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[[File:Interiör statarstuga. NM.JPG |thumb |right |Interior of cabin. Photo: [[Nordiska museet]]]]
'''''Statare''''' were contract-workers, living under serf-like conditions in [[Sweden|Swedish]] agriculture who, contrary to other [[farmhand]]s, were expected to be married, were provided with a simple dwelling for their family, and instead of eating at the servants' table were paid [[income in kind|in kind]] with foodstuff. They were, similarly to most other farmworkers, contracted on an annual basis. The family members' willingness to work, at some places unpaid, was taken for granted. This system became increasingly common during the 19th century,<ref name=Lundh_1>{{cite journal |last1=Lundh |first1=Christer |last2=Olsson |first2=Mats |date=29 Jul 2011  |title=Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture, c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status |journal=Scandinavian Journal of History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=298–323 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2011.582620 |quote=The end of the 18th century witnessed the start of an agrarian transformation that would multiply the returns to agriculture, at the same time as breaking up the old peasant society. Concurrently, a new work organization was introduced on the larger estates. The old ''[[corvée]]'' system was gradually replaced with wage labour, and in the latter half of the century a special form of employment, the contract-work system ''(stat/ar/systemet),'' was introduced and survived until 1945.}}</ref> attracted much public critique in the 20th century, and was abolished from November 1, 1945 through a collective bargaining agreement.

These agricultural laborers were generally viewed as being on the lowest rungs of Swedish society, worse off than [[crofter]]s.<ref name=Lundh_4>{{cite journal |last1=Lundh |first1=Christer |last2=Olsson |first2=Mats |date=29 Jul 2011  |title=Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture, c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status |journal=Scandinavian Journal of History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=298–323 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2011.582620 |quote=Some autobiographies point out that while working together on the lord's ''[[demesne]]'' all were equal, but when the contract-worker approached the peasant's or crofter's farmstead, he was regarded as inferior. Such social status differences are also found when the autobiographies discuss marriage.}}</ref> Their lives were described by prominent Swedish novelists and writers such as [[Ivar Lo-Johansson]], [[Jan Fridegård]] and [[Moa Martinson]],<ref name=snl/>  making a considerable impact on the public debate in the decades following [[common suffrage]]. Their lives are also described by Swedish American novelist Helen Lundström Erwin in her novel Sour Milk in Sheep's Wool, published 2021.
[[File:SWE-18th ct counties with most tax-exempted land.svg |thumb|right |Counties with the largest shares of noble tax-exempted land possession. Different colors for different counties. Red: >50%, orange: 40-50%<ref>Counties within the borders of '''''present-day''''' Sweden, data for the '''''18th&nbsp;century:''''' Uppsala County (orange) >40%, Stockholm County (red) >50%, Södermanland County (lighter red) >50%, Halland County (red) >50%, Kristianstad County (orange) >40%, Malmöhus County (red) >50% (1971–1996 county borders shown on the map), after:<br/>{{cite book |last=Gadd |first=Carl-Johan |year=2000 |trans-title=Sweden's agricultural history. Part 3, the agrarian revolution from 1700 to 1870 |title=Det svenska jordbrukets historia. I: Del 3, Den agrara revolutionen 1700-1870 |language=sv |location=Stockholm |publisher=[[Natur och Kultur]] |page=43 |isbn=9789127352223}}</ref>]]

The system was promoted by agrarian reforms resulting in enlarged fields<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Möller |first=Jens |year=1990 |title=Towards Agrarian Capitalism: The Case of Southern Sweden during the 19th Century |journal=Geografiska Annaler |volume=72 |pages=59–72 }}</ref> and by expanding markets for grain, meat and dairy. It occurred almost exclusively on farms greater than {{convert |60 |ha}},<ref>{{cite book |year=1915 |trans-title=The rural workers' working and pay conditions in different districts and on typical rural properties |title=Lantarbetarnas arbets- och löneförhållanden inom olika bygder och å typiska lantegendomar |series=SOS socialstatistik |language=sv |location=Stockholm |publisher=[[Socialstyrelsen]] |page=52 }}</ref> mainly in regions of central and southern Sweden<ref>{{Cite book |title=A Community Transplanted: The Trans-Atlantic Experience of a Swedish Immigrant Settlement in the Upper Middle West, 1835-1915 |last=Ostergren |first=Robert Clifford |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |year=1988 |isbn=9780299113247 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/communitytranspl00oste }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://popularhistoria.se/artiklar/statarnas-harda-liv/ | title=Statarnas hårda liv | last=Blom | first=Tomas | date=2008-08-21 | website =Populär Historia | access-date=2017-01-18 | language=sv}}</ref> where families from the landed nobility were dominant land owners. On many manors the ''statare'' system replaced manorial [[Tenant farmer|tenant farming]].<ref name=Lundh_1 /> It reached its maximum extent in the decades around year 1900. Thereafter the system gradually declined<ref name=Lundh_2>{{cite journal |last1=Lundh |first1=Christer |last2=Olsson |first2=Mats |date=29 Jul 2011  |title=Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture, c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status |journal=Scandinavian Journal of History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=298–323 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2011.582620 |quote=The fifth group comprised agricultural workers who were employed until further notice with cash wages and their own housing. They had roughly the same employment terms as industrial workers and corresponded to the modern norms. At the end of the 1930s this category was as large as the contract-worker group.}}</ref> until it was formally abolished in 1945.<ref name=snl>[http://snl.no/statare statare] [[Store Norske Leksikon]], retrieved 6 April 2013 {{in lang|no}}</ref>

