How much did a Swedish Schoolhouse Cost to Build? Rewriting the history of 19th-century rural schoolhouses

Abstract

How much did the 19^th-century rural schoolhouse cost to build? On the basis of a study of schoolhouse building in the Sundsvall region in the period 1842–1900, this article shows how the cost of school buildings increased over time, both overall and by schoolhouse, largely because of the marginalization of cheaper and simpler redevelopment projects, as well as the construction of a number of more expensive schoolhouses. Through the use of extensive source material, preserved from the building of 66 schoolhouses, a more detailed analysis of these developments has demonstrated differences in price levels between purchased schoolhouses, redevelopments of existing buildings and new building projects, and buildings intended for different types of schools. Insights are also given into labour and material costs. In addition to establishing basic facts about a main feature of the expanding system of mass education, this study thus makes a reinterpretation of the 19^th-century rural schoolhouse which emphasizes new patterns of development and fundamental distinctions, presenting schoolhouses as a social and economic issue, rather than an architectural or pedagogical concern. Instead of being described as rather simple buildings, in comparison with the major buildings in the cities, schoolhouses thus appear as a major item of expenditure for local government.

Keywords:

• mass education
• schoolhouse
• building expenses
• 19th century

Acknowledgement

This article has benefited from many discussions with colleagues at the Department of Education at Uppsala University, as well as the helpful comments from the two anonymous referees.

References

Archival sources

Landsarkivet i Härnösand (HLA)

Domkapitlet i Härnösand (DKH)

Alnö kyrkoarkiv (ka)

Attmar ka

Hässjö ka

Indal ka

Ljustorp ka

Njurunda ka

Selånger ka

Skön ka

Sättna ka

Timrå ka

Tuna ka

Tynderö ka

Ljustorps hembygdsförening

Bildarkivet

Länsmuseet Västernorrland

Bildarkivet

Medelpadsarkiv (MA)

Sättna skolstyrelse

Sundsvalls museum (SuM)

Fotoarkivet

Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet, RA), Stockholm

Konseljakter

Statistical series and official publications

BiSOS H. Bidrag till Sveriges officiella statistik. Kongl. Maj: tsBefallningshafvandes femårsberättelse. Västernorrland.

BiSOS P. Bidrag till Sveriges officiella statistik. Undervisningsväsendet.

BiSOS U. Bidrag till Sveriges officiella statistik. Kommunernas fattigvård och finanser.

Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning. Stockholm, 1865.

Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning. Andra omarbetade upplagan. Stockholm, 1878.

Notes

1 Grew and Harrigan, School, State and Society, 251, 257; Eklof, ‘Kindertempel or Shack?’, 127; Zimmerman, Small Wonder, 17; Budde, From the ‘Zwegschule’ (One-Room Schoolhouse) to the Comprehensive School, 97; BiSOS P (1900), tab. 2.

2 Burke and Grosvenor, School, 26–7; Cutler, ‘Cathedral of Culture’, 1–2, 39; Zimmerman, Small Wonder, 1–10.

3 See for example: Fuller, The Old Country School, ch. 4; Eklof, ‘Kindertempel or Shack?’, 117–43; Seaborne, The English School; Toulier, ‘L’Architecture scolaire au XIXe siecle’, 1–29; Markus, ‘Early Nineteenth Century School Space and Ideology’; De Coninck-Smith, Vor lærdoms bygning; Helfenberger, Das Schulhaus als geheimer Miterzieher. For an extensive recent survey of the architectural history of schoolhouses, see Châtelet, ‘L’architecture des écoles au xxe siècle’.

4 See for example: Burke and Grosvenor, School; Gutman and De Coninck-Smith, Designing Modern Childhoods; Lawn and Grosvenor, Materialities of Schooling; and the special issues of Paedagogica Historica 41, nos. 4–5 (2005), and History of Education 39, no. 6 (2010).

5 See for example: Seaborne, The English School, 215, 226, 227; Fuller, The Old Country School, 69; Eklof, ‘Kindertempel or Shack?’, 131–4; Powell, The British Building Industry Since 1800, 17.

6 See for example: Chalklin, The Financing of Church Building; Chalklin, ‘Prison Building by the County of Berks’; Wilson and Mackley, ‘How Much did the English Country House Cost to Build?’ The title of this article is obviously in homage to Wilson and Mackley’s inspiring study.

7 See footnotes 3–4.

8 See for example: Kristenson, Skolhuset; Jönsson, ‘Glesbygdens skolhus’; Åman, ‘“Inledning till skol-arkitekturen”’; Mellander, Arkitektoniska visioner under statligt förmyndarskap, 64–7.

