Marholmen's history since 1900

The story of Marholmen

Imagine going back just over a hundred years. To 1917. That's when Selma Blomberg steps ashore on Marholmen.

She's 41 and has been a widow since her husband Herman passed away thirteen years ago. Her days are filled with hard work at the Rörstrand porcelain factory, earning 100 kronor a month. That money needs to cover her and her two children. The small family lives in a one-room apartment on Helsingegatan in Stockholm, without central heating and with a dry toilet in the yard.

Selma is a working woman. She's poor, works hard, and her health isn't great. She hasn't had a single day off in her entire adult life. Until today, that is, when she arrives on Marholmen. She'll be staying at the rest home here for two weeks, completely free. She can barely believe it's true. How is this even possible?

The answer takes us back four years. It was then, in 1913, that wholesaler Nils Berg and his wife Hanna made a decision. They decided to donate their beloved island, Marholmen, to the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) and build a convalescent home here for working-class women. Nils had managed to build a fortune, and Hanna was involved in women's issues. They both had their working lives behind them and everything they could wish for. Why not do something meaningful and important with their money? And so they did.

At the same time as the Rest Home, the Forest Cabin for female workers is built. A year later, the Holiday Home for men and their families is completed. But Nils has more plans.

In 1924, two years after Hanna passed away, Nils donated the rest of his fortune to Birkagården Folk High School in Stockholm. He wanted to promote public education, especially "the educational needs of women working in factories." This sparked the next idea, and in 1926, the Folk Education Home opened on Marholmen. The first course for women took place here that same year.

The education and course activities expanded to include the trade union movement. In 1937, the first trade union course was held, a week-long program for members of Transport. This trend continued, with thousands upon thousands of trade union members gaining new knowledge through these courses. In 1983, the Kommunal trade union purchased Marholmen. With 80 percent female members, it stands as Sweden's largest women's organization. Could there be a better successor to Nils and Hanna's legacy?

Back to Selma. She's spending two weeks at Vilohemmet here on Marholmen with thirteen other working women. They're bathing, strolling through the summer greenery, going on land and sea excursions, picking flowers, chatting in the white garden chairs, and doing all those lovely summer things. On rainy days, they stay inside, reading or playing cards or other board games. Basically, they're just relaxing.

When summer is over, a total of 52 women have been at the Rest Home. The committee summarizes that ”...most of the women have gained weight and regained health and strength, thus the result corresponds to the foundation's purpose.”

For Selma, two weeks off was an impossible dream. As a working-class woman, she didn’t have the financial or political opportunities. It would be another five years before women in Sweden even got the right to vote, and a two-week holiday only became law in 1937.

It's easy to think, 'wow, many people had it tough back then.' But the truth is, far from everyone can afford a vacation even today. Almost one in ten children in Sweden lives in economic poverty. For many of these 186,000 children, going away on vacation, staying in a cabin or caravan, is nothing more than what it was for Selma – a dream. Can we do something for them? Yes.

Here at Marholmen, we continue to work for a sustainable society in many ways. One example is our 'Family Time' initiative, which gives families who don't have the financial means the chance to come here and relax. You can read more about our commitment here on our website.

Why? Because we can. And we want to. Just like Nils Berg and Hanna once wanted. Hanna passed away in 1922, Nils four years later. But their idea lives on. The story continues.

The Merchant Couple Nils & Hanna Berg's Marholmen

In the late 1880s, Nils Berg bought the Marholmen property, which was separated from Solö farm. On Marholmen, he had his first summer villa built, which sadly burned down in the 1930s. At the start of this century, he had the so-called 'Finnish villa' (today Villa Hanna) constructed, based on designs by the highly acclaimed Åland architect Lars Sonck. That's the house you see pictured above. Around the same time, he also had a farm built on the estate, fully equipped with the most modern technology of the era. A student dormitory with about twenty double rooms was added to the farm. The facility was meant to be an agricultural school. It's hard to grasp what led him to invest so much capital and energy into such an idea, especially since industrialism had already begun its triumphant spread even in Sweden. The Marholmen venture would eventually turn out to be a miscalculation, which was likely uncommon for a man like him.