== Terminology ==
=== English ===
'''Contract worker''' is used in recent (21st century) journals on [[economic history]].

'''Truck servant''' was used in early 20th century international comparisons by the [[U.S. Department of Labor]].

=== Swedish ===
The word ''statare'' applies to all family members. It is a popular version of ''stat-folk,'' avoiding the sensitive part ''"-[[wikt:fólk#Old Norse|folk]]"'' that here indicates the uneducated populace. Hence skilled artisans and more qualified manorial employees, as smiths, gardeners, bookkeepers, managers, etc., were not counted as ''statare,'' although similarly contracted on an annual basis, provided with a dwelling, and paid in kind.

In official records (the [[parish register]]s), ''stat-[[wikt:dräng#Swedish|dreng]]<ref name=e>The [[Swedish language|Swedish]] 'ä'-sound comes in two variants: short and long. The short 'ä', with the [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] symbol: [[Close-mid front unrounded vowel|{{angbr IPA|e}}]], was before the 20th century often spelled 'e', and corresponds to the [[English language|English]] e-sound in ''best.''</ref>'' and ''stat-[[Torp (architecture)|torp]]are'' are the most common titles for the employee ''([[wikt:stat#Swedish|stat]]-'' was a Swedish word for "payment in kind"), whereas the term ''statare'' dominates in the public debate on social issues. Widows, wives and children may be mentioned as ''statar-[[wikt:änka#Swedish|enka]],''<ref name=e/> ''statar-[[wikt:hustru#Swedish|hustru]],'' and ''statar-[[wikt:barn#Swedish|barn]].''

Also "married farmhand" ''([[wikt:gift#Swedish|gift]] dreng<ref name=e/>)'' has been used, particularly initially. The term as such gives no clue to whether he was provided with a home for his family, or slept in the chamber of the farmhands, but had its own negative [[connotation]], as farmhands traditionally were not supposed to marry.

== Background ==
The parliamentary rule during the [[Age of Liberty |Age of Liberty (1718–1772)]] invited citizens to debate and discussion, to a freer formation of opinion, not the least on public affairs. After the [[Great Northern War]], the monarchs were no longer trusted. And the landed nobility had lost its say in the [[Reduction (Sweden)|Great Reduction]] of 1680. New ideas of [[rationalism]], [[individualism]] and [[meritocracy]] found their way from the European continent to remote towns and cities in [[Sweden]].

=== Reforms ===
Numerous suggestions were made to reverse the widespread poverty in the country. New crops and rational agricultural reforms were much discussed. Innovative entrepreneurs were hailed.

The era saw the creation of a progressive "civil service nobility", i.e. civil officers who were ennobled before promotion to a governmental position that the nobility had secured sole rights to. Once nobilitated, they were free to buy tax-exempted land from the landed nobility.

The ''statare''-system was first proposed in 1750 as a combination of the manorial [[corvée]] system, and the established peasant system with unmarried servants living in the master's home. A kind of large farms were conceived, like [[plantation]]s, that hardly existed anywhere in the country yet. Meanwhile, [[enclosure]] was enacted in several phases, starting with ''[[Storskiftet]]'' in 1757. The ideal became farms with one singular continuous piece of farmland, which should liberate inventive farmers from their conservative neighbors.

Tenant farmers and freeholders did in fact use this freedom to experiment with new crops. But it would turn out that the most inventive were the new owners of manors, who followed news, were financially better connected, were unhampered by tradition and conservative landlords, and who in comparison with the previous owners, the ancient nobility, lacked sentimental feelings of responsibility for their peasants, nor did they see their land as merely a source of a yearly rent, but rather as a project to be refined and streamlined according to modern theories. Furthermore, from 1809, common people were allowed to buy tax-exempted farms from the landed nobility.

=== Population growth ===
Between 1750 and 1850, the population of Sweden doubled. New farmsteads could not compensate for this rapid change. Previously, custom had been that sons and daughters of freeholders and tenant farmers were educated as servants on other farms before marriage and before inheriting a farm of their own. Now more and more farmhands wished to marry without access to a tenant farm.

