MUSEOS DE LA SEDA / SILK MUSEUMS

its zenith. In 1875, when the weaving mill was more successful than ever, Almgren acquired another lot in the same neighbourhood and built another mill. This was situated on 16 Ragvaldsgatan and was a four-story building with weaving halls on the second and third floors. The house was sold in 1912. K.A. Almgren died in 1884. His son Oscar Mauritz, born in 1842, who had worked in the company since 1858, took over. He was sent on an education journey to Italy and Horgen in Switzerland in 1861 17 and was made a partner in 1869. In 1868, he married Louise Schmidt, the daughter of the owner to the company’s only compe- tition, Casparsson & Schmidt. The house on Götgatan was rebuilt in 1884 and became a palatial residence for a successful bourgeoisie family. 18 The Svindersvik estate on the outskirts of Stockholm ser- ved as the family’s country house between 1862 and 1952, when it was sold to Nordiska museet. 19 Oscar Mauritz Almgren, like his father before him, became a mem- ber of the Riksdag and was strongly committed to community invol- vement. He was, however, more of a liberal, worked for free trade, initiated a consumer’s cooperative society for the workers at his mill and set up a, for the day and age, modern system with health insu- rance and retirement funds. The mill was run in the manner of a patriarchal factory town. Oscar Mauritz called himself a wholesaler and imported and traded with silk products. The business was ex- 17 Lindgren Fridell p. 129. 18 Restaurator 2002. 19 Lindblom, Andreas (red.), En bok om Svindersvik . 156