Emotions in 18th century Everyday Life: Class, gender, and godliness in Pehr Stenberg’s autobiography
Pehr Stenberg (1758-1824), a Swedish peasant son, during some forty years created a unique document, his “life description”. In print it amounts to some 1900 pages. It reflects his social climbing from the countryside, via university studies in Åbo, to become a minister in his home region. It is rich in details not only in descriptions of milieus but also about his own emotions in and towards the situations he experiences. The aim of the project is to study how late 18th century everyday experiences of class differences, gender positioning, and Christian faith and world-view was registered and interpreted in terms of emotions in Stenberg’s autobiography. This will be done in three studies. One deals with how his peasant background influences his relations to bourgeoisie and nobility, and as a minister in interaction with a country parish. Another study deals with his love relations as a private teacher with Åbo nobility and as a priest on the small-town matrimonial market in Umeå. One deals with his interpretations of the will of God as a force in his and others’ lives, where peasant piety, theology and enlightenment ideas meet. The intersectional relations between his roles as a peasant son, a man and a priest will be discussed through narrative analysis. Since current international research on the history of emotions almost exclusively has focused on members of the middle and upper classes, this project will provide a valuable addition to the research frontier.
Final report
Purpose and development of the project
The project concerns the “life description” of the priest Pehr Stenberg (1758-1824), an autobiographical manuscript of close to 5000 hand-written pages (1800 in print). This was written continuously during some 45 years and describes his growth and upbringing in a peasant family, his studies at Åbo Royal Academy to become a priest interspersed with periods as tutor with families of the nobility in the surrounding countryside, and his career as a priest in the native region of Umeå. It reflects his double ambitions to write for his close family and descendants, but also with a hope of leaving a material that could serve for scientific studies. Besides his impressions and descriptions of different social milieus, he is very open-hearted and uninhibited in describing his emotional life.
The aim of the project was to study how late 18th-century everyday experiences of class differences, gender positioning, and Christian faith was registered and interpreted in terms of emotions in Pehr Stenberg’s autobiography. During the course of the project, an orientation has come stronger towards an intersectional perspective where Stenberg’s role as a priest has come into the foreground and the handling of questions of class, gender and faith as intermingled with each other in everyday life has become analytical focus. Furthermore, our studies have gone into studying the double character of the priest role: to be a religious leader but also an Academic with access to the contemporary scientific discourses and discussions.
Implementation
The project participants have worked according to individual plans but met regularly for seminars. The covid 19 pandemic and unforeseen administrative assignments have caused delays in the work and had restraining influences on the possibilities for collaboration, arranging conferences, internationalisation et cetera, but in the main the aim and further goals of the project have been fulfilled.
Significant results and discussion
One important theme for the project has been the analysis of Stenberg’s straightforward accounts of different emotional registers, in everyday life and at decisive life events. Feelings of shyness, unsecurity, love, and contempt are often occurring in connection to his experience of social differences. Expectations of finding a suitable marriage partner, the exposed position as a local religious leader, and his need to handle his feelings of social inferiority gave him driving forces to describe his emotions and ascribe different agency to them.
Furthermore an important conclusion is that emotions was an important topic in the semi-public debate and education, especially in upper and middle class salons, where discussions were held on different kinds of emotions, their importance for personality development, and the relation of social positions to expected or repressed registers of emotions.
The Christian faith, as an attitude to life and a world-view, had an integrating effect for Stenberg’s personal life project, his social role as a man of education and a “philosophe”, his professional career and social position, and functioned as a means of social control of the population of his parish. “The will of God” is a recurrent concept denoting an agency he understood as intervening into his life.
The methodological device of starting from the discussions of emotions in analysis of personal documents, has proven effective in order to notice social situations and relations problematic for an individual. Stenberg describes his shyness as an obstacle in social situations and in courting women, he endures insults from superiors, he is shocked and indignant in moral issues but holds back in order not to undermine his social position. Naming and discussing emotions becomes a way for him to evaluate the ordinary everyday experiences that have influenced his personal life trajectory. The project has furthermore in several studies contributed to new understanding of the relations between centre and periphery in learned cultures and idea flows; the micro- and macrorelations of “the spirit of the times,” and the cognitive horizons of the early modern or the lingering pre-modern.
New research questions.
Stenberg’s autobiographical manuscript contains many potential research subjects that has not being possible to address in this project, especially deeper studies of different themes. Among these are how the document reflects contemporary write and print culture in everyday life, Stenberg’s self-imposed “ethnographic assignment”, and his narrative strategies for depcting other people. There is also large potential in deeper studies of the position of church in the local community, such as local conflicts about the rite of re-integrating married women after child-birth, or the handling of a corpse after a suicide. Stenberg’s description of women’s sexuality could contrubute to new perspectives on contemporary conceptions of female desire and how it was expressed.
