CIRJE-F-571. Ericsson, Christer and Björn Horgby,"The Middle Class Patriarch in the Bourgeois Public", June 2008.

During the second parts of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century the middle class patriarch played an important role in the formation and transformation of the bourgeoisie in Sweden - especially in the upper middle class dominated by industrialists, wholesalers and owners of "bruk". According to the comic press in the early twentieth century appearance was characteristic. Obviously he was a man. In the caricatures he often carried a high cylinder, wore a sturdy moustache á la Bismarck, was evidently thick and because of that a back leaned posture, and had a authoritative appearance. Often he smoked a fat cigar. Here we will discuss his world view. First of all we discuss him on the basis of the changes in the bourgeois public and its patriarchal relations. Then we consider important parts of the world view and lastly we discuss the middle class patriarch as an industrialist.