Boys will be boys - Card games, improper grazing and stealing rafts

We start the new year with light-hearted stories from 1827. In this edition of "Glimpses from the archive", we'll see that it wasn't always easy for the managers of the Blaafarve Works to keep track of their workers. This was especially true when the workers were on the Blaafarveværk's property, but also when the workers were travelling to and from work. In short, 1827 was to cause many a headache for Cabin Master Poulsen, who in many ways was responsible for personnel at the Cobalt Mines.

An all-powerful father - The relationship between managers and workers at Blaafarveværket

Since its inception in 1776, the Blaafarve mill has been a stratified workplace where there was a distance between the workers on the floor and the managers at the top. The relationship between management and the workforce can be likened to the relationship between a father and son, a so-called paternalistic system. Manager and worker were bound together by mutual obligations and respect.

In many ways, it can be said that the paternalistic system was a form of social contract between manager and worker. The relationship is reminiscent of the relationship between father and son (hence father which means father in Latin), where the leader acted as a father figure to the workers. The leaders, as an authoritative but loving father, provided the workers with wages, store grain, schooling, health care and social security benefits. In return, the leaders demanded that the workers submit to the leader's will and fulfil their work duties, be disciplined, pious and moral.

Banden, meget Stöie and Allarm - Gambling in the sackerhuset

However, the paternalistic system had its weaknesses. It was difficult for the plant's management to act as an all-powerful father when the workers left the workplace at the end of the day. Of course, this didn't apply to the workers who lived in the Blaafarveværk's own workers' housing. As these workers lived on the plant's property, they were also bound by the plant's regulations, even outside working hours. On the other hand, workers who could go home to their own living rooms outside the plant's property were no longer bound by the plant's rules. As a result, the managers experienced problems such as breaches of rules and inappropriate behaviour more frequently among these "outsiders" than among the workers who lived on the plant's property.

The majority of the workforce who worked at the Cobalt Mines lived outside the plant's property. A few were accommodated in the workers' dwellings on Skuterudflaten or Skuterudhøyden, but the majority lived in the surrounding areas. In 1847, a total of 738 men worked in the mines and crushed stone works. Of these, 614 lived in Modum, while 124 lived in neighbouring villages. Most of the workers were from Sigdøling, but several came from Eiker, Ringerike and Numedal, and even all the way from Hallingdal.[1] What's more, most of the Moingers didn't live in the factory's workers' homes, but on the surrounding farms.

The outsiders tended to pay less attention to the plant's regulations and the opinions of the "all-powerful father". When we study the register of fines handed out for breaches of labour regulations, the mines are far above the crushing and smelting plants in the statistics. It was primarily truancy that was the biggest problem, but there could also be fights, destruction of tools, poor work pace, etc.

In 1827, however, it was card games that were the problem. Hyttemester Poulsen, one of the managers of the Cobalt Mines, finally felt compelled to make the following announcement:

As it has been experienced that some of the miners play cards and other kinds of games, which they have given the name of lottery in the counting houses in the evening, even far into the night, which also brings the gangs, much noise and alarm, to the great inconvenience of the more quiet and moral workers who wish, to have peace and quiet at night, in order to be fit to carry out their work during the day, and which moreover have harmful consequences, both with regard to morality and to the necessities of life, then I must hereby have announced that this disorder is not tolerated, but must cease for posterity.[2]      

The plant's director, Benjamin Wegner, fully agreed with Poulsen's announcement. The director ordered all supervisors at the mines to report any miner "who may nevertheless in the future allow himself to play cards".[3] Primarily, the managers probably feared that the workers would gamble away their wages, which could require loans etc.

For a long time, attempts had been made to stop gambling in Norway. As early as 1753, a law was passed that banned all forms of card and dice games where money was wagered.[4] Government employees and military officials caught gambling were fined ¼ of their annual salary.[5] Other people's views on gambling had probably not changed much by 1827, which is reflected in the reaction of the managers at Blaafarveværket. In the following months, no fines were handed out for gambling, so the workers must have realised the seriousness of the situation.

Unpleasant consequences - Pets on the cabin owner's property and a stolen raft

Cabin master Poulsen was not left in peace. Just a few days after the gambling in the sacker house had been cracked down on, Poulsen had to write another notice. It was no longer about cards and night-time noise, but grazing cows on his own property.