=== Evictions of peasants ===
Until 1660, Danish laws and customs gave considerably more freedom to noble land holders than the Swedish. During the long [[Great Northern War]](1700–1721), noble military officers had had good opportunities to compare their own limitations with the liberties of noble estate holders in contemporary [[Livonia]], [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Poland]], [[Tsardom of Russia|Russia]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]], as during the [[Thirty Years' War]]. With Sweden's Law on Privileges for the Nobility (1723),<ref>{{Wikisourcelang-inline|sv|Ridderskapets och adelns privilegier}} (The [[Swedish Code of Statutes]] 1723:1016)</ref> the conditions were reversed, granting the Swedish nobility unlimited rights to [[corvée]]-work from their tenant farmers, and also freedom to evict them at will.

Around year 1800, preconditions for the ''statare'' system were present at manors in the [[Mälaren Valley]] (i.e. the greater [[Stockholm]] region). By then, roads were improved, goods could be transported in wagons, and enclosures were either finished or soon to be. The [[demesne]]s of the manors became increasingly dependent on corvée from tenant farmers, crofters and cotters. Tenant farmers on many noble estates were evicted, abruptly in some places. Instead of their corvée, the manors employed day laborers and farmhands of a new kind: older, experienced, and married. The evicted tenants were by law required, like anyone else who didn't own their house, to accept any employment they could find, even a position as a farmhand, disgraceful for a married man as it was.

Tenants under the church and the crown were indirectly affected, as tenure became scarcer.

This development occurred similarly in the southernmost province of [[Scania]], although a generation later. The explanation for this delay is usually presented in terms of ''corvée'' being easier to exact in the formerly Danish provinces (Scania, [[Halland]], [[Blekinge]]).

== Statare as a social issue ==
[[Industrialization]] had arrived late in Sweden, but in the 1920s this new change in Swedish society contrasted starkly with the poor conditions for ''statare'' families; their circumstances were increasingly seen as a disturbing relic of pre-modern society. Between World Wars I and II, it became a theme in public discourse:<ref name=Lundh_0>{{cite journal |last1=Lundh |first1=Christer |last2=Olsson |first2=Mats |date=29 Jul 2011  |title=Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture, c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status |journal=Scandinavian Journal of History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=298–323 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2011.582620}}</ref>
# The housing situation was regarded as very poor. The barracks-like rural family dwellings, that estate owners had built for their contract-workers, were unpleasant, crowded, drafty and dirty. The employee on a one-year contract had no incentive to improve their dwelling. Neither had the employer.
# The working conditions were lagging behind those of industrial workers and were poor in terms of working hours and tasks. The occupation as contract-worker was the way out for the worst off—given they were able for the work.
# Also the family situation was depicted as chaotic, with the wives bound to carry out work away from home many times a day (above all for [[milking]]), clashing with the bourgeois [[housewife]] ideal.
# The children's schooling often suffered as a consequence of the frequent moves from place to place.
# They were poorly organized, seen from a labour union perspective.

The appearance of a growing class of country side proletarians, without any prospects of ever getting neither tenure nor a land of their own, created unease. The general belief was that contract-workers were treated as if they had no legal rights, and often moved when their one-year period expired. In reality, many stayed for extended periods, particularly at manors where they were treated relatively better.<ref name=Lundh_3>{{cite journal |last1=Lundh |first1=Christer |last2=Olsson |first2=Mats |date=29 Jul 2011  |title=Contract-Workers in Swedish Agriculture, c. 1890s–1930s: a comparative study of standard of living and social status |journal=Scandinavian Journal of History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=298–323 |doi=10.1080/03468755.2011.582620 |quote=Three examples of duration of service are given from Tunbyholm at the end of the 19th century; farmhand-foreman 26 years, carpenter 36 years and stable groom 47 years.}}</ref> Despite farm bailiffs in many case made use of the employer's advantageous position, rather, the problem was this law required men and unmarried women to get employed unless they owned their own house or rented land enough to support their family. Although abolished in 1926, its impact lingered.

By the 1930s, the housing situation had improved and was favorably comparable with that of woodcutters and road workers. More ''statare'' unionized, and minimum standards were set through collective agreements. Smallholders lived in houses of roughly equal standard (but were in average older and with fewer children at home). For industrial workers, the improvement was more obvious. A lesser share of them lived in houses classified as dilapidated, they had significantly fewer children, and two-room apartments were usual for larger families.

The improvements were too slow compared to public opinion. ''Statare'' became the epitome of desperation and resignation in a highly exploited lower class. This was highlighted by the social journalism of the 1930s whose principal message was the contemptible standard of housing and hygiene in rural areas. The reports were compiled into book form and received much attention.

==See also==
{{wiktionary}}
*[[Indentured servitude]]
*[[Truck system]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Social history of Sweden]]
[[Category:19th century in Sweden]]
[[Category:20th century in Sweden]]
[[Category:Labour in Sweden]]
[[Category:History of agriculture in Sweden]]
[[Category:1945 disestablishments in Sweden]]