9 These school districts are: Alnö, Attmar, Hässjö, Indal, Ljustorp, Njurunda, Selånger, Skön, Sättna, Timrå, Tuna and Tynderö.

10 Tedebrand, ‘Introduction’, 8–9; Magnusson, An Economic History of Sweden, 117–21.

11 Johansson, The History of Literacy in Sweden, 28–59; Boli, New Citizens for a New Society, 222–6.

12 See for example: Boli, New Citizens for a New Society, 227; Johansson, Schooling in Sweden in the 19th Century, 16–17. The number of Swedish school districts and parishes varied over time. These data apply to 1839; see Aquilonius, Svenska folkskolans historia, vol. 2, 266.

13 BiSOS P (1868), 66–7; BiSOS P (1900), tab. 2.

14 See for example: Link, A Hard Country and a Lonely Place, 51; Zimmerman, Small Wonder, 17–24; Ziegler, Schools in the Landscape, 61–3.

15 The dimensions of the schoolhouses and the number of storeys are respectively based on the available data from 22 and 45 schoolhouses.

16 Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning (1865); Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning. Andra omarbetade upplagan (1878).

17 The parish house was the building where the parish and church meetings were held.

18 Similar challenges have been noted in the study of English public buildings and country houses; see Chalklin, English Counties and Public Building, 212; Wilson and Mackley, ‘How Much did the English Country House Cost to Build?’, 442–3.

19 Magnusson, An Economic History of Sweden, 143–4, 149–60; Jörberg, A History of Prices in Sweden 1732–1914, vol. 2, 193–4.

20 Jörberg, A History of Prices in Sweden 1732–1914, vol. 2, 216; Cornell, Sundsvallsdistriktets sågverksarbetare, 32–42, 168–9; Heckscher, An Economic History of Sweden, 226.

21 Based on the key cost categories in preserved cost estimates and building accounts, this index has been constructed from the market-place scale prices (markegångstaxor) for day labourer’s wages, log timber, sawn battens, bricks and bar iron, with the weights of 0.51, 0.22, 0.14, 0.08 and 0.05 assigned to each respective item.

22 Note that in 1860, 1 GBP = 17.70 SEK, and 1 USD = 3.67 SEK, whereas in 1900, 1 GBP = 18.25 SEK, and 1 USD = 3.77 SEK. See http://www.historia.se/ (accessed February 4, 2013).

23 Seaborne, The English School, 152. For the Swedish case, see for example Jönsson, ‘Glesbygdens skolhus’, 162–6; Kristenson, Skolhuset, 24–33, 64–9.

24 Regarding minor elementary schools as a savings measure, see for example Lindmark, Kunskapskraven i den framväxande folkskolan, 106–7; Ekwall, Tidig småskollärarutbildning, 40–1.

25 Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning (1865); Kungl. Överintendentsämbetet, Normalritningar till folkskolebyggnader jemte beskrifning. Andra omarbetade upplagan (1878).

26 Parish meeting minutes 2 February 1848, Tynderö ka, HLA, K1:1.

27 Parish meeting minutes, 15 May 1844, 16 March 1845, 27 April 1845, Indal ka, HLA, K1:4.

28 School district account book 1856–1857, Alnö ka, HLA, L2a:1.

29 State school inspector’s reports, 5 September 1859 (Alnö), Domkapitlet i Härnösand (DKH), HLA, G3ha:1.

30 Parish meeting minutes, 26 February 1854, Indal ka, HLA, K1:4; School district account book 1854, Indal ka, HLA, L2:1.

31 Parish meeting minutes, 10 January 1847, Tynderö ka, HLA, K1:1.

32 Excluding the most expensive purchase of the school building at Skönsmon (Skön, 1879) reduces the average price of purchased schoolhouses to 4,000 SEK.

33 Parish meeting minutes, 19 August 1883, Timrå ka, HLA, K1:4.

34 School board minutes 26 December 1893, Indal ka, HLA, K4a:2; Parish meeting minutes 14 January 1894, Indal ka, HLA, K2:1.

35 Fire insurance act (1852), Schoolhouse documents Vallen’s school, Sättna school board, Medelpadsarkiv, F4.

36 School district account book 1850–1852, Sättna ka, HLA, L2:1.

37 Purchase deed 16 January 1898, School board documents, Alnö ka, HLA, K4c:1.

38 School district account book 1898, Alnö ka, HLA, L2a:1; Church meeting minutes 18 September 1898, 10 October 1898, Skön ka, HLA, K2a:2.

