I statens tjänst för rikets bästa. Kvinnors successiva inträde i den manliga arkivvärlden under 1900-talets första hälft.

Sammanfattning: This Master’s thesis aims to highlight the first decades of the Swedish archival society from a gender perspective. The timeframe of the research stretches from 1899, when the first Swedish National Archive’s regional archive was founded, to the 1960s, when the first women were employed as archivists. It includes the regional archives of Vadstena, Lund, Visby and Östersund. The theoretical basis for the essay is Michel Foucault’s theories of archaeology and power, as well as Gadamer’s hermeneutics. The essay discusses topics such as: When were women first employed at the Swedish National Archive’s regional archives? What kind of education did they have? How many women were employed compared to the number of men? I also investigate the women’s marital status by looking into statistical data from the Swedish National Archive’s regional archive in Lund, since researchers have stressed that women in government services at the turn of the century often were unmarried. By answering these questions, I aim to provide a detailed picture of the first decades of the regional archival society. The essay is divided into three main parts. The first part provides a picture of Swedish society during the first decades of the 1900s, particularly focusing on areas like the gender-segregated society and the difficulties for women in gaining access to higher education. This part provides a background to the second one, in which the archival society of the time is thoroughly analysed. Finally, the third part discusses the reasons for why it took so long for women to be employed as permanent staff, and also highlights the factors that contributed to this. In this study, the power structures of a profession that, for a long time, appeared to be entirely male are revealed.