I´m interested in history, a specially local history from my region but also the history of "ordinary people". Here goes:
Gösta Ohlsson and the Hällevadsholm Anarchist Club
Gösta was born in 1902 in Lysekil in west coast Sweden, in a family of four. 1910 the family moved to Hällevadsholm because Gösta´s father Wilhelm started to workin the stone industry and bought a small quarry and a small cottage near Hällevadsholm. Granite from Bohuslän was a major export commodity at this time, shiped to the United States and South America. Workers from all over Sweden went to Bohuslän to earn a living in the stone industry.
When Gösta passed elementary school, he worked for a while in the family quarry, as a day laborer picking potato for local farmers and also took a trip to Uddevalla (major town in Bohuslän), where he worked at a textile factory. When a group of young workers started socialist youth in 1928 Gösta participated. The club later changed its name to the Hällevadsholm Anarchist Club.
In Hällevadsholm there was a “Peoples House” asociation with a library on a small scale. Gösta who was very interested in the peoples formation (extension) , got a job as a librarian at this library. Anarchist and atheist books such as “Anarchism” by Kropotkin was purchased for the library. When the local conservative farmers heard about the spread "god denying books" in the library they were furios and a conflict emerged because Hällevadsholm public librarie received financial support from Svarteborg Municipality municipal and the Swedish National Board of Education. Bohuslän was at this time strongly divided between the socialist mobile stone workers and deeply conservative lutheran farmers, who wanted to keep the population in the shaft through social control. The farmers launched a blackening campaign, spread lies about Gösta and his father and lobbied for the books to be removed from the library. They also wanted the municipality to withdraw their contributions to the library. Gösta defended himself in several local papers, and responded to the attacks. There was a prolonged conflict that ended with an investigation organized by the municipality, which required that the library would be cleared of atheistic literature. Biblioteksstyreslen surrendered and offered the municipality that "Anarchism" and "The Era of Reason" would only be lent to people over 21 years. The municipality did not accept this. Finally, the books were cleared out and donated to thinned out and the books were donated to the Hällevadsholm Anarchist club. Gösta was fired in 1948 after that the board because the board of the Peoples House were afraid to loose their substitutes from the municipality. One can imagine that more radical workers were frustrated with this decision.
Gösta , however, managed to continue making a living as a lecturer and educator, first working for the SAC (Swedish anarcho-syndicalist union) and later paid by the ABF (The education association of the Swedish social-democrat workers movement) . He became known for his historical knowledge and his good memory. The word spread and by the end of his life, Gösta was invited to the most popular tv-show in Sweden at the time, called Hyland's Hörna.
