The Ham Nomads

21 Aug 2015. <SE> Jönköping; Värnamo —

Today we went just a little bit south, to Jönköping, which has two main claims to fame — the home of the original Husqvarna factory, and the home of the safety match. We visited two museums — first of all, Husqvarna Fabriksmuseum (the Husqvarna Factory Museum) in the suburb of Jönköping strangely named Huskvarna, and then to the Tändsticksmuseet (the Matchstick Museum) in Väster, in the central area of Jönköping.

The Husqvarna Museum is in the factory's original building. It was opened as a museum in 1993, and documents the more-than-300-year history of the company. In Australia, we mainly know it through its sewing machines, which it manufactured from 1872 to 2010, producing over 9.6 million machines in this factory.

Husqvarna's history is one of change. It started up as a rifle-manufacturing company in 1620, when Gustav II Adolf formally appointed Jönköping as one of the five rifle factories in the country. The original logo etched on the rifles is the logo of the museum — the cross-section of the musket pipe with bead and sights.

Husqvarna had a charmed life with its rifles until 1876, when the orders for national defence dried up. But shortly before, in 1872, they had started manufacturing sewing machines, which become one of their mainstays.

The first sewing machine model produced
at the factory...

... and the last

A new director, William Tham, came in 1877, and he secured patents for cast-iron stoves, which also became big sellers. Husqvarna became a major manufacturer of household goods.

But they also got into the area of bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes — at one stage the Husqvarna Factory Team won just about every motorcross title that was going! And if the Hollywood producers of Steve McQueen's films had realised who the Husqvarna motorcross rider Harvey Mushman reallly was ...

Husqvarna continued manufacturing hunting weapons until 1977, sewing machines until 2010. Electrolux (another Swedish company) bought out Husqvarna in 1977, and switched its production to forestry and horticultural machinery — chain saws, trimmers, diggers, lawnmowers, and so on. The motorcycle production was sold off to Italy.

Part of a huge display of hunting rifles and shotguns

 

Today the Husqvarna Group is the world's largest producer of outdoor power products — robotic lawn mowers (we've seen quite a few in operation as we've travelled Sweden), garden tractors, chainsaws and trimmers.

Enough advertising for Husqvarna — but we found the trip through the company's history absolutely fascinating.

From here, we drove only a couple of kilometres to the Tändsticksmuseet. This, the world's only match museum, is located in the wooden match factory building, the first one in Jönköping. Swedish safety matches, invented here, became a major export, and Jönköping became the 'match capital' of the world. Apparently about 95% of all matches worldwide were produced here — and the balance were primarily poorer quality rip-offs.

Match production started off virtually as a cottage industry, with the children of the household making up matchboxes (using foul-smelling glues), and the older chldren actually used in the dipping process. Before the safety match, the head of the match contained white phosphorus, a highly toxic substance. The children handling it were liable to fall ill with 'phossy jaw' or bone necrosis which, if not fatal, was extremely disfiguring.

The Jönköping factory not only switched over to the 'safety match' — safer in all senses, less liable to cause disease, and not prone to self-ignition in a person's pocket — but it very quickly automated the entire process. There is a fully working early machine (not actually being used) in the museum. This caused some disruption in the workforce, but made the whole process much safer. Children were no longer subjected to hazardous tasks!

As the world's main supplier of safety matches, shipping labels from this factory reached the entire world.

The original three-star brand is apparently the most plagiarised trademark in history!

In Australia, we are most familiar with the brand 'Bryant and May', (Brymay) who produced Redheads and most other matches used in Australasia. But Bryant and May started by importing product from Jönköping, and later manufactured in the UK under licence. And now the brand has been sold back and is part of the Swedish Match Group.

We were just finishing our exploration of the museum when we noticed the staff locking the windows. The museum closes at 5pm, and that time was upon us! So, after a most interesting and informative day, we got in the van and drove southwards, towards Malmö. There was no way we would drive that whole distance today, so we pulled off into a picnic area (and truck rest area) set well back off the highway. This was a revelation! We said earlier that the Swedes know how to do things properly — well, this was a case in point! There was a play area for kids, with soft rubber matting to protect the youngsters. The parking areas were set well back off the road, in a beautiful forest setting. And the toilets — they were cleaned and restocked with soap and paper every morning — and they were centrally heated! Sheer luxury on the roadside! They even had provision to dispose of chemical toilet waste.

Distance driven — today, 62 miles ( 100 km ); to date, 26,446 miles ( 42,561 km )