioteket, 2008).

111. Tuori, “Being Jewish in Contemporary Finland,” in Josephine Hoegaerts, Laura Hekanaho, Tuire Liimatainen, and Elizabeth Peterson eds. Finnishness and Decolonization (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2022), 239–264.

112. Kivistö: “Jaari, Fabian,”, English translation by LE.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Ekholm

Laura Ekholm is university lecturer in social science history at the University of Helsinki. Since her doctoral thesis (2013) she has published on the occupational structure of the Helsinki Jewish community, Jewish second-hand trade in Helsinki, and how the history of the community has been narrated. She has recently written about home-based industrial work and development of the ready-to-wear industry in Sweden and Finland.