In 1959, Alf Henrikson wrote the rhyme, “Vanliga svenska folket är baptister i Örebro. Det är duktigt att köpa och sälja samt starkt i sin kristna tro.” [‘Typical Swedes are Baptists in Örebro (in central Sweden). They’re good at buying and selling and strong in their Christian faith.’]

Henrikson highlighted the connection that has historically existed between religious revivalism and entrepreneurialism. It is only when some executive with a background in a non-conformist religion behaves unethically, for instance in the case of Skandia’s Lars-Eric Petersson, that this kind of link is given prominence in public – and then only to make the scandal more sensational. 

One explanation for the connection between non-conformist religion and entrepreneurialism has focused on the importance of industry, responsibility, thrift and honesty. The revivalist movement gave rise to heightened involvement in church activities and associations, which in turn created social networks that facilitated cooperation between companies and reduced the risk of being cheated in business.

Moreover, non-conformist congregations (like athletics, for instance) tend to transcend social boundaries, which reduces class constraints. The antagonism between labour and capital is not as intense when producers and labourers belong to the same congregation. It then becomes easier for an employee to become an entrepreneur. A surprisingly large number of companies in these non-conformist communities have been started by workers in small industries that developed their own idea. In contrast, the classic industrial towns, which remained faithful to the Lutheran Church of Sweden, were characterised by a strict hierarchy in which workers who started their own company were often looked upon with distrust by both factory management (who wanted to control every activity in the community) and their own kind (who saw entrepreneurship as class betrayal).  

The historical association between Sweden’s industrialisation and non-conformism is stronger than one might think. They were in fact instigated by the same man, the English immigrant Samuel Owen (1774–1854). He arrived in Sweden in 1804 to set up the first steam engines in Swedish factories. In 1807, he constructed the first steam engine in Sweden and in 1809 opened up his own mechanical workshop with a foundry, rolling mill and shipyard. Owen’s factory took on great significance as a provider of English industrial technology and was a training ground for Swedish engineers and workers. There they built steam engines, threshing mills and steamboats. 

Samuel Owen is not just the father of the Swedish engineering industry but also of the people’s movement in Sweden. He was a Methodist, like many of the British workers at his factory. So the Scottish Methodist clergyman George Scott was hired to come to Stockholm. Among the assistants and pupils who sought Scott out were people who then became leaders of various Christian popular movements that developed in the 19th century both within and outside the official Church of Sweden. Owen and Scott also initiated the first Swedish temperance associations, which had over 100,000 members in the 1840s.

The most noted link between religious revivalism and entrepreneurship is Jönköping County in central Sweden. But the same connection is also found in many other regions, including Örebro (as Alf Henrikson noted), where Baptism has been strong. Two examples are Örebro’s leading forestry industrialists, the brothers Erik (1868–1958) and Ernst (1875–1943) Åqvist. Ernst was best known through Oscaria, the company he founded in 1907. The brothers were involved in a non-conformist religion (as Baptists) and in politics (as Liberals). They served as city counsellors and Ernst, like his son Gösta, was a member of Swedish Parliament. Ernst Åqvist was committed to improving social welfare and was perhaps the first to submit a motion in Parliament, in 1935, introducing employee pensions.

Another family of Baptist entrepreneurs from the neighbouring province of Närke were the Lithells. Oscar Lithell started a delicatessen in Kumla in 1907 which developed into a major food industry, operating from the town of Sköllersta starting in 1957, and is best known for its Sibylla brand of fast food outlets. Lydia Lithell (1909–1957), who married into the second generation of this sausage dynasty, composed and wrote the lyrics to some 300 spiritual songs. Her most famous is most likely the text to “Jag har hört om en stad ovan molnen” [‘I have heard of a city above the clouds’].

A number of industrial regions in the north of Sweden are also revivalist communities. These include Voxnadalen (the area around Alfta and Edsbyn) in Hälsingland. The area is best known for its lumber companies. Entrepreneurship here has traditionally had a strong association with both non-conformist religion and sport (today, mainly bandy).