In 1909, Sweden experienced a major labor conflict, which ended in defeat for the workers. The Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen) lost about half of its members. They couldn't afford to pay membership fees, and many working-class families faced tough times.

Back then in Stockholm, the evening newspaper 'Aftonavisan' was published, which the Berg couple read. In it, the investigative journalist of the time, editor Gerhard Magnusson, wrote articles about poverty and hardship, often ending with a direct plea for help. The Berg couple read these and were deeply moved. Nils Berg was a man of action. He suggested to the Ersta Deaconess Institution that they establish a retreat for working wives on Marholmen, but for some unknown reason, Ersta turned down the offer.

Then Berg turned to LO, which had a very strained economy after the disastrous labor conflict, and they accepted the proposal. The boarding house at the closed agricultural school would become a summer home for tired women from the working class.

The donation letter reads as follows: “Through unemployment, whether a consequence of labor market fluctuations or due to disputes between employers and workers, suffering and hardship are caused not only for the impoverished worker himself, but also for his wife and children, who thereby endure an entirely undeserved plight. Especially the wives of workers are at such times exposed to severe trials, which dampen their spirits and undermine their health; moreover, women of the working class are often in urgent need of rest, which is not available to them.

To some extent contribute to remedying the mentioned grievances and at the same time express the view that it is the obligation of capital to take into account the victims of unemployment... we, spouses, hereby donate the property mentioned below to the Bergska donation.

The Bergian donation included the larger part of the Marholmen estate, complete with a farmhouse, residential buildings, and the very first summer villa, plus capital worth about SEK 500,000 – which was a huge sum back then! Two years later, the so-called holiday home, now known as the Art Nouveau house, was added. The donation was officially presented in November 1913, with LO chairman Herman Lindqvist and Hjalmar Branting in attendance. They were also there for the inauguration of the convalescent home during the warm summer of 1914. This donation was considered incredibly important for the labor movement. One newspaper even sarcastically remarked that now workers could strike all they wanted and just head out to Marholmen to enjoy 'honeymoon days'!

Marholmen Folk High School

Forgot their table companions

A few hectares of Marholmsvillan remained in Berg's ownership. What could be done with this remnant? In 1922, his wife Hanna died of a brain tumor. Their summers together on Marholmen were over. Sometime in 1923, Berg met the headmaster of Birkagården Folk High School, Natanael Beskow, at a dinner. The two gentlemen had so much to talk about that they forgot their dinner companions. Rude, but good for the school. After further discussions, it was decided that the rest of Marholmen would be bequeathed to a fund called Marholmens Folkbildningshem. Here, Birkagården Folk High School would be able to hold summer courses for female students, mainly young women who worked in industry. The tobacco monopoly became a major supplier of students for the summer courses. "Tobacco plants" the girls were sometimes called. Old "tobacco plants" collected money in the 1960s to give the children of Marholmen two optimist girls, who were named Nicko and Tina.

Berg had a school building and a dormitory built in the national style of the 1920s, designed by Carl Alfred Danielsson-Bååk, the same architect who had previously designed the Semesterhemmet/Jugendhuset. Elsa Beskow, the well-known artist and storyteller, was Natanael's wife. She contributed with the color scheme on and in the houses. 400,000 was set aside for a support fund. 1926 saw the opening of Marholmen's folk education home, and the first summer course started with 21 girls, 18 of whom were factory workers, two maids and a deputy hostess.

Berg had the right to live in the villa for as long as he wished. For the first two years, he could travel to Marholmen with a nurse. His health had deteriorated. He surely was happy to now see so many young people on his old island, he who never managed to have children of his own. Nevertheless, he succeeded in realizing his humanitarian ideals on his own summer island. It had now been transformed into the 'workers' island' that the will spoke of. Nils Berg passed away in February 1928, at 86 years old. He was a man of honor throughout his life. The flower wreath he traditionally has on his portrait every Midsummer is truly well-deserved.

