Anna Elisabeth Baer
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Anna Elisabeth Baer née ''Carlbohm'' (1722–1799) was a Finnish merchant and shipowner. She was one of the richest
merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...
s in the latter half of the 18th century in
Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...
, Finland.


Life

Anna Elisabeth Baer was the daughter of the rich merchant and city councillor Kristoffer Carlbohm and Anna Warg of
Gamla Karleby Kokkola (; sv, Karleby, ) is a town and municipality of Finland. The town is located in the Central Ostrobothnia region. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Neighbour municipali ...
. In 1743, she married the wealthy merchant Anders Baer (1712–1770) of
Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...
, who was also an elected representative to the Swedish parliament. The couple had thirteen children, seven of whom became adults.


Business career

She took over the family business (as well as her husband's guild membership) after his death in 1770, and managed it for nearly thirty years after his death. She sent several petitions relating to business to the Swedish Collegium of Commerce. She was a shipowner, owned a merchant company and several properties outside of Turku, as well as parts of a brick factory, a saw mill and a tobacco factory. From 1770 until 1777, she managed the Turku city hall restaurant in companionship with
Elisabeth Wittfooth Elisabet Wittfooth née ''Tottie'' (1716, Stockholm - 1791, Åbo ( fi, Turku)) was a Finnish merchant and shipowner. Elisabet Wittfooth was the daughter of the tobacco factory owner Thomas Tottie (d. 1724) and Christina Schönman in Stockholm, and ...
. After the death of her spouse, she was sued by the tobacco trader Emanuel Tillman for the debt of her late husband, for the unpaid tobacco leaves he had ordered for a tobacco factory in Turku in which he owned an interest. Baer refused to pay the entire amount but claimed that the other part owners of the factory should pay part of the debt. This was contested by the biggest part owner, Jost Joachim Pipping, who demanded to see the Baer account books to verify the purchase had been exclusively that of Anders Baer. The legal dispute lasted for three years, until 1774, when the court decided that all part owners should pay a share of the debt. During the
Theatre War {{Campaignbox Dano-Swedish Wars The Theatre War ( sv, Teaterkriget), Cowberry War, Cranberry War or Lingonberry War ( no, Tyttebærkrigen, da, Tyttebærkrigen), was a brief war between Denmark–Norway and Sweden, starting on 24 September 1788, ...
in 1790, the war lugger ''Tumlaren'' was gifted to the royal fleet of king
Gustav III of Sweden Gustav III (29 March 1792), also called ''Gustavus III'', was King of Sweden from 1771 until his assassination in 1792. He was the eldest son of Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. Gustav was a vocal opponent of what ...
by a group of female merchants (referred to as 'Merchant Widows') of the city of
Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...
, among them being Anna Elisabeth Baer and
Elisabeth Wittfooth Elisabet Wittfooth née ''Tottie'' (1716, Stockholm - 1791, Åbo ( fi, Turku)) was a Finnish merchant and shipowner. Elisabet Wittfooth was the daughter of the tobacco factory owner Thomas Tottie (d. 1724) and Christina Schönman in Stockholm, and ...
.Bladh, Christine,
Hennes snilles styrka: kvinnliga grosshandlare i Stockholm och Åbo 1750–1820
', Södertörns högskola, Huddinge, 2018 http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-34733
Anna Elisabeth Baer died a very rich woman in 1799, and left her possessions to her three surviving children.


1771 election

Anna Elisabeth Baer wanted to vote in the ''
Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...
'' elections in Turku in 1771, and sent a letter to the governor regarding the matter. The petition was sent together with the book binder Hedvig Söderman and the tanner Hedvig Ottiliana Richter, both widows who had inherited their businesses from their late husbands, and who all petitioned to vote on the grounds that they were tax paying guild members. The petition to vote was sent because the election of the burgher city representatives to the Riksdag had already been held, without her having been called to participate in it, despite having the legal right to do so. In the election, Jost Joachim Pipping was elected representative to the Riksdag by the Turku burghers. Pipping was a business rival of Baer, with whom she was involved in a court dispute at the time. The burgher election of Turku was contested by both the Craftsmen's Guild as well as by Baer. In her protest, she demanded the right to exercise her vote and made the case that because she paid taxes as a burgher, she should have the right to elect her burgher representative, and that if her right to vote was not respected, she feared that her other rights as a businessperson were in danger of eventually being contested in the same way. In her protest, she wrote to the Governor: :"I make these demands for no other reasons or designs than to defend my rights and privileges, without which my Profession and Business Trade could be limited and mistreated, a concern to which I trust upon the consideration of Your Grace." In Sweden-Finland at the time, there was in fact conditional women's suffrage, and women who were tax paying guild members did have the legal right to vote, a fact that Baer may have been aware of. In Sweden, women did vote in the 1771 election if they were taxpaying guild members of legal majority, which Baer herself became when she was widowed: and Finland was at that time a part of Sweden, thus this conditional women's suffrage should have applied in Finland as well. However, this right was contested in Finland, where it was not considered proper for women to appear in the town halls to discuss political issues. The answer to the petition of 1771 was a refusal from the governor, after having consulted the burgher elders of the city of Turku, regarding their view on the matter. The burgher elders stated that Baer, Söderman and Richter had merely inherited their businesses (and burgher rights) from their late husbands: they had not sworn the burgher oath personally, were thus not 'full members' of the guilds, and thereby they did not have the right to vote, despite being guild members.Jarna Heinonen, Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen,
Women in Business Families: From Past to Present
'
In his answer to Baer's petition to vote, the governor stated that she had no reason to fear that her business rights should be threatened in any way, but: :"… Mrs Baer wishes to vote for the representatives of the Parliament: this curious matter seemed too ridiculous for the City Elders to answer further. For that reason, and because it seemed likely that Mrs Baer had been seduced to this step, so unexpected for the strength of her intellect and unflattering for her sex, we will give no further reply to her petition in this matter." The conditional women's suffrage in Sweden-Finland was in any case abolished the following year, when the
revolution of 1772 The Revolution of 1772 also known as The Bloodless Revolution ( sv, Revolutionen), also known as the Coup of Gustav III ( or older ''Gustav III:s statsvälvning'') was a Swedish coup d'état performed by King Gustav III of Sweden on 19 August 177 ...
abolished the
age of liberty In Swedish and Finnish history, the Age of Liberty ( sv, frihetstiden; fi, vapauden aika) was a period that saw parliamentary governance, increasing civil rights and the decline of the Swedish Empire that began with Charles XII's death in 1718 ...
in favour of absolute monarchy. Nevertheless, the Turku burgher election of 1771 was deemed to be incorrect and a re-election was held, during which Pipping lost his place.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baer, Anna Elisabeth 1722 births 1799 deaths 18th-century Finnish businesswomen 18th-century Finnish businesspeople Finnish businesspeople in shipping