Swedish Silversmiths in the USA

[Dale Nelson]

A question I have concerns the education and training of Swedish emigrants to the USA. I moderate on a board that focuses on antique silver, SMP Silver Salon Forum. We discuss makers and products from previous eras. When looking at the workshops of top of the line makers, what stands out is the large number of Swedes, Danes and Norwegians employed. These were men who had mastered the art of silversmithing and jewelry making, a long process of education. They trained in Sweden and then immigrated.
 
It is not unusual for half or more of the artisans to have Swedish, Danish or Norwegian names. And this is only the case with Swedes, Danes and Norwegians; no other ethnic groups have more than a few silversmiths in the trade in the USA. Some of them like Julius Olaf Randahl became a manufacturer and factory owner. (Interestingly, Swedes also dominated in the Faberge Workshop in St Petersberg at the same time.)
 
Why did so many highly skilled silversmiths emigrate? Was there an oversupply? Any ideas?

[Christina Backman]

Sweden was a poor country. Presumably silversmiths did what their counterparts in the glass industry did: emigrated when there was no hope of work at home.

[Dale Nelson]

Thank you Christina. Yes, Sweden was a poor country. I can remember hearing about: Sweden Land of Suffering and Misery. There is one emigrant ancestor I knew, my farfars mor. Hon var förd north of Luleå i den 1860s. Her father was a miner who had been recruited to work in upper Michigan. He wrote home that the food the English cooked was inedible slop and asked that the oldest girl come to America to cook, so they could eat decent food. At age 14 she set out for America. She told me she entered NordAmerika at Montreal, and God saved her from the Catholics so she could sail across the Great Lakes to the UP.  
 
Given that Sweden was a poor country, which I don't doubt, how could so many highly trained people emigrate? A lot of money goes into training a silversmith. How could a poor country afford this.

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

I doubt that training a silversmith was costly in the past. An apprentice received little or no compensation beyond food and board. Certainly having an apprentice must've paid off for the master silversmiths, otherwise they wouldn't take them on.  
 
Until the mid-19th century, guilds had the power of restricting the number of active professionals. Thus they prevented competition and kept the prices up. So a fully trained apprentice might find that there was no opening for him to become a master until someone retired or passed away, and be inclined to emigrate.

[Dale Nelson]

Thank you Anna-Carin and Christina. Would there have been a nation wide standard apprenticeship curriculum or would it vary from place to place? The work we have from them is uniformly excellent, showing a high level of training and skill. From what we know, silversmiths kept arriving in the US into the 1920's. Would they have been trained in general metal craft or silver specifically?

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

There was no standard curriculum - they learned the trade by partaking in the daily work in their master's workshop for a number of years. I guess it was in the master's interest to train them well, as the apprentices were cheap labour (by the 20th century I assume they got paid, but still not much). The only standardization or quality control of their training would've been when they were fully trained and submitted their masterpiece(s) for the guild's approval.
 
Goldsmith was the general pre-20th century term, though in reality some were specialized in silver work, some in gold, and some were jewelers. According to the 1622 guild statutes, regardless of speciality their masterpiece had to be a goblet, and a ring with a set stone, and an engraved seal. In the 1670s the goblet was substituted with a pair of knife handles in gold with enamel, for the gold workers. During the 18th century the silver worker's masterpiece was usually a coffe pot, while the gold worker could make a small gold box, and the jeweller a pair of girandole earrings. Still, silver workers in small towns often did gold and jewel work as well.  
 
I get the impression that they were trained in gold and silver only. Guilds were picky about others dabbling in their own line of work, and there were a number of different metalworking guilds - sheet-metal workers, brass casters, coppersmiths, blacksmiths, and perhaps others too.
 
I got this information from Hantverk i Sverige; a book describing various craftsman professions.
 
(Meddelandet ändrat av acb 2009-07-13 21:53)

[Dale Nelson]

Thank you again Anna-Carin for clarifying the situation. But I have more questions. The guild system was established by law, with very specific guidelines. Did these laws mandate periods of training? Did they distinguish between an apprentice and a journeyman, as the English system did. Where could I find out more about them?

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

Apprentice equals lärling; a person in training, and journeyman equals gesäll; a person who's completed their training and is working in that line of trade, but hasn't yet become a master (here, they didn't necessarily journey during this phase).
 
In 1621, a general framework for guild statutes was passed, and the individual guilds would then customize these general statutes. In 1669, the rules were tightened in order to standardize the statutes further, through new general statutes that were supposed to be applicable in virtually an profession. These were intended to make it easier to become a master; anyone who'd completed their training (doesn't say how long that would've been) plus worked as a gesäll for three years should become a master when his masterpiece had been approved. Previously, you'd had to do multiple years of journeying, and had to be born legitimate - these requirements were now skipped. Also, traditional requirements that the newly approved master would provide food and drink for a party for the existing masters (a heavy expense) were banned. And there was no longer any restriction of the number of workers a master could employ. A final revision was done in 1720, which was in force until the guild system was abandoned in the mid-19th century.  
 
But in spite of all these formal changes, it took quite some time for the laws to take effect, and in practice, the guilds often continued to restrict the approval of new masters in any way they could. They might still demand the extensive food and drink even though it was now illegal, and of course they were still the ones to approve or reject the masterpiece...
 
Again, I got the information from Hantverk i Sverige. I'm sorry that I can't point you to a source where you can read more about the Swedish system; I even have trouble finding one online myself, in Swedish! (The book lists several other Swedish books as references, though.) But as the guild system was used in much of Europe, I suspect the similarities between different countries may have been larger than the differences.

[Dale Nelson]

Thank you so much for this information on the forming of silversmiths in Sweden. I am still left with the mystery of why so many of the Swedish (and Danish and Norwegian) silversmiths emigrated while in other countries they stayed put. In the US, our silver ware was enriched by the contributions of so many Swedes.  
 
May I post, with appropriate credit given to you, this information on the silver blog?

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

Dale,  
Feel free to repost the information if you like. Please mention that I got most of the information from a book named Hantverk i Sverige, and that any errors are likely my own!