Red round 1/3

Here's a picture of early industrial espionage in Sweden. Recently, I learned that Jonas Alströmer, games primarily for making potatoes popular in our country, smuggled three machines for knitting socks from Holland. He then replicated the machines and started up a business (not very lucrative, it seems, but these were early days of the textile industry, which would boom and bloom a little later on). (Why the colorful machine I do not know, must be a later enhancement.)

Apropos of potatoes, they really did a lot for raising Sweden out of our miserable poverty. Not only does it thrive way up north, where people had a tough time growing cereals -- but the big breakthrough came via the realization that potatoes make great brännvin. Instead of distilling liquor from the scanty cereal crops, potatoes could be used for that. Yay. In 1748, countess Eva Ekeblad earned a place in the Royal Academy of Science for her discovery. That says something.

#industrial_espionage #jonas_alströmer #textilmuseet_borås #borås #closeup #detail #trio #triptych #sweden #pixelfedsweden