39 Skönsberg building plan 1897, Skön ka, HLA, O6c:1. On the ‘sloyd’ manual training system, see Eyestone, ‘The Influence of Swedish Sloyd’, 28–38.

40 Parish meeting minutes 19 August 1883, Timrå ka, HLA, K1:4; Plan for 50 children, School board documents, Timrå ka, HLA, K4c:3.

41 School building accounts 1846-1848, Tuna ka, HLA, L2:1; Documents regarding Kyrkmons skola, Njurunda ka, HLA, K4c:1; Parish meeting minutes 5 October 1845, Ljustorp ka, HLA, K1:4.

42 State school inspector’s reports 5 September 1859 (Ljustorp), DKH, HLA, G3ha:1.

43 Parish meeting minutes, 15 April 1846, Ljustorp ka, HLA, K1:4.

44 Burke and Grosvenor, School, 10; Lawn and Grosvenor, ‘Imagining a Project’, 390.

45 See e.g. Zimmerman, Small Wonder, 20; Ziegler, Schools in the Landscape, 63.

46 Parish meeting minutes 8 March 1863, Alnö ka, HLA, K1:2.

47 On the distribution of costs between labour and building materials in various building sectors, see e.g. Lindahl et al., Wages, Cost of Living and National Income in Sweden, vol. 3, 342; Wilson and Mackley, ‘How Much did the English Country House Cost to Build’, 448.

48 School building accounts 1876–1879, Tynderö ka, HLA, L2a:2.

49 Cost estimate 26 September, Ljustorp ka, HLA, K3a:2.

50 Cost estimate 26 September, Ljustorp ka, HLA, K3a:2; Parish meeting minutes, 1 June 1846, Njurunda ka, HLA, K1:3; Church meeting minutes, 27 December 1875, Tynderö ka, HLA, K2a:1; School building accounts 1865–1869, Alnö ka, HLA, L2a; Parish documents, 22 November 1878, Skön ka, HLA.

51 Parish meeting minutes, 13 February 1842, Tuna ka, HLA, K1:4.

52 School building accounts 1865–1869, Alnö ka, HLA, L2a; Receipt no 61, Alnö ka, HLA, H1:1.

53 Werne, Böndernas bygge, 128–30.

54 School building accounts 1865–1869, Alnö ka, HLA, L2a.

55 School building accounts 1876–1879, Tynderö ka, HLA, L2a:2; School building accounts 1846–1848, Tuna ka, HLA, L2:1.

56 Ek, ‘Nybildning och tradition’, 46–8, 54–5.

57 Parish meeting minutes, 30 October 1998, Timrå ka, HLA, K1:4; Parish meeting minutes 2 April and 17 September 1882, Indal ka, HLA, K2:1.

58 School building accounts 1846–1848, Tuna ka, HLA, L2:1; School board minutes 8 January 1892, Njurunda ka, HLA, K4a:2.

59 School building accounts 1876–1879, Tynderö ka, HLA, L2a:2.

60 The significance of such comparisons is discussed in Aubry, ‘“The Value of Schooling”’, 92–3 and literature cited therein.

61 See e.g. Horn, Education in Rural England, 1800–1914, 122; Zimmerman, Small Wonder, 16–24; Aquilonius, Svenska folkskolans historia, vol. 2, 440; Eklof, ‘Kindertempel or Shack?’, 117–43 and literature cited therein.

62 Hesselman, Historik över byggnadsyrket i Stockholm, 120, 130; Folkskolebyggnader uppförda i Stockholm åren 1886–1895.

63 Church meeting minutes, 30 December 1887, Skön ka, HLA, K2:2; BiSOS H Västernorrland (1891), 6–7.

64 Tedebrand, Selånger: en sockens historia, 143–4.

65 BiSOS P (1868–1900). The number of school districts applies to the year 1900; see BiSOS P (1900), tab. 3.

66 These estimates of the building activities are drawn from Johansson, Byggnads- och anläggningsverksamheten i Sverige, tab. 44, 45 and 47.

67 BiSOS P (1868); BiSOS U (1874-1900).

68 Since the total property value also includes buildings erected before 1868, it is quite consistent that, in 1900, the percentage of total property value apportioned to schoolhouses was significantly lower than the percentage of total building costs 1868–1900.

69 BiSOS U (1900) s. xviii–xix.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johannes Westberg

Johannes Westberg (b. 1978) holds a PhD in History and is currently a senior lecturer in history of education in the Department of Education, Uppsala University. His publications include studies on early-childhood education and elementary schooling; he has edited books such as Utbildningshistoria – en introduction (2011) with Esbjörn Larsson and History of Schooling: Politics and Local Practice (2012) with Carla Aubry.