Tolfternas samkväm
folkbildning och bibliotek för arbetarkvinnor 1902-1907
Tolfterna was a popular education organization that existed between 1896 and1964 and that arranged social evenings and set up a library for working women. This thesis purpose is to investigate Tolfternas's activities in 1902-1907 and hereby place Tolfterna in the education- and library history. The thesis examines the library catalog and the protocols from the social evenings and analyses them by means of the popular education ideologies of the early 1900's: Patriarchal education, civic education, self-education and the domestic/housewife ideal.The analysis shows that the organizers of Tolfterna as well as the working women who visited the social evenings had political and social interests. This places Tolfterna in a civic education context.The social evenings contained a mix of politically orientated discussions, traditional lectures and entertainment as music and reading. The library had self-education orientation, it contained mostly fiction and was run by the working women. The non-fiction section contained mainly books about issues discussed at the social evenings such as women?s and worker?s rights, the peace question etc. Tolfternas activities can be described as a mix of civic education and self-education. The domestic/housewife ideal, which was common in popular education for women, is not represented. Tolfterna was a radical organization as they wanted to liberate and support the working women. Meanwhile Tolfterna was a part of patriarchal education since the organizers did not let the working women take active part in the planning of the activities or the development of the organization.