Dissemination
The project group has spread information of the research and results mainly through participating in several conferences:
”Att lämna bonden bakom sig: Social mobilitet och känslor i Pehr Stenbergs levernesbeskrivning, 1770–1780”, Svenska historikermötet, Umeå universitet, juni 2023 (Lindblom).
”A Clergyman in Search of a Wife: Marriage, Status and Emotion in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1790-1800”, European Social Science History Conference, Göteborgs universitet, april 2023 (Lindblom).
“The Rights and Wrongs of Marriage Made for Love: Courtship and Social Status in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1780-1790”, The Third Scandinavian 18th Century Conference, Köpenhamns universitet, augusti 2022 (Lindblom).
“Learning the Rules of the Game – Status Elevation and Emotional Distress in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1770-1800”, Nordiska Historikermötet, Göteborgs universitet, augusti 2022 (Lindblom).
“Making Sense of Romantic Jealousy in late 18th-century Sweden,” History of Experience: Methodologies and Practices, Tampere universitet, mars 2020 (Lindblom).
“Courtship, Class and Conflict in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1780-1790”, The Second Biennial Conference of the Society for the History of Emotions (SHE), University of Ottawa, oktober 2019 (Lindblom).
The project has also been presented at a workshop for contacts between Swedish and Finnish history research at Umeå universitet (Lindblom).
Presentation at the autoethnography seminar, Umeå, 27 maj 2021 (Arvidsson).
Presentation at the Nordis ethnology and Folklore Conference,i Reykjavik 16 June 2022, in panel ”Re/telling. Questions of perspective and agency in recontextualizing archived documentations”. (Arvidsson was one of the panel convenors together withMarie Steinrud, Nordiska Museet and Line Esborg, Norsk folkeminnearkiv)
Public presentation of anthology at Umeå university library 6 Deecember 2023, all researchers,
Furthermore, a web page pehrstenberg.wordpress.com has been launched in order to give information and bibliographic references.
Collaboration:
The project has collaborated with the editors of the publication of ”Pehr Stenbergs levernesbeskrivning,” who were invited to publish an introductory article and in return have supplied the project with digital files and spread information of the project in social media.
An tnterview on the love theme in Stenberg’s work, P4 Västerbotten, feb 2022, (https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/ina-har-studerat-en-umeabos karleksbekymmer-under-1700-talet) (Lindblom)
A lecture on the love theme in Stenberg’s work,was given at the Rådhustorget (Town Hall square), Umeå, in the public lecture series Umeå 400 (https://www.umu.se/nyheter/firar-umea-400-ar-med-berattarserie_11614698/) (Lindblom)
The project concerns the “life description” of the priest Pehr Stenberg (1758-1824), an autobiographical manuscript of close to 5000 hand-written pages (1800 in print). This was written continuously during some 45 years and describes his growth and upbringing in a peasant family, his studies at Åbo Royal Academy to become a priest interspersed with periods as tutor with families of the nobility in the surrounding countryside, and his career as a priest in the native region of Umeå. It reflects his double ambitions to write for his close family and descendants, but also with a hope of leaving a material that could serve for scientific studies. Besides his impressions and descriptions of different social milieus, he is very open-hearted and uninhibited in describing his emotional life.
The aim of the project was to study how late 18th-century everyday experiences of class differences, gender positioning, and Christian faith was registered and interpreted in terms of emotions in Pehr Stenberg’s autobiography. During the course of the project, an orientation has come stronger towards an intersectional perspective where Stenberg’s role as a priest has come into the foreground and the handling of questions of class, gender and faith as intermingled with each other in everyday life has become analytical focus. Furthermore, our studies have gone into studying the double character of the priest role: to be a religious leader but also an Academic with access to the contemporary scientific discourses and discussions.
Implementation
The project participants have worked according to individual plans but met regularly for seminars. The covid 19 pandemic and unforeseen administrative assignments have caused delays in the work and had restraining influences on the possibilities for collaboration, arranging conferences, internationalisation et cetera, but in the main the aim and further goals of the project have been fulfilled.
Significant results and discussion
One important theme for the project has been the analysis of Stenberg’s straightforward accounts of different emotional registers, in everyday life and at decisive life events. Feelings of shyness, unsecurity, love, and contempt are often occurring in connection to his experience of social differences. Expectations of finding a suitable marriage partner, the exposed position as a local religious leader, and his need to handle his feelings of social inferiority gave him driving forces to describe his emotions and ascribe different agency to them.
