Farm Labourer’s Lodgnings

Sweden’s population grew during the 19th century, and many people who lived in the countryside found themselves unemployed. Farm labourers were poor rural workers who worked on large farms with many cows. Their wages consisted largely of milk, rye, wheat and barley. Housing and a potato plot were also included in their payment. 

Male labourers worked as farmhands. Women’s duties included looking after children and the home, as well as milking cows. The work involved in milking the cows and washing the large milk churns was exhausting. The children went to school, but they also had to help at home and work on the farm at harvest time.

A whole family living in one room 

The Farm Labourer’s Lodgings shows how two families lived in the early 1920s. Each family had a room to live in and a storage room. The hallway and the outdoor toilet were shared by both families. Erik and Kristina Karlsson lived in the left-hand room of the Farm Labourer’s Lodgings between 1874 and 1924. It was unusual for a family of labourers to live in one place for so long – they often moved around in the hope of achieving a better life.

In the 1930s, the system of agricultural labourers working for payment in kind came under growing criticism, both in literature and in political debate, and in 1945 it was completely abolished. 

The agricultural labour system, Ivar Lo Johansson and the move to Skansen 

When the agricultural labour system was abolished in 1945, Skansen decided to preserve a labourer’s lodgnings. Skansen’s staff and the author Ivar Lo Johansson worked to achieve this, and in 1949 news was received of a potential building at Berga Farm. The owner donated the labourer’s cottage to Skansen in return for allowing the final tenants to stay there as long as they wanted.

In 1966, after they had moved out, the process of moving the building from Berga to Skansen began, and in 1968 the Farm Labourer’s Lodgnings was officially opened. 

Heat regulation

The Farm Labourer’s Lodgnings is a timbered single-storey building, with a façade clad with cornice panels and painted with red whitewash. The building has a gable roof covered with clay pantiles.

To make it easier to keep heat inside, the cottage has no windows on the north side. Instead, there are vents to the storage rooms to keep them cool.