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Workers building the People’s Park: experiments in movement-made leisure spaces in 19th century

Pries, Johan LU (2023) Labour and working-class history association conference 2023
Abstract (Swedish)
Parks and other public spaces play an important role in working class formation. Yet, these places
were often provided for urban populations by philanthropic elites who in turn set the, often
unambiguously authoritarian, terms of use. In the Swedish city Malmö, the social democratic labor
movement acquired a public park run by the movement itself in 1893 and proclaimed it “The
People’s Park”, mimicking how elites created spaces for the popular classes. This experiment became
the template for early Sweden’s labor movement, with hundreds of People’s Parks built by social
democracy in the decades that followed as spaces where everyday leisure and class politics came
together in powerful articulation.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
conference name
Labour and working-class history association conference 2023
conference location
New Jersey, United States
conference dates
2023-05-18 - 2023-05-21
project
Prefigurative platforms, public spaces, and planning phenomena: exploring the historical geographies of Swedish People’s Parks
language
Swedish
LU publication?
yes
id
0d07e981-a5e6-4bf4-8566-3be8850107df
date added to LUP
2023-05-29 10:08:08
date last changed
2023-05-29 13:32:26
@misc{0d07e981-a5e6-4bf4-8566-3be8850107df,
  abstract     = {{Parks and other public spaces play an important role in working class formation. Yet, these places<br/>were often provided for urban populations by philanthropic elites who in turn set the, often<br/>unambiguously authoritarian, terms of use. In the Swedish city Malmö, the social democratic labor<br/>movement acquired a public park run by the movement itself in 1893 and proclaimed it “The<br/>People’s Park”, mimicking how elites created spaces for the popular classes. This experiment became<br/>the template for early Sweden’s labor movement, with hundreds of People’s Parks built by social<br/>democracy in the decades that followed as spaces where everyday leisure and class politics came<br/>together in powerful articulation.}},
  author       = {{Pries, Johan}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  title        = {{Workers building the People’s Park: experiments in movement-made leisure spaces in 19th century}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}