Movie night - stories from history  

For almost five decades in the 20th century, the so-called workhouses in Västerbotten's hinterland were temporary homes for children from poor families in roadless country who would otherwise not be able to go to school. During the evening, the newly produced documentary film Västerbotten County Workhouses will be shown after an introduction by archivist Susanne Odell, Umeå.

Susanne tells more about the film work, emotional meetings with participants and how archival material led to the content of the film that tells about a phenomenon that may not be so familiar anymore, but which was the everyday life of many children in the first half of the 20th century.

The idea of workhouses originated with the feminist and philanthropist Anna Hierta-Retzius in Stockholm in the 1880s. There, the workhouses were institutions where the poorest working-class children could come in the afternoons, be supervised and learn certain chores, while the cottages in Norrland became regular homes for the children during the school year. But even in the northern workhouses, children had to do various chores alongside school. In addition to helping out in the workhouse household, they would learn handicrafts. The children were to be educated "in the fear of God, industriousness and pure manners in order to become good citizens, useful to the community and the hometown", as stated in the statutes from 1925. The girls could braid baskets, knit, weave and sew, while the boys tied brushes and worked with woodwork and shoemaking. The Västerbotten County Workhouse Foundation started its first workhouse in November 1909 in Vilhelmina, and it was followed by others in other parts of the county in the years that followed. The system continued until the 1950s, when the workhouses were municipalized and transformed into school homes for pupils with a long journey to school.

The film about the workhouses is based on thorough research in the archives, but also on interviews with people who lived in the workhouses. Today, the children are elderly but often remember well and with sharp details. Being sent away from the family to spend sometimes the whole school year without the possibility of going home could leave a deep mark.

From Västerbotten Museum, architectural antiquarian Lena Berglund and photographer Petter Engman, and from the People's Movement Archive in Umeå, archivist Susanne Odell, have worked on the film, which is partly funded by the County Administrative Board of Västerbotten.

The archive of the Västerbotten County Workhouse Foundation is located at Folkrörelsearkivet i Västerbotten.

Participants: Susanne Odell, archivist and Anneli Rundström Karlsson, archive educator. Both from Folkrörelsearkivet in Västerbotten.

The hour includes 30 minutes of film including the extra The Escape .

E-mail: program@folkrorelsearkivet.se