Stockholm
Dag Celsing, Public road works in Sweden 1840-1870
The aim of the dissertation is to analyze how a modern system of road administration was established in Sweden during the period 1840-1870 when, with the introduction of new principles of planning, resource allocation and control, new institutions were set up (national board of public works, engineering schools, and engineering corps). The issue will be studied from three angles: technology transfer (a huge project was carried out in the 1840s when a complete model of public road works administration was transferred from France to Sweden), allocation of resources (how to allocate state support with no clear idea of the different needs of different regions) and implementation at the local level. At a more theoretical level, the road system is studied as a socio-technical system.
Address: Dag Celsing, Dept. of History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden, fax: +46.8.246263.
Thomas Kaiserfeld,A physicist among others: technology, science and career, 1900-1950
With the career of the Swedish physicist Ragnar Holm (1879-1970) as its starting point, the aim of this study is to investigate some general themes in the history of science and technology. After graduate research at Göttingen in 1906-1908, Holm worked from 1909-1945 at the Siemens Research Laboratory in Berlin, where he specialized in electrical contact research - simultaneously but unsuccessfully applying for six Swedish professorships. After World War II Holm returned to Sweden where he, again unsuccessfully, tried to establish a research institute for electrical contacts with the help of Swedish industry. Although - or perhaps because - Ragnar Holm has remained unknown outside the small circle of electrical contact researchers, his struggle for academic positions and research opportunities represents the conditions in which a majority of 20th-century physicists worked and how industrial demand shaped their research interests.
Address: Thomas Kaiserfeld, Dept. of History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel: +46.8.790 8646 - fax: +46.8.246263. Uppsala
Anders Ekström, The world on display: the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897 and the world's fairs of the 19th century (Nordiska museets Handlingar 119. 387pp. Stockholm. ISBN 91-7108-370-7)
This study deals with the great exhibitions of the 19th century. At the centre of the discussion, as a case study, is the Scandinavian Art and Industry Exhibition of 1897 in Stockholm. More generally, the aim is partly to cast light upon the history of 19th-century international exhibitions and partly to examine the cultural climate in Sweden during the late 1800s. The perspective is that of cultural and intellectual history. More specifically, the aim has been to study the exhibitions as unusually comprehensive and homogeneous material representations of a world view. This means that the crux of the investigation is the overall exhibition ideology that developed during the 19th century, the intellectual climate reflected in the exhibitions, as well as the ways in which different aspects of modernisation during the second half of the 19th century found their expression in the history of exhibitions. The study is divided into three main sections. Part I provides a contextual framework for the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897. It gives an overview of 19th-century exhibition history, both in a Swedish and in an international perspective; it also sketches certain essential material, social and intellectual features of the cultural milieu of the late 19th century. The second part consists of a rather detailed description of the exhibition season in Stockholm, from the pomp and circumstance of the opening ceremonies on the fifteenth of May to the spectacular lootings in October. Part III is an attempt to lay out a specific perspective for the interpretation of the Stockholm Exhibition in particular, but also for 19th-century exhibitions in general. This perspective takes its starting point in the concept of "cultural hegemony", and studies the exhibitions as part of the larger endeavour to establish a dominant culture. Special attention is paid to: a) a consideration of the educational and formative value of the exhibitions; b) a consideration of their relevance for the creation of national homogeneity and solidarity; c) a consideration of their functions as disseminators of a specific ideal of civilization.
Address: Anders Ekström, Department of History of Science and Ideas, Uppsala University, Slottet Ing. A0, S-752 37 Uppsala, Sweden.