In this study, a prosopographical approach employing estimates of economic variables among the contemporaneous population through inverted mortality multipliers, based on probate inventories and national registration, are used to focus on specific female financial agency in the city from 1855 to 1880. Although both institutional and cultural obstacles limited formal economic freedom in this period, women acted as money lenders and investors in their own right. Empirical evidence indicates that private individuals accumulated substantial capital, perhaps even fostering the resilience of the informal credit market that prevailed during the nineteenth century in the capital city. Female financial agency appears to have made the financial sector decisive for an important forthcoming change: extended citizenship.

Anders Perlinge, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ethnology, is affiliated researcher at the EHFF Institute for Economic and Business History Research at Stockholm School of Economics. His particular research interests revolve around the field of financial history. He was the recipient of the 2018 Democracy Scholarship granted by Stockholmia – Research and Publishing.