The Swedish Manufacturing Census - Digitization and Public Access
Since the middle of the 18th century, the Swedish state has aimed to collect annual data on all Swedish industrial companies from a wide range of sectors, including data on the size of the workforce, the capital stock, and revenue. The continuous recording and almost universal coverage mean that the Swedish industry data is an internationally unique data source on the process of industrialization, and the data could shed new light on central historical and economic questions.
Since 2016, there is an ongoing project to digitize the data for the years 1863 to 1914, which was previously only available in handwritten books stored in archives. The RJ infrastructure project will allow for an additional digitization of the data between 1740 and 1863, which means that there will be a complete digital version of the Swedish manufacturing census. The project will also enable the creation of the infrastructure needed for us to make the dataset publicly available, with documentation, guidelines on all important decisions taken during the data construction, and a web-based interface through which the data can be easily accessed by other researchers and the interested public. The aim is to create a state-of-the art dataset with the potential of becoming a central resource for studying industrialization and development from the 18th Century and onwards, both for researchers in Sweden and abroad.
Final report
The project "The Swedish Manufacturing Census Digitization and Public Access" aimed to digitize and make publicly accessible historical manufacturing data from Sweden, covering a period of over 250 years. Sweden has a long tradition of systematically collecting microdata, but not all of these have been digitized, one example being the firm level data that this project is digitizing and making publicly available. The project focused on digitizing census records from 1740-1863, creating a structured database with key economic variables such as firm location, workforce size, production, and revenues, and constructing a webpage where the data from this period and beyond is easily accessible. The research team collaborated with Lund University -- the data were digitized manually by highly qualified research assistants with background in history or economic history and knowledge of the Swedish language. We had extensive quality control of the data both at Lund University and through checks made by the research team.
The project's most significant outcomes include the digitized data, the developed webpage, an academic documentation article, and the development of three major research initiatives. The research team has actively disseminated findings through conferences. Their comprehensive documentation article, detailing data collection, digitization methods, and historical reliability, has been submitted and has the status of "Revise and Resubmit" at Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History.
The project's most significant outcomes include the digitized data, the developed webpage, an academic documentation article, and the development of three major research initiatives. The research team has actively disseminated findings through conferences. Their comprehensive documentation article, detailing data collection, digitization methods, and historical reliability, has been submitted and has the status of "Revise and Resubmit" at Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History.