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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
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
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 inweaving
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, 2003Idun, 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