This article examines the timing, scale and cause of transitions
between different kinds of household energy use and especially
heating in northern Sweden, with a focus on Norrbotten, between the
late nineteenth century and 1970. It examines the related but separate
histories of the adoption of new heating technologies, such as stoves
and boilers, and the choice of fuels, such as firewood, coke, oil, and electricity,
providing new data on the scale of consumption and timing of
transition. The article demonstrates the important linkage between domestic
fuel choice and labour markets, whether labour in farm and forest
affecting stove use in the nineteenth century, or increased female labour
participation outside the home and rising wages in the twentieth.
The article goes beyond discussions of price and technology to consider
the wider contexts of domestic use not only in terms of home life, but
also industrial development and labour markets in northern Sweden