Forced into Trade Out of Necessity: Working-Class Narratives on Petty Trade

Abstract

The chapter approaches petty trade as a form of livelihood among working-class people and as the visible sign of consumerism as represented in personal narratives. Using written autobiographies of peasant Finns, the chapter points to the strategies of petty trade for coping with poverty, and its social consequences, during the rise and formation of the modern welfare state. Although industrialization, economic growth, and consumption rose gradually from 1900 onward, most Finns earned their scanty living from a combination of various livelihoods, such as farming, wood industry works, and small-scale trade of food products, pastries, and needlework.