More miners had been employed by 1827, totalling 175.[6] Some of these had been given permission to settle in the plant's own workers' housing, near the Cobalt mines. Several of them brought livestock, primarily cows, to the workers' homes, and cows must have grass. Poulsen was annoyed that several of these workers, "or [perhaps] more correctly said, their wives, who are of the opinion that they have the right to a harbour for their [cows] on Skuterud-Gaard's property".[7]

Poulsen himself lived at Skuterud Farm and seemed to take it particularly hard when foreign cows grazed on his property. Grazing on Skuterud Farm's property could only take place by agreement with Poulsen himself, and if foreign cows continued to appear, the culprits could "bring the unpleasant consequences upon themselves".[8] Once again, Poulsen's announcement seems to have had the desired effect. No similar cases were reported in the months that followed.

In November, there was another complaint about the workers at Blaafarveværket, but this time the complaint was of a more serious nature. It came from the bailiff. The bailiff, also known as the futen, was the police and tax collector in the Norwegian districts.[9] It turned out that the soundman, i.e. the person responsible for rafting people and materials across the river at Bøenstøa in Modum, had filed a complaint against several of the miners.

Long before the infrastructure in Modum was developed, it was problematic for people to cross riverbeds in Modum. Several of the miners lived in Snarum, which meant that they had to cross the Snarumselva river to get to work. The crossing point was at the strait at Bøenstøa. That's where the strait man, Ole Eriksen, worked. One morning in September 1827, six miners stood on the north side of the river waiting to cross. According to the miners' statement, "after they had called for a crossing and no one came to put them across, they dared to take the strait across the river without permission".[10] The workers swore that they had properly moored the raft on the other side of the river, but the soundman claimed that the workers had left the raft unmoored.

Who was telling the truth remains uncertain, but we do know that the raft was taken off the stream and destroyed. Presumably the miners felt a certain amount of guilt, as they agreed to pay the soundman 4 spesidaler in compensation.[11] Cabin master Poulsen, director Wegner, compatriot and bailiff, as well as Sundmann, were satisfied with this and the case was considered closed.

Finally, it is important to point out that disciplining the workforce at Blaafarveværket largely took place without much difficulty. Eli Moen writes that "On average, just under a tenth of the miners were penalised each year, and this mostly concerned absenteeism".[12] She also claims that permanently employed skilled workers who lived permanently on the Blaafarveværk's property rarely broke the labour regulations. Unskilled, temporary employees who lived outside the mill's property found it easier to break the rules. Differences in real wages, benefits and future prospects influenced workers' willingness to submit to managers and regulations.[13] In other words, it wasn't disobedient labourers who created the most work for cabin master Poulsen, but it was perhaps these few who annoyed him the most.

Sources:

• Hutchinson, Ragnhild. "Playing cards - the 18th century and the customs officers" Ragnhild Hutchison's blog

- History in practice. read 05.01.2021 https://blogg.forskning.no/ragnhild-hutchisons-blogg/spillkort-1700-tallet-og-tollistene/1100667

• Moen, Eli. Competition for bread? Workers at Modum Blåfargeverk 1822-1848. Master's thesis in History. UIO. 1984.
• Store Norske Leksikon
• RA/PA/157/Modum blue dye works

[1] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0132: -, 1847-1848, p. 21

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120822650021

[2] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0082: -, 1826-1830, p. 20

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120822660697

[3] Ra, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0066: -, Letter to Modums Blaafarveværk 1827, the material has been microfilmed, transcribed and processed at the Blaafarveværk documentation centre

[4] Hutchinson, "Playing cards - the 18th century and customs officers" Ragnhild Hutchison's blog

- History in practice

[5] Ibid.

[6] Moen, Bread is in demand, 17

[7] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0082: -, 1826-1830, p. 20

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120822660697

[8] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0082: -, 1826-1830, p. 20

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120822660697

[9] Store Norske Leksikon. Fogd. Read 06.01.2021

[10] RA, Modums Blaafarveværk, G/Gb/L0082: -, 1826-1830, p. 30

Use link for page view: https://www.digitalarkivet.no/db20120822660707

[11] Ibid.

[12] Moen, op.cit. 94

[13] Ibid.

Illustration photo: Paul Cézanne