Christina Fris (1757–1835), was a Swedish industrialist and merchant. After the death of her husband in 1808, she became the owner of his merchant company, as well as one of the biggest
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
factories in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
.
Life
Early life
She was the daughter of the tobacco factory owner Anders Nordström and Maria Elisabeth Söderman, and in 1777 married the merchant
Carl Magnus Fris (1743–1808), son of the
Anna Dimander (d. 1792), who inherited a tobacco firm from her second husband. Her sister Maria married her husband's brother Petter Frisson Dimander (d. 1789).
In 1792, the tobacco company ''Anna Dimander & son'' was formed when the tobacco factory her husband inherited from his mother; the tobacco factory her sister-in-law inherited from her mother; and the tobacco factory she and her sister Maria Frisson Dimander jointly inherited from their father, was joined in the same company to the biggest tobacco firm in Sweden.
Business career
At the death of her spouse in 1808, Christina Fris inherited a fortune, as well as one 5th of the tobacco firm together with her son Gustaf Adolf, her sister-in-law's husband Johan Bucht and son Carl, her own sister Maria Frisson Dimander and her sons Anders and Carl. At this point, the firm was managed by her brother-in-law Johan Bucht, the only adult male. When Johan Bucht died in 1812, however, the three women took over one 3rd each of the tobacco firm (excluding their sons). That three women managed a business company of this size was highly unusual and almost unique for the period: Anna Elisabeth Wetterling and her sisters, who managed a merchant company in
Gothenburg
Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
in the 1770s, is the perhaps only other example in Sweden prior to this. Christina Fris, Maria Frisson Dimander and Maria Christina Bucht managed the firm together for sixteen years until Christina Fris took over as sole active manager in 1828. The firm was dissolved in 1832.
In addition to the tobacco firm, Christina Fris also managed the merchant company of her late spouse until her death, through which she sold the products of her sawmill and ironworks.
In the period of 1750–1820, she was one of the three richest women merchants in Stockholm, alongside
Anna Maria Wretman and
Anna Maria Brandel.
[Bladh, Christine, Hennes snilles styrka: kvinnliga grosshandlare i Stockholm och Åbo 1750–1820, Södertörns högskola, Huddinge, 2018]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fris, Christina
1835 deaths
19th-century Swedish businesswomen
19th-century Swedish businesspeople
1757 births
People of the Industrial Revolution
19th-century industrialists