Furthermore an important conclusion is that emotions was an important topic in the semi-public debate and education, especially in upper and middle class salons, where discussions were held on different kinds of emotions, their importance for personality development, and the relation of social positions to expected or repressed registers of emotions.
The Christian faith, as an attitude to life and a world-view, had an integrating effect for Stenberg’s personal life project, his social role as a man of education and a “philosophe”, his professional career and social position, and functioned as a means of social control of the population of his parish. “The will of God” is a recurrent concept denoting an agency he understood as intervening into his life.
The methodological device of starting from the discussions of emotions in analysis of personal documents, has proven effective in order to notice social situations and relations problematic for an individual. Stenberg describes his shyness as an obstacle in social situations and in courting women, he endures insults from superiors, he is shocked and indignant in moral issues but holds back in order not to undermine his social position. Naming and discussing emotions becomes a way for him to evaluate the ordinary everyday experiences that have influenced his personal life trajectory. The project has furthermore in several studies contributed to new understanding of the relations between centre and periphery in learned cultures and idea flows; the micro- and macrorelations of “the spirit of the times,” and the cognitive horizons of the early modern or the lingering pre-modern.
New research questions.
Stenberg’s autobiographical manuscript contains many potential research subjects that has not being possible to address in this project, especially deeper studies of different themes. Among these are how the document reflects contemporary write and print culture in everyday life, Stenberg’s self-imposed “ethnographic assignment”, and his narrative strategies for depcting other people. There is also large potential in deeper studies of the position of church in the local community, such as local conflicts about the rite of re-integrating married women after child-birth, or the handling of a corpse after a suicide. Stenberg’s description of women’s sexuality could contrubute to new perspectives on contemporary conceptions of female desire and how it was expressed.
Dissemination
The project group has spread information of the research and results mainly through participating in several conferences:
”Att lämna bonden bakom sig: Social mobilitet och känslor i Pehr Stenbergs levernesbeskrivning, 1770–1780”, Svenska historikermötet, Umeå universitet, juni 2023 (Lindblom).
”A Clergyman in Search of a Wife: Marriage, Status and Emotion in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1790-1800”, European Social Science History Conference, Göteborgs universitet, april 2023 (Lindblom).
“The Rights and Wrongs of Marriage Made for Love: Courtship and Social Status in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1780-1790”, The Third Scandinavian 18th Century Conference, Köpenhamns universitet, augusti 2022 (Lindblom).
“Learning the Rules of the Game – Status Elevation and Emotional Distress in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1770-1800”, Nordiska Historikermötet, Göteborgs universitet, augusti 2022 (Lindblom).
“Making Sense of Romantic Jealousy in late 18th-century Sweden,” History of Experience: Methodologies and Practices, Tampere universitet, mars 2020 (Lindblom).
“Courtship, Class and Conflict in the Life Description of Pehr Stenberg, 1780-1790”, The Second Biennial Conference of the Society for the History of Emotions (SHE), University of Ottawa, oktober 2019 (Lindblom).
The project has also been presented at a workshop for contacts between Swedish and Finnish history research at Umeå universitet (Lindblom).
Presentation at the autoethnography seminar, Umeå, 27 maj 2021 (Arvidsson).
Presentation at the Nordis ethnology and Folklore Conference,i Reykjavik 16 June 2022, in panel ”Re/telling. Questions of perspective and agency in recontextualizing archived documentations”. (Arvidsson was one of the panel convenors together withMarie Steinrud, Nordiska Museet and Line Esborg, Norsk folkeminnearkiv)
Public presentation of anthology at Umeå university library 6 Deecember 2023, all researchers,
Furthermore, a web page pehrstenberg.wordpress.com has been launched in order to give information and bibliographic references.
Collaboration:
The project has collaborated with the editors of the publication of ”Pehr Stenbergs levernesbeskrivning,” who were invited to publish an introductory article and in return have supplied the project with digital files and spread information of the project in social media.
An tnterview on the love theme in Stenberg’s work, P4 Västerbotten, feb 2022, (https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/ina-har-studerat-en-umeabos karleksbekymmer-under-1700-talet) (Lindblom)
A lecture on the love theme in Stenberg’s work,was given at the Rådhustorget (Town Hall square), Umeå, in the public lecture series Umeå 400 (https://www.umu.se/nyheter/firar-umea-400-ar-med-berattarserie_11614698/) (Lindblom)