Here's an excerpt from the 1924 will:

"...in order to fulfill my and my wife's intentions with the Bergska donation to make Marholmen a "workers' island" and to meet the need for continued education in knowledge and skills, which - through the development of society and the increased responsibility imposed on citizens after expanded civil rights - appears in both male and female citizens and which especially the industrial working women should feel urgent, although they are prevented by economic reasons to satisfy this educational need ... I hereby decree as my last will and testament... that after my death, with the property specified below, a fund shall be established, to be known as the "Marholmen Folk Education Home", with regard to whose purpose, administration and audit the following provisions shall apply..."

Nils Berg as a person

Nils Berg was a serious person. Had he always been that way? The question is impossible to answer. In the letters he wrote to his parents while he was away, there was no room for humor. He had attended the Private New Elementary School from 1853-59 – the school where Carl Jonas Love Almquist had previously been headmaster. For its time, the school was modern and focused on modern languages, but only required moderate Latin skills. Teachers and classmates surely influenced Berg. The future international merchant had an 'A' in Swedish, French, and English, but only a 'B' in German, which came to dominate the last three decades of the 19th century in Sweden and the Baltic Sea countries. He probably had a difficult German teacher, as many others have had.

In his youth, Nils Berg interned in Germany and England to properly learn the languages. In letters to his mother, he expressed his disgust for the bigoted and sanctimonious spirit that prevailed in the parsonage in Richmond where he was boarded: constant prayers and hymn singing with shrill voices. Prayers had to be said on one's knees. This was an unsympathetic side of England. Another aspect was almost the opposite. In a letter, he characterized the English as “a machine people, so practical that they cannot understand what cannot be expressed in numbers.”

He detested hypocrisy, artificiality, and cold materialism. His social views were formed during this period. Much later, in the dining room of the rest home, he had the maxim “An honest man speaks the truth” hung up. Natanael Beskow's unwavering radical Christianity must have deeply influenced Berg.

He saw her through the window

In 1892, when he turned 50, he married Hanna Maury, twenty years his junior, who was working at Gumaelius advertising agency at the time. The proposal happened when Berg approached Hanna's employer, Miss Gumaelius, whom he had known for a long time. He said: “At the first table in the room next door sits a lady who looks so kind and is always so diligent. I would like to get to know her.”

Berg's office was across the street, on the same floor level. Miss Gumaelius brought the two together, and this led to a thirty-year and – as far as we know – happy marriage. His beloved wife came to mean an immense amount to Berg. Among other things, she could temper his easily excitable temperament.

Fair is fair

The story of the lost steamboat points to a sense of justice bordering on rigidity. Once in the eighties, Berg had bought a shipload of dyes, which went from London to St. Petersburg. The steamboat with the cargo was lost in the North Sea. It was insured in St. Petersburg, but for some unknown reason, the insurance company refused to pay out the compensation.

Furious, Berg traveled to St. Petersburg, where he bought the insurance company. He is said to have lost 250,000 SEK on the deal, but he did get his insurance payout. Gillis Hammar, principal of Birkagården folk high school from 1931 to 1952, called Berg “Charles XII as a wholesale merchant”.

Ignored inflation

Back in the 1870s, Berg had been asked if he wanted to sell some plots on Bastugatan in Söder, Stockholm. Berg said yes and named his price, which was considered too high. No deal was made. Ten years later, the same speculators came back and asked how much the plots cost now. Berg's reply was: “The offer I made, I made!” Prices had certainly gone up, but he stuck to his original bid.

No heavy drinking at the holiday homes.

At the LO homes, alcohol was forbidden – that's what Berg had decided. Once, when some “old chaps” at the holiday home sent a message to Berg in the villa, asking if he could lend them some whiskey, Berg flared up. “Don't the gentlemen know that it's forbidden to drink alcohol at the homes?” he exclaimed. “If you'd like a toddy, you're welcome to join me.” That's how the strict gentleman spoke. The maxims “An honest man speaks the truth” and “Whatever you do, do it right” probably suited this original merchant quite well.