The Uddevalla Suffrage Association () was a late-19th-century political movement founded in
Uddevalla
Uddevalla is a Stad (Sweden), town in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It’s the seat of Uddevalla Municipality. In 2015, it had a population of 34,781, making it the largest town fully in Bohuslän. Uddevalla is located where the river Bäveån ...
,
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 ...
. Local historians and the
Swedish Social Democratic Party
The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( , S or SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( ), is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressiv ...
consider it the first political predecessor of the
Swedish labour movement
The labour movement in Sweden dates back to at least the 1850s, when Swedish workers initiated the organizing of previously spontaneous food riots into strikes, hence acting as an autonomous group.
History
Modern types of labour unions emerge ...
in the province of
Bohuslän
Bohuslän () is a Provinces of Sweden, Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea to the ...
. Its purpose was to bring about
universal suffrage
Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...
in Sweden: At the time, suffrage in the country was restricted to men and based on personal wealth, therefore excluding most of the urban and rural working class from the electoral process. The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was one of many groups throughout Sweden that helped bring democratic thought into the common discourse and make way for the political breakthrough of the labour movement.
History
Growth

The foundation of the organization was preceded by an August 1890 election 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 ...
of a three-person committee intended to foster the creation of regional and local suffrage associations. One of those elected was
Ture Malmgren
Ture Robert Ferdinand Malmgren (7 June 1851 – 3 August 1922) was a Swedish journalist, book publisher, and municipal politician. A prominent figure in his hometown of Uddevalla, Malmgren became a colorful and well-known part of the city's hist ...
, the owner and editor of the daily newspaper ''
Bohusläningen
''Bohusläningen'' () is a daily newspaper, focusing on central and northern Bohuslän, as well as western Dalsland.
History and profile
The newspaper was founded in 1878 by Ture Malmgren (1851-1922), a local publisher and politician. ''Bohusl ...
''. On 12 October 1890, the Uddevalla Suffrage Association was formed after a public meeting at the Lancaster School (''Lancasterskolan'') that was attended by 250 people, described as "mainly men from the manually labouring class". The Association's stated goal was "to gather supporters of the lowering or abolition of the political suffrage limit, and of the equalization of the municipal voting rights".
Malmgren was elected as the Association's first chairman. Other board members were the foreman E. Fredborg as vice chairman, the store manager O. E. Gutke as secretary, the journalist Oskar Malmrot as vice secretary, and the teacher P. Larsson as treasurer. At a formal constituent meeting on 2 November, the membership was reported to exceed 200. Malmgren came to dominate the movement. In speeches, he railed against the graded scale of suffrage, which gave societal and political influence only to the wealthy.
In July 1891, the Association organized its first large rally on Skansberget in central Uddevalla. Between 500 and 600 people attended, and speeches by Malmgren were accompanied by music and singing by the choir of the People's Associations (''Folkföreningarna'').
The same year, the Association joined western Sweden's Suffrage League (). In 1893, several prominent members of the Association were elected as delegates to the first
People's Riksdag (''Folkriksdagen''), a national meeting of liberal and socialist supporters of increased voting rights. Three delegates were chosen from Uddevalla: Malmgren, with 2,038 votes; the store owner Albert Andersson, with 1,434 votes; and the
locomotive fireman G. A. Dahlqvist, with 615 votes. The debates at the People's Riksdag are said to have been intense, and Malmgren's newspaper stoked the flames. On 18 June 1893, the Association and other pro-democratic forces organized a large rally in central Uddevalla.
By this point, Malmgren had resigned as chairman. His successor was Andersson.
Decline
In the late 1890s, the activities of the Uddevalla Suffrage Association declined as the divide between working-class reformists and more liberally-inclined bourgeoisie became larger. Several working-class activists became prominent in the Association, among them Adolf Bremer and M. A. Ljunggren, as the liberals withdrew. In 1898, the first formal Social Democratic Party branch (''Uddevalla arbetarkommun'') formed from the merger of several trade union branches, and the Association declined even further. With the decline and the increasing importance of working-class members, it also became more radical. Eventually, the group changed its name to the Uddevalla Suffrage and Discussion Association (''Uddevalla Rösträtts- och diskussionsförening''), with the purpose of debating social issues.
A prominent member of the Uddevalla branch of the Social Democratic Party, Johannes Hermansson, was assigned to write a new set of statutes for the Association's charter. This didn't happen, possibly because of the demands of the liberal faction.
Instead, the Association was dissolved on 12 January 1902, after twelve years of existence.
Most of its monetary assets were granted to the Social Democratic Party, which was seen as the ideologically closest movement to the Association. However, 100
kronor were given to the city's theatre association, because the Uddevalla Suffrage Association was one of many local movements that owned shares in the theatre.
See also
*
Sweden during the late 19th century
*
Timeline of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, in which cases women and men from certain Social ...
*
Tureborg Castle
Tureborg Castle is a Castle#Later use and revival castles, faux-medieval castle located in Uddevalla Municipality, Sweden, it sits atop a hill overlooking the neighbourhood of Tureborg . It was constructed during the late 19th century and earl ...
References
{{Reflist
1890 establishments in Sweden
1902 disestablishments in Sweden
Democracy movements
History of Bohuslän
Organizations established in 1890
Uddevalla
Organizations disestablished in 1902
19th-century establishments in Gothenburg and Bohus County
20th-century disestablishments in Gothenburg and Bohus County