Olof Johansson (1867–1933) was a very energetic entrepreneur in Edsbyn. He was the self-taught son of a crofter who became involved in farming, shops, carpentry, railroads, electric plants, cement production and Scandinavia’s first plywood factory in 1912. The carpentry factory he founded in 1899 is a forerunner to Edsbyverken, today a major manufacturer of office furniture. Johansson was also a writer and prominent local historian, a teetotaller (with the organisation Blå Bandet), a member of the Swedish Missionary Society and a Christian politician in local government and the Swedish Parliament. But he was primarily an architect and building contractor who constructed over 200 homes in Edsbyn and its environs, most of these wooden houses with the gingerbread fretwork typical of the period. He also built many chapels for non-conformist faiths, mainly in the regions of Dalarna and southern Norrland.

The great distances to the closest church led to the suspension of the church law prohibiting separate religious gatherings in Västerbotten County in 1822 (and not until 1858 in the rest of Sweden). This contributed to the revivalist movement, particularly the Swedish Evangelical Mission, which was firmly established in the region early on. Even today, the connection between non-conformist religion and the strong entrepreneurial tradition can be seen, especially around Skellefteå.

Alvar Lindmark (1917–75) was one of ten siblings who grew up in a modest house outside Burträsk in northern Västerbotten. His home was strictly religious, and Alvar was not sure whether to become a missionary or an engineer. He chose the latter. But there was not much money, so he was first forced to work as a ditch digger to get enough money together for an education. Even though he became seriously ill and had to interrupt his studies, he was able to complete his degree through a correspondence course ahead of his former fellow students.

However, he was unable to get a job as a building engineer, so he instead became a construction worker. He was frail after his illness and had a hard time managing the heavy labour. Yet almost immediately he started to come up with inventions that made the work easier, first a mortar mixer and then a material hoist and a bending machine for reinforcement bars. 

In 1948, he founded the company Alimak. Hoists and work platforms became Alvar Lindmark’s primary products: for construction, in mines, radio towers and other tight spaces. An important breakthrough came in 1962, when the company launched a rack-and-pinion-driven construction hoist that could gradually be assembled from the top of the hoist basket.

Alimak’s hoists have since been used in the construction of many of the tallest buildings in the world, as well as in the renovation of the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower in Paris. Alvar Lindmark got many of his ideas when he was playing music by Bach or Händel on the church organ he had installed in his home. 

Nolaskogs in northern Ångermanland (in the municipality of Örnsköldsvik) is another revivalist community. Residents here have been called “the Smålanders of Norrland,” people from Småland being the Swedes best known for their industriousness. Hanna Lindmark (1860–1941) came from here. She grew up in very poor circumstances in Arnäs. At the age of nine, she was auctioned off in a pauper’s auction. She was saved early on and dreamed of becoming a missionary. But she lacked the financial resources to get the training needed. Instead, she became a housekeeper at the YMCA in Östersund. She demonstrated great talent there as an organiser and in running food service operations. At the age of 42, Hanna started her own restaurant, which also trained young girls how to prepare food.  

After three years, Hanna Lindmark moved to Norrköping in central Sweden. A major industrial exhibition was to be held there in 1906, which created a demand for food service facilities. It was in Norrköping that the name Margaretaskolan [‘Margareta School’] was used for the first time. A shop with prepared food was added to the restaurant and training activities. A number of Margareta Schools were soon to appear throughout the country – later including a fourth branch of activity, party facilities. Of course, every Margareta School was non-alcoholic.

One might easily think that a devoutly Christian woman entrepreneur would be more humble in character. Naturally, Hanna Lindmark made sizeable donations to the mission on a regular basis. But she was very tough in business matters and could be ruthless with her fellow workers. For instance, her female managers were not allowed to marry if they wanted to keep their job. They were to live solely for the Margareta School. (However, Hanna allowed herself both a husband and a posh country house lifestyle.) She held out the promise to several of the women who served her faithfully through the years that they would take over “their” Margareta School after her death. But these promises were never kept.

Hanna Lindmark bequeathed almost all of her property, including the Margareta School, to four evangelical missions. They all had operations entrusted to people who were not able to run them successfully. Problems were concealed as a result of misleading financial accounts and, later, extensive embezzlement of Margareta School funds. Operations were gradually terminated.

