![Anna Christina Cronquist Idun 1893, nr 12](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Anna_Christina_Cronquist_Idun_1893%2C_nr_12.jpg)
Anna Christina Cronquist, née ''Lundgren'' (1807–1893), was a Swedish entrepreneur. She was the founder of the firm ''
A.C. Cronquist & Son'', which was the start of the Cronquist Era within
manufacture and
Major appliance
A major appliance, also known as a large domestic appliance or large electric appliance or simply a large appliance, large domestic, or large electric, is a non-portable or semi-portable machine used for routine housekeeping tasks such as cookin ...
business in
Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...
.
Life
Anna Christina Cronquist married in 1830 to
Johan Cronquist (d. 1852), editor and publisher of the newspaper ''
Malmö Nya Allehanda'' in Malmö. As the income from the paper was not sufficient to support a family, she gave lessons in
weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...
: skilled in the art, she published the possibly first instruction book in weaving in Swedish in 1845.
Between 1849 and 1865, Cronquist managed a very successful textile shop, which became the biggest in Malmö and reputed in all Scania. She was likely the first married woman in Sweden to have started her own firm rather than to have inherited it, and she was also the first married woman to have started a firm in her own name: ''A.C. Cronquist & Son'', referred to herself and her son. In an age when a married woman was legally a minor under the guardianship of her spouse, this was not an uncomplicated issue; another difficulty was the fact that shops were formally the privilege of the guilds, despite the law of ''
Handelsordningen Handelsordningen ('Trade Regulation') was a business law reform introduced in Sweden 22 December 1846.
The reform abolished the legal differences between retail business and wholesaling business, transformed the trade guilds to trade associations ...
'', which normally only allowed women members if they were widows. Because of these issues, Cronquist were often forced to use a male
Strawperson in order to handle her business until she became a widow (and thereby no longer a minor) in 1852.
Anna Christina Cronquist made her son
Georg Cronquist her business partner in 1862 and retired in 1865, leaving part of the firm to her daughter-in-law and former employee
Aqvilina Cronquist. The ''A.C. Cronquist & Son'' eventually developed into a major appliance firm.
References
Sources
* Schenlær, Margareta, Malmökvinnor, Malmö kulturhistoriska fören., Malmö, 2003
Idun, nr 12, 1893
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cronquist, Anna Christina
1807 births
1893 deaths
19th-century Swedish businesswomen
Swedish weavers
19th-century women textile artists
19th-century textile artists
Swedish women business executives