The purpose of the project has been to gain a picture of how everyday body language during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was used to convey identity, and what identifications and roles a purely nonverbal culture at this time contained. The main material has been so called street photography from three European countries, which has been studied in order to identify poses that signalled various social types and subcultural belongings. By using photography as a primary source, an underlying purpose of the study has been to discuss the potential of photographs as a historical source of knowledge on what they depict rather than its techniques of depiction or the photographer’s agency. The study is thereby one of the first to base its conclusions on photographic motifs and has contributed to a development of the methodology surrounding historical photographs. The study was originally meant to incorporate portrait photography, but during the process the large and undeveloped potential of street photography was made clear, and the emphasis was instead placed on this type of material. Some portrait photography has been used in order to contrast the body language of that genre to the body language of the street.

The investigation has treated streetlife as it comes across in street photography from three countries – Sweden, Austria, and England – focussing on the urban regions of each country. This three-part structure has been fruitful for perceiving the development of social behaviour in relation to varying processes of modernisation. In Sweden photographs by Stockholm photographer Erik Tryggelin and Lund-based photographer Per Bagge were mainly studied, in Austria the Viennese photographers Emil Mayer and August Stauda, and in England Linley Sambourne and Samuel Coulthurst. Besides the photographic material, magazine illustrations and cartoons were studied in order to trace the connotations of various poses in a broader sense. These investigations have uncovered a number of specific subcultures and media cultures whose oral and nonverbal nature has led them to be neglected by previous historical research.

The primary result of the project is made up firstly of the conclusions of the empirical study, secondly by the development of the study’s methods, and thirdly by the propagation of nonverbal perspectives in historical research. The conclusions of the study point to the existence of a widespread bodily practice at the end of the nineteenth century which contrasts with the straight-backed and disciplined convetion, and which forebodes the more loose and relaxed body poses which were to dominate popular culture and be seen as an ideal during the latter half of the twentieth century. At the same time the period in focus is a transition phase from one definition of acting natural to another. The upright military ideal so often seen in the late nineteenth century was connected to the definition of acting natural current in that time. Only during the twentieth century is this ideal starting to be seen as stiff and unnatural, being replaced by the more loose attitude to naturalness dominating today. But the forerunners of late twentieth-century relaxed poses are seen in the nineteenth century, favoured by the youth subcultures starting to thrive in the cities, and twentieth-century subcultures have their origins in phenomena such as the Stockholm kväsarkvanting or the London shopgirl and Piccadilly masher. What possibly separates this period from that of the twentyfirst century is the relative lack of individualism as a goal. Individual self-presentation was mainly tied to collective identities. Social distinction was made in a different way than in the early modern period, when things such as work clothes characterised the public role people played. During the nineteenth century a homogenisation of dress takes place, making individual self-presentation and role playing more dependent on body language. Poses and gestures become a larger arena for social mobility and contributes to expressing the manifestations suppressed by the homogenisation of dress and etiquette.

On a methodological level, the project has also resulted in the development of ways of using historical photographs as a primary source in historical research without neglecting rules of source criticism. Inspired by latter-day photographical history and photographical theories, I present in the resulting monograph methods for extracting the content of images and separating aspects dependent on the agency of the photographer and aspects beyond the photographer’s control – what photo theorists refer to as automatism. This modus operandi has made it possible to use hitherto unexamined photographic collections which constitute an invaluable historical source of information.

The project has also resulted in a series of internationally published articles debating the potential of a larger focus on nonverbal aspects in historical research. The articles have focused on the Victorian research which I am familiar with from my earlier work and they have been published in the renowned Journal of Victorian Culture. The first article, “How Civilized were the Victorians?”, advocated the use of non-literary sources to a larger extent, in order to see the people of the nineteenth century in a less well-mannered light than is often the case. The article led to an international debate in universities and online forums and is the most downloaded article on the journal’s website. The debate led to an invitation to a conference at Warwick University, the possibility to present the points of the article in a popular journal, and a round-table discussion published in a subsequent issue of JVC. The project has consequently drawn attention to a skewed perspective in international research and presented suggestions for how this imbalance might be redressed. The outcome of the suggestions will be made clear when the monograph is published in the autumn of 2018.

With its unconventional method, the project has opened up a large arena for potential future research. Empirically, this means primarily the study of subcultures or group cultures whose expressions are not mainly verbal or written and should therefore be studied through the use of nonverbal sources. I have myself within the scope of the project written an article on the grilljanne subculture of 1890s Stockholm, a group which surfaced repeatedly in the material while I was working on the main study. The research has also uncovered the existence of so called “girls’ cultures”, spheres in which young women were permitted a more forthright and expressive behaviour than that which is commonly seen. Circles such as these should be examined further. Previous research has mainly devoted itself to representations of these cultures by outsiders and critics. In sum, it would be fruitful to investigate how the nonverbal culture exposed by the current study looked in various social groups on a more detailed level, devoting particular attention to groups who did not make their voices heard in written media. Methodologically, the experimental use of photographs as a source has opened up for further developments of how historians might make use of photographs. At present, very few historians have used photographs in the way I have, partly based on a cautious attitude stemming from source criticism. Having shown the potential of snapshot photography in the history of everyday life, I hope that this will change.

The project has a transnational character and has during the process encompassed both international archival research and contacts with colleagues from various countries. Although the focus of the study is on Sweden, England and Austria, the main archival visits have been in England and Sweden, thanks to access to Austrian material through British Library in London, Lund University Library and several online archives of digitised Austrian journals. The chief international aspect of the project has been my stints as visiting scholar in Bologna and Oxford. In Bologna, I spent a month as guest of Professor Claudia Pancino at the Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, whose research on the cultural history of the body has been a source of inspiration for my work. I also spent a shorter period of time as a guest at the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities at the University of Oxford, where I presented my research for the centre’s Nordic Network, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars. I have also spread information on the project and developed my international network by participating in seven international conferences during the time of the project.

The results of the research have been spread to the research community through the publications mentioned and the conference presentations. A distribution of the results outside of the academia has been made through a number of public appearances, an article in the popular history magazine Family Tree, and a draft manuscript of a popular book inspired by the topic of the project. This book incorporates some of the more fascinating photographs collected during the course of the work and presents analyses of body language in a more accessible way. Hopefully, this manuscript will be published in 2018 or 2019.