Edaen

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John Edmund Strandberg

Thank you for the research you did on this request John_Edmund_Strandberg. That is very much appreciated! Since this person did live in Sweden until he was 40 years old - for nearly half his life - I suspect that there would be a lot of information about him in Sweden. I found his father's name Gustaf Karlsson Strandberg and his mother's first name Ingrid and her date of birth 7 April 1871. I would like to know his mother's last name at birth. And also if he was from an artisticly enclined family (visual arts or other types of art). I found painters with names like his father's name but do not know if this would be the right person. Was his mother also an artist? I would also appreciate knowing where and under which artists he studied art in Stockholm. His wife's first name was Eva, but I cannot find her last name at birth. Would you be so kind as to post these requests on the appropriate page in the Swedish Wikipedia. Your help is greatly appreciated! --Keennoi (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

I made some searches without finding very much. It seems he was a carpenter or joiner in 1935. His name was probably John and not Johan. There are some oddities, in the earlier records he was recorded as born within wedlock.[1] Later on as born without wedlock.[2] It seems he was boarded out.[3] I have made a note on SwWp.[4] Edaen (talk) 07:05, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

	The Original Barnstar
	For your help with the research on John Edmund Strandberg! Keennoi (talk) 22:16, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

January 2017

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:09, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Eugenics in Sweden

Please do not remove sourced material from Wikipedia. If you want to add another view point, we can work to incorporate it to the text. However, removing views covered in reliable sources with only obscure hints that they are sensational is certainly not acceptable. I am happy to help in incorporating another view point to the section on Sweden, but the link you provided in your edit summary only shows to me a very brief snippet of the full text on GBooks. --hydrox (talk) 11:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I think the cited source made it clear that that text is not encyclopedic. If you click on the snippet most of the article is readable, at least for me. Edaen (talk) 11:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, for me Google Books just says "pages 181 to 575 are not shown in the preview" when I try to read that book. Has this been covered in any other sources e.g. newspapers? --hydrox (talk) 15:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hydrox: Here's an image of the most relevant part.[5] As You can see, it was published in a scientific book. Roll-Hansen is one of the most respected researchers in the field of Nordic eugenics. He claims that this sensationalist story is based on a biased reading of his work. Zaremba cited him in the original article in DN in 1997. Edaen (talk) 16:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Ugh, sure he seems to be criticising the sensationalist treatment of his book in media, but it is not really saying that everything written about the strelization programme in Sweden (and the Nordics in general) is false, or that the program did not exist, or did not have eugenic features. In fact, I knew that Sweden had one of the most notable eugenic programmes, so I found its absence from the wiki-article shocking.

Here are some open access sources that do recognize the signficance of the Swedish eugenic programme: "The Swedish case has become renoewed for two reasons. First, the extent to which sterelizations was performed on phyiscally healthy individuals [...]. It was the only [Nordic] country with a state eugenic society."^[6]

From the book Roll-Hansen co-authored: "Among all the Nordic countries, Sweden was where eugenics met with its greatest success. This is true both in terms of the early institutionalization of the movement and the eugenic practice as it was manifest in sterilization policies between 1930 and 1960. [...]"^[7]

Sure, it would be wrong to say e.g. that the programme sterilized 60,000 people on eugenic grounds, but even by 1954 over 200 people were still being sterlized annually on eugenic grounds.^[8] The secition on the Swedish programme could sure use improving and more accessible (and better quality) sources, but I hope we can at least agree there are clearly grounds for the section to exist in the first place. --hydrox (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hydrox:

I agree there are grounds for a section concerning Swedish eugenics, but everything written about this subject 1997–1998 is close to useless and as Roll-Hansen writes, the sensationialism has been hard to come to terms with. The sources to the article we are discussing are from those years or quotes from later works that are chosen so as to comply with the 1997 narrative.

