| Summary
| | The 19th century was marked by great discoveries in technology and nature science. This led to the breakthrough of industrialization with great changes in production, infrastructure and life forms.
The development was carried by romantic and national liberal currents, which expressed itself in a Scandinavian movement, which also left traces in art. |
At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century a movement towards Scandinavian unification and unity evolved. It sprung partly from the conceptions of the Romantic Movement, but it also had to do with the increased travel activity and the growing cultural exchange.
At first it was the intellectual and literary circles, which headed this increased contact and exchange, but in the course of the 19th century the movement had gathered a certain popular and political support.
The unification of the three Nordic kingdoms was seriously discussed, but it was not in line with the great powers of Europe. Denmark was alone when attacked by England in the beginning of the 19th century and the international events concerning the Schleswig wars in 1848 and 1864 put a stop to these deliberations.
The Swedish-Danish rapprochements were a result of a joint development and culture for the liberally oriented middle classes. The development of the infrastructure around the Sound-region with steamships and railways partly diminished distances, also mentally. Differences, and especially similarities became more visible.
Little by little contacts were made across the Sound and they became more frequent and included all social classes. Most visible were the products of the cultural exchange: Monuments, buildings and a mutual influence in literature and art.
The development in North Zealand contained certain development traits, because the area also became a recreational area for the metropolitan region. What was earlier a prerogative for the royal family and the court, now also became available for the middle classes.
From the year 1800 the Copenhagen area developed into a dynamic centre in the region with an explosive population increase, industrial development and a great increase in acreage in the time after 1857. Labour from the surrounding rural society, not only from Denmark, but also from South Sweden moved towards the Copenhagen area, where the wages were twice as high and the living conditions generally much better.
The evolution on the Swedish side took place somewhat later, but in the course of the 1880´s it gathered momentum in Malmo, where the labour movement, with experiences from the Copenhagen area, soon had a foothold.
In the latter part of the 19th century a large harbour was built in Helsingborg and this became the beginning of a rapid development. Helsingborg was in many ways leading the development in Scania and many leading individuals here had their roots in Denmark.
Elsinore was with its attachment to the Sound Duty, which was not lifted until 1857, when also the freedom of trade law was carrie, but here the industrial evolution became apparent too, during the course of the 19th century. In this period Elsinore, with the abolishment of the Sound Duty in 1857 and the foundation of a shipyard in the 1880´s, went through a development, which made it the largest industrial city in Zealand, next to Copenhagen. |