Below are a few other examples of enterprising revivalist communities:
• Donsö in the Gothenburg archipelago is a shipping centre with strong links between business and the evangelical mission movement.
• Edvin and Erik Ståhl, brothers and members of a non-conformist congregation, were behind the growth of the furniture industry in Lammhult, including Lammhults Möbel in 1945.
• The countryside around Östervåla in the municipality of Heby is called “the holy corner” of Västmanland, and previously best known for its chair production.

The Jewish religious community and development of networks have also helped produce a favourable business climate. This is especially true of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Norrköping, where Jews were permitted to settle as early as 1782.

It is not a strong Christian faith or any other faith on its own, or a strong religious organisation, that helps produce a favourable business climate. This association applies to religious environments characterised by openness and network building. The strict, closed-community Læstadianism of the Sami in Norrbotten, for instance, has not promoted entrepreneurship.

The diverse nature of religiosity is illuminated by the interesting case of Småland in Jönköping County in southern Sweden. Jönköping County (which for administrative purposes uses the letter “F,” which could also stand for “free church” or non-conformist) came to be strongly marked by a spirit of popular movement that favoured entrepreneurialism. In contrast, neighbouring Kronoberg (labelled G, also the first letter in “gammalkyrklighet” or traditional religiosity) and Kalmar Counties (H, as in high-church Lutheranism) came to be characterised by conservative values, rigidity and a closed community, which did not give rise to social networks promoting entrepreneurship.

The traditional religious environment was clearly marked by traditional economic individualism, with a high value placed on work and industriousness. But there were no sewing circles, church choirs or youth groups created here. Temperance organisations, cooperation between farmers and athletic associations were also limited. After the church service, everyone returned to their own home. Cooperation between companies was not as developed as in non-conformist communities. 

One of the non-conformist entrepreneurs in Jönköping was Per Erik Petersson, who ran the watch and optical firm Wikanders Ur & Optikaffär. Bu he wanted to do more for his church than was economically possible through his business.

Petersson had a brother-in-law at Aga, a company that at that time worked, among other things, with radio communication. This piqued Petersson’s interest. He discovered that Sweden did not have a legal monopoly on telecommunications. In 1956, the public utilities company Televerket had developed a mobile telephone network. Couldn’t he establish a private alternative? No sooner said than done. In 1965, he started Sweden’s first non-local private mobile telephone network, Tele-Larm. The first radio tower was set up on the roof of a house in Bymarken outside Jönköping. In all, 32 base stations were built from Kiruna in the north to Malmö in the south. After a number of developments, in 1980 the company merged with other private networks to form Företagstelefon AB.

Jan Stenbeck acquired the company in 1981 and changed its name to Comvik. That was the start of Stenbeck’s successful enterprising operations in Sweden. His lifestyle can hardly be said to have been influenced by the piety of non-conformists. But the ways of the Lord, as everyone knows, are unfathomable.
 Involvement in a non-conformist religion may be important for the deeds of an entrepreneur even if that entrepreneur does not operate in a non-conformist community.

One example is Petter Olsson (1830-1911) in Helsingborg in southern Sweden. He received a license to trade in 1853 and came to be one of the largest grain exporters in Sweden. Olsson also helped to set up a steam mill and a number of other industries. He was a member of Parliament, a leading local politician and was involved in developing Helsingborg’s harbour and railroad network. Olsson was devoutly religious and a leader of the region’s revivalist movement. He had an all-inclusive outlook with contacts in the Church of Sweden, the Swedish Evangelical Mission and different non-conformist churches. As a politician, he consistently promoted freedom in religion.

For nearly a decade, a spacious room on the top floor of his great granary served as the most important meeting place for the city’s revivalist movement. He then built, largely with his own money, the Mission Hall in Helsingborg, which was made available to various Christian groups. On his estate in Rögle, large meetings of Pentecostals convened which included thousands of people. He also built, among other establishments, two orphanages, a seamen’s home and a home for elderly female servants.

Helsingborg was not a revivalist community. On the contrary, there was widespread hostility to non-conformist churches. Olsson was often harshly attacked in the press for his religious involvement. As a result, he did not take part in the city’s social life. It also helped that he was a hard worker who was taciturn and introverted. It was only in religious contexts that any of his social characteristics could be expressed.