As Roll-Hansen (with Broberg) and other historians write, this historiography is very much about politics:

This media event in the summer of 1997 demonstrated both how historical interpretation can be a powerful weapon in the political struggle and how a combination of political fashion and media attention can distort historical accounts.[9]

Tydén too believes that the sterilisation debate was about politics:

Zaremba tycktes ha slagit sista spiken i folkhemskistan – ett snickeri som (ofrivilligt) inletts med Yvonne Hirdmans Att lägga livet tillrätta några år tidigare ...[10]

As does Hirdman:

Detta folkhem introducerades med hjälp av en kupp – en förvanskning och tillspetsning av forskning, tidigare och pågående, om den svenska steriliseringspolitiken. Den prydliga statistiken över steriliserade personer, över 64 000 personer under lagperioden från 1934 till 1976, etsades in i det publika medvetandet med tilläggsordet tvång. Genomslagskraften i denna svarta saga byggde på den energiskt framförda tesen, att denna politik var ett medvetet led i den nya socialdemokratiska socialpolitiken, en politik som byggde på att välfärdens reformer endast skulle delas ut till dem som ansågs förtjänta av dem. Den svenska reformpolitiken hade liksom köpts på bekostnad av ett omänskligt hanterande av de minsta, svagaste i det i sanning folkhemska samhället.[11]

Only the Nordic countries have reasonably complete data and comparisons with what is not known have little value.

I think Spektorowski and Mizrachi shouldn't be used. They cite Tydén and I can't quite see that Tydén says that "anti-social" but physically fit persons were sterilised to a great extent. He writes that the social indication was extended to include "an anti-social way of life".[12]

Sweden didn't have a state eugenic society. It had a couple of private eugenic societies as did many other countries. The State's Institute for Race Biology was allegedly the first of its kind, not the first.

Comparing what Tydén wrote[13] with Roll-Hansen's conclusion to the book it seems Tydén has included voluntary non-eugenic sterilisations for Sweden but not for Denmark and Norway.

On page 263 Roll-Hansen has included a table with data. Using only the number excluding the medical indication and dividing that number by the number of years and putting it in relation to the country's population in 1950 I get the following per 100 000:

Danmark 8,28868744866665

Finland 4,26799007444169

Norge 8,20825515947467

Sverige 9,9403578528827

I don't think there is a major difference between the three Scandinavian countries.

The Oxford handbook of Eugenics has a chronological list according to which Denmark's Den Antropologiske Komité was founded in 1904, Svenska sällskapet för rashygien in 1909, the Swedish Mendelska sällskapet in 1910 and in 1919 Norsk forening for arvelighetsforskning. In 1916 Norway's Institut for arvelighetsforskning was founded. Sweden's Statens institut för rasbiologi opened up in 1922.[14]

There are a lot of difficulties writing a neutral history on this subject. But surely it should be included. Edaen (talk) 16:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@Hydrox: Did we agree on something? The way the article looks now it is more about sterilisation and doesn't really say anything about Swedish eugenics. Edaen (talk) 14:13, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, and sorry for my inactivity!

A big problem here is that the sources are generally paywalled, and a principal author of the primary source questions the veracity of the open access newspaper sources, as you have pointed out.

My general concern is that the information should not be suppressed. I will to my best understanding edit the section to remove any unsubstantiated claims. I hope this will encourage healthy development of the wiki-text in the future. Best, hydrox (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

One question that pops into mind - several of the more scandalous newspaper pieces like [15] and [16] as well as the DN piece seem to cite the doctoral thesis by Maija Runcis. Do you know if this source has been found disreputable? --hydrox (talk) 15:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Both Hedvig Ekerwald[17] and Inga Sanner[18] considered the thesis to be ahistorical or chronocentric. In Fib/Kulturfront Stefan Lindgren believed that the attempt by Zaremba and Runcis to paint the sterilisations as racist had fallen flattly to the ground because of the public investigation SOU 2000:20.

Samtidigt som steriliseringsperiodens sexualpolitiska innebörd börjar klarna kan man konstatera att Zaremba/Runcis försök att ge steriliseringarna en rasistisk innebörd fallit platt till marken.[19]

Edaen (talk) 16:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)