MUSEOS DE LA SEDA / SILK MUSEUMS

( Excerpt from Martin Ciszuk’s licentiat-thesis, Silk-weaving in Sweden during the 19th century . 2012, pp. 13−19, edited by Klas Nyberg for The Silk Museums International Conference in Valencia , Spain, 14−17 No- vemberg 2018. The original footnotes read 23−44. We are grateful to Martin Ciszuk’s family for the permission to publish this excerpt.) Knut August Almgren was born in 1806 as the youngest of 15 si- blings. 1 His father, who was a county secretary and a magistrate, died in 1816 and after finishing school in 1822, Knut August, who was then 16 years old, moved to Stockholm to live with his twenty years older half-brother Johan Gustaf Almgren. Johan Gustaf wor- ked at Mazer & Co., a business that ran one of the more important silk-weaving mills in Stockholm, in addition to wholesale trading including import of silks, wine and luxury products from France. Almgren worked as a salesman and proved to have an aptitude for business. In 1827, his brother writes: With great pleasure we received your letter via the one-day postal service from Skänninge – and were truly astonished that you, who are new in town, were able to sell silk products for 6000 Rdr. [trans.note: ‘Riksdaler’, official currency of Sweden, 1776-1829] – I consider this a good beginning. In 1828, K. A. Almgren fell ill with tuberculosis and travelled with a ship owned by the company to France in order to receive treatment at a sanatorium in Montpellier. 2 He studied French during his con- 1 The biographic information on K.A. Almgren is primarily based on Lindgren- Fridell, the Indebetou family archives in copies at SKAASoM, and Almgren’s own biography in”Almgrenska släktarkivet”, RA. 2 A journey to Norrland was the cause of the illness. The journey is described in diaries, which are in the possession of the Almgren family, p. 30. Historical Overview of K. A. Almgren’s Silk-Weaving Mill KLAS NYBERG Chair at K. A. Almgren Sidenväveri of Stockholm 151