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Petter Olsson’s career path could serve as an illustration that strong religiosity can be a factor for success even in a community that is hostile to non-conformist religions. His involvement in religious revivalism no doubt contributed to his success in three ways. First, he broke the swindler mentality that extensive smuggling, in particular, had given rise to in Helsingborg. He won the reputation for being scrupulously honest, which created trust among his customers and suppliers. 

Second, his social isolation relative to the business community around him forced him to find new ways and geographically expand his business interests. Third, his involvement in the religious revival brought him good contacts with people in many organisations and in a broad geographic area, which would provide him with important support when he was about to launch a new business idea.

A strong religious outlook can sometimes constitute an obstacle to some business ideas or tasks that could be seen as sinful. In some religious circles, for instance, the theatre and the cinema were considered immoral. The newspaper Jönköpings-Posten, which was owned by the Hamrin family, members of the Swedish Missionary Society, thus refused to accept advertisements for movies as late as 1952. And when the Örebro Concert Hall was built in the early 1930s, with financial support from the shoe family dynasty the Baptist Åqvists, it was designed to prevent theatrical performances from being held there.

But if a religious outlook prevents one thing, it may well instead lead to others. An interesting example of this is Karl-Hilmer Johansson Kollén. He worked as an architect in Stockholm but lost his job when he refused to draw blueprints for a theatre for religious reasons. However, Karl-Hilmer found a problem that required a solution. In 1875, Parliament had decided to go over to the metric system. How would people be able to handle the transition to a new measurement system smoothly? Karl-Hilmer found the solution in 1883 when he designed a folding ruler that had scales in both inches and meters alongside each other.

That same year, Karl-Hilmer Johansson Kollén founded the company Svenska Mått- och Tumstocksfabriken. In 1907, manufacturing moved to Hultafors in Västergötland. The company is now called Hultafors AB and still makes folding rulers.

Religious conviction can be an asset for someone pursuing an adventurous career in enterprise, with Henrik von Essen (1820–1894) a good example of this. He started out with two inheritances – his and his wife’s – and ended up rather destitute. Nonetheless, he deserves to be honoured as the creator of the industrial community Tidaholm in Västergötland.

Von Essen grew up on the family estate of Kavlås close to Tidaholm and in 1846 assumed responsibility for the foundry Tidaholms Bruk. He then worked to set up carpentry, matchstick, pulp and paper operations as well as a railroad between Tidaholm and the main railway linking Stockholm and Gothenburg. However, he suffered a series of economic setbacks, including several industrial fires, which exhausted his fortune.
Apparently, von Essen could not handle the risk-taking that innovative entrepreneurship always entails. He was moved by a strong drive to develop his community and located his operations in Tidaholm even though the conditions for success were not yet ripe then. Yet many of the companies he founded carried on and were developed under the auspices of others. In 1900, the Vulcan matchstick factory was the largest in the world. Today it is the world’s most modern.

Von Essen was devoutly religious and a leader in the Swedish Evangelical Mission. In 1863, he travelled with an international delegation to Spain to obtain the release of some thirty Spaniards who had been imprisoned for their Evangelical faith. In 1871, he made a similar trip to support his fellow believers in Russia’s Baltic provinces. After being forced to abandon his entrepreneurial career in 1878, he came to devote all his energies to the revivalist movement, in part as a lay preacher.

In his article on von Essen in Svenskt biografiskt lexikon [‘the Swedish Biographical Dictionary’], Per Erik Gustafsson writes, “The glow of his personality is a result of this, that he made his sacrifice without a hint of bitterness, because he had found a value in his faith in God that reconciled him to those cruel twists of fate.”
In recent years, non-conformist religions have attracted a good deal less flattering attention, especially with the dramatic murder in Knutby in central Sweden. All the ingredients were here for a terrifying tale: violence, sex, submission and demonic leaders. But one does not have to look as far as this extreme movement. For many people, the Swedish church Livets Ord [‘Word of Life’] is terrifying enough – and for many, it is probably the movement that epitomises religious revivalism.

Preacher Runar and his pop star ex-wife Carola are probably better ingredients in a media concoction than the old non-conformist church lady who sews children’s clothes for the mission. But we should probably remember and honour the traditional revivalist movement. It may have a lot to teach us even today: industriousness, honour, building local networks and social involvement – it can be a success factor for people, companies and communities in the globalised 21st century as well.