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Karolina Widerström and Animal Dissection in Swedish Schools 1900–1920. This article examines the attempts to introduce dissections of small animals in Swedish primary schools and secondary girls’ schools during the early twentieth century. It demonstrates that the new teaching methods were a part of a further ambition to transform the pupil’s relationship to nature and how teachers taught the natural sciences. Knowledge of the human body was emphasised and produced in analogy with other species, leaving none of the body’s organs or basic functions outside the curriculum. One of the strongest voices in this process was the Swedish physician Karolina Widerström (1856–1948). Through hers—but also others—engagement in annual training courses in basic dissection techniques for female teachers and the production of wildly distributed illustrated dissection manuals, extensive effort was made to change the pupil’s understanding of nature in general as well as their own bodies including the fundamental principles of human reproduction.

At the 100 years anniversary in 2020 of the Reunion around 650 memorials have been protected. The memorials are to be found all over Denmark, where they constitute the largest group. The time of their erection, the localization, design, inscriptions, pictures and initiators are relatively well known. The article investigates two main questions. Firstly, why have so many memorials for the Reunion been erected – the very first in 1919, by far most in 1920 and the years immediately afterwards and the last one as late as 2010? Has it been an expression of national joy, as it was been claimed the and even later until today, or might there be other explanations? Alternative perspectives are presented, which call into question both the Reunion as a concept and the joy. The memorials are interpreted as an effort to create a community of remembrance. The Reunion was highly disputed and a few of the memorials even express discontent. Thus, the memorials of the Reunion might also be interpreted as expression of a crisis. Secondly, the article looks into the present preservation of what might be called a modern heritage. There is nothing unique in protecting modern remains seen in a global perspective. The memorials had in many cases become “invisible”, e.g. neglected or forgotten. Some had been moved and others had disappeared. The protection was also motivated with reference to their unique Danish character, being evidence of local urge and sense of community. Still, I wonder if also the present, just as the age of the Reunion, is a period of crisis in need of an anniversary and acts of protection to divert attention.Added to the article is an appendix with a catalogue of 642 known memorials of the Reunion 1919–2020 presented by the year of erection and/ or inauguration. And the article is illustrated with five figures showings examples of memorials: The memorial column at Skamlingsbanken built in 1863 and blown up in 1864, not being a memorial of the Reunion, but an example of the harsh treatment of memorials in the borderland between Denmark and Germany (fig. 1); the very first memorial of the Reunion built in Tarm in 1919 (fig. 2); a memorial at the location where the king Christian X started his ride over the old border (fig. 3); a memorial erected in 2020 at the church of Rømø (fig. 4); and finally, the Reunion Tower at Ejer Bavnehøj built in 1924 (fig 5).

Between 1908 and 1940, 431 young girls between 16 and 21 years of age were enrolled at Vejstrup Re-education Home for Girls. Through close readings of individual case records and other archival material from Vejstrup Re-education Home, this PhD thesis explores the ways in which the so-called “particularly difficult young girls” were perceived as problematic and how they were handled from 1908 to 1940. The thesis uncovers how the problematisation and handling of the girls changed as psychiatric knowledge was integrated into the field. The thesis is informed by Michel Foucault’s perspective on power and knowledge as mutually constitutive and on power as a productive force that transforms human beings into (specific kinds of) subjects. Introducing the concept of motherly caring power, the reform practices at Vejstrup Re-Education Home are analysed as a specific type of disciplinary liberal government directed at the individual’s will and emotions. The central technique used to re-educate the young girls was the relationship between the headmistress and each individual girl. The aim of re-education was ultimately to lead the girls to regulate themselves to become ‘good girls' and ultimately to strive for becoming servants and wives.The perception of child welfare was that every child could be re-educated, however 4.2% of the children and youth released from Danish residential care between 1905-1940 and 11.4% of the young girls released from Vejstrup Re-Education Home in the same period were released because they had been deemed incorrigible. The expulsions on the grounds of incorrigibility, led to a new problematisation and category that also comprised a new subject: The Incorrigible. During the 1920s, doctors became increasingly involved in assessing the nature of the girls at Vejstrup Re-Education Home, as well as in evaluating how they should be handled. The analysis shows that diagnoses, particularly the diagnosis psychopathy, grew intertwined with the existing category of incorrigibility. The reformulation of incorrigibility to psychopathy and other diagnoses was relevant, because the diagnoses entailed new ways of handling, as well as the anticipation of additional resources. In the 1920s the headmistress attempted to gain ressources for a closed ward at the institution, but did not succeed. In 1930 the subsequent headmistress initiated lobbying for the establishment of a psychopathic institution for girls in 1930. Though she did not succeed, doctors and politicians supported the idea, and a commission was formed to prepare a proposal for the establishment of a psychopathic institution. The thesis uncovers how the problematisation of so-called incorrigible girls as psychopaths emerged at Vejstrup Re-Education Home. Thus the thesis shows how child psychiatry was shaped and practiced within child welfare before the opening of the first Danish child psychiatric clinic in 1935 and before the 1958 establishment of a pedagogic committee in child welfare, incorporating e.g. professional knowledge from psychiatry and psychology.

The Norden Associations (föreningarna Norden) were established in 1919 with the intention of promoting understanding and cooperation between the Nordic countries. The definition of “Norden” was negotiated from the very beginning, and Icelandic and Finnish associations were not established until the 1920s. Promoting understanding and cooperation was very much considered an educational effort, and Norden was imagined within educational efforts sponsored by the associations. In this regard, the associations had predecessors in the Nordic schoolteacher meetings that dated back to the age of Scandinavism in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Norden Associations created special school boards in the 1920s in order to both promote a more Nordic approach in some subjects—mainly language, geography, and history—and to promote cooperation between the countries, with the youth as the catalyst for a more Nordistic future. This article looks into how the Norden Associations imagined a Nordic school, in which a Nordic sentiment was established, and how this imagination related to the reality of the nationalistic school and to ideas of broader international cooperation, between which the “Nordic idea” has always been sandwiched. The article shows how the methods used effectively hindered the imagination of Norden and the “Nordic idea” beyond the scope of cooperation between nations.