The open air museum of Disagården is situated in the Old Uppsala parish, Uppsala municipality, are projected to portray a double row village, before the land enclosure, on the Uppsala plain during the 1860s and 1870s. Disagården operates under the County Museum of Uppland and serves as an exhibit of Uppland's farming culture during the late 19th century. However, an open-air museum is a complex institution where many interests are linked together. Disagården aims to simultaneously portray an historical environment while offering broad public appeal. The Disagården open air museum was inaugurated in 1931 and consists of relocated buildings that together form three farm complexes "Gränbygården", "Skuttungegården" and "Bärbygården". The thesis explores how the close surroundings of a typical farm in Uppland looked during the 1860s and 1870s. This historical depiction has then been applied to Disagården in a development suggestion creating a foundation from which Disagården can structure the close cultivation of the different farms. The basis of the development program has primarily been compiled through archival and literary studies but also through on-site visits and interviews. How did the concept of open air museums start and what were the ideas behind the concept? Which external influences affected the situating of cultivations and buildings? Which crops and species were present on the farms in Uppland during the specified time period? What was the relation of the different structures to each other? Which organizations had influences on the farmer's household of the Uppland plain? The thesis attempts to clarify the answers to these questions. The influences affecting on the farmer's household in Uppland were probably numerous.

The aim of this study is to examine marriage as something both desirable and normal in three popular novels from the 1860s about marriage: Rosa Carlén?s Agnes Tell: en äktenskapshistoria (1860), Marie Sophie Schwartz?s Alma eller De moderna äktenskapen (1860) and Sara Pfeiffer?s Aurora Trampe (1867). Using a theoretical perspective from Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, I have analysed the novels as being producers of, and resistance against, norms.The good marriage is partly depicted as a utopian vision in the novels, which therefore functions as fantasies for the readers. But it is also depicted as a realistic possibility. Though difficult to achieve, the main characters reach the goal through individual improvement towards correct behaviour.The question for the main characters is not whether they are going to marry or not, but how to make their marriages good ones.

Uppsatsen undersöker två svenska socknar kring nödåret 1867. Syftet är att se de direkta och varierande konsekvenserna av en missväxt.Socknarna är Vilhelmina i Norrland och Döderhult i Småland och den avgränsade tidsperioden är 1865-1870. Undersökningen har gjorts utifrån församlingarnas kyrkoarkiv samt Statistiska Centralbyråns (SCB) befolkningsstatistik. Forskningsläget visar på varierande konsekvenser av nödåren 1867-1869 och ett tydligt samband med en ökad emigration till Nordamerika, men det finns ingen liknande jämförelse på mikronivå som detta arbete kan visa.I uppsatsen finns en översikt över Sverige på 1860-talet, missväxtåren samt en beskrivning över Vilhelmina och Döderhult. Stapeldiagram presenterar de två socknarnas födda, döda, utflyttade, emigrerade samt totala befolkningsmängd.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine the representation of student life in Uppsala in the 1860s and 1870s in memoirs. This purpose is achieved by contextualising the memoirs in two different analyses. In the first, the representation of student life in the memoirs is compared to that in another literary genre, the university novel, and it is found that the two representational forms paint completely contradictory pictures, where in the novels the higher education is depicted as rotten and in dire need of reformation, whereas in the memoirs the system, albeit somewhat flawed, works. The memoirs and the novels thus seem to be competing systems of representation, created in different discourses, wherein the purpose and nature of higher education widely differed. In the second analysis, the examination of the memoirs is based on research concerning the nation building process in Sweden during the 19th century.

Sweden was transformed to a democratic industrial society in the late 19th century. Political influence had been bound to the four estates, nobles, clergy, burghers and farmers. The reforms of the 1860s moved Sweden towards political democracy with universal suffrage. At the national level a two-chamber parliament was established in 1866. Political power should now be a function of economic status.

In the beginning of the 1860s, an important railway was built between Malmö and Stockholm. The railway became one of the most important projects that would influence the entire southern Sweden. The railway line was located to areas outside the ordinary routes and a number of communities were built up along its way.Älmhult was one of the communities that was built up due to the railway. In the beginning there were only a few farms and a station, but a community developed and the village grew. In 1901 the village became a small market town, which was an important event.