FISKARS 1649 – 360 years of Finnish industrial history

Fiskars 1649
Fiskars 1649
Late 1800s
Fiskars becomes a joint stock company of worldwide renown
In 1865 Finland acquired its own currency, the
mark. The years of severe famine in 1867–
1868 had put a strain on the whole country.
In the 1870s, industrialization and urbanization
accelerated, boosted by the full business freedom
gradually granted between 1858 and 1879. The
first electrically powered bamboo fibre filament
lamp was lit in 1852. The telephone was invented
in 1875 and the precursors of the modern internal
combustion engine were introduced in 1886.
Fiskars has played an important role in the
development of Finnish agriculture. Different
ploughs were imported for experiments with
ploughing, and a plough suitable for the Finnish
soil was developed on this basis. Ploughs became the
works’ most important line of products. At the 1860
St Petersburg exhibition, Fiskars’ wooden plough
won an award. By 1891 the works was producing
11 different ploughs, and by the end of the century
the range had been extended to 40 models. In all,
over a million horse-drawn ploughs were made.
Fiskars was also a pioneer in occupational health
care. The mill had its own physician as early as 1860.
In 1892, the mill opened a hospital with ten beds on
the eastern shore of Ålsviken bay.
After the death of J.J. Julin in 1853, the works
was managed by a guardianship administration,
the ‘Ironworks Company John von Julin’. Power
gradually became consolidated in the hands of
Emil Lindsay von Julin, however, and the Fiskars
Fiskars machinery workshop´s catalogue from 1860s.
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