“Paying the Rent”

Abstract

The article explores the social and political meanings attributed to the “home” and the domestic sphere from the late nineteenth century to the interwar period. How did the significance of the dwelling in the city change due to the interplay between technical improvements and social policy? The main example in the study is the city of Stockholm, which, like other major cities on the European continent in the second half of the nineteenth century, experienced a vast spread of large tenement houses, increasing prices of land, and an accelerated housing problem for industrial workers. The article argues that the recognition of technology became an integrated part in the activity of the social housing reformers. Household modernization tied the single apartment closer to a formal economy and thereby contributed to a decisive change not only of the built environment but also of family economy and gender relations in the city.