In 1974, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and the Stockholm City Archives (for the City of Stockholm) joined forces to save corporate artefacts in Stockholm from being destroyed. The public and private sectors joined forces in order to both preserve and present Swedish business history.
Initially, Stockholms Företagsminnen (Stockholm Business Memories, in loose translation) only managed materials from companies that no longer existed, such as Bolinders Mechanical Workshop, Gumaelius advertising agency, or Finnboda shipyard. The archival material was stored in the City Archives while the Chamber of Commerce was responsible for administration – and the organization itself was very small.
1979 was a turning point. The City of Stockholm then increased support for Stockholms Företagsminnen. The association hired its first archive manager, Inger Ljunggren, and in the fall moved into its own premises and took over the materials there.
In the following years, the market for archival management services for companies grew. Stockholms Företagsminnen saw an opportunity to offer commercial archival services themselves – and to get still active, "living" companies interested in depositing their historical materials for a fee. The commercial operation could then generate a financial surplus to support the more non-profit side of the operation. Therefore, in 1988 the association founded a subsidiary, Stockholms Företagsarkiv, which sold commercial archival services.
Stockholms Företagsarkiv first grew rapidly – but in 1990 it ran into financial problems. The economy turned downward, municipalities cut their grants, and competition in the archival market intensified.
The major blow for Stockholms Företagsarkiv AB came in 1996. The company then had 98 employees, about 90 of whom were wage subsidy employees – whose wages were funded by public funds. The government drastically reduced public support for wage subsidy employees at that time. The company became insolvent, almost all employees were laid off – and on April 10, 1997, the company went bankrupt.
But the non-profit association Stockholms Företagsminnen, which owned the company, remained. Once the acute problems were solved, the association was able to slowly start expanding again. In 1999, it also moved to completely new premises on Grindstuvägen in Bromma, where the operation is still housed.
The historical archival material grew as more companies "outsourced" their historical archives to Stockholms Företagsminnen. More services and activities were developed around the historical material, so that it could be of greater use to the companies, their employees, researchers, students, and the general public. This generated revenue – allowing more staff to be hired. No more wage subsidy positions.
As the operation grew again, it became wiser to place the commercial business in a wholly owned limited company. At the same time, the name Stockholms Företagsminnen increasingly became a limitation. Many of the companies whose historical archives were now managed had operations nationwide, often worldwide.
Therefore, in 2006 Stockholms Företagsminnen changed its name to Centrum för Näringslivshistoria, the Centre for Business History in Stockholm. A new association was formed under the old name Stockholms Företagsminnen, which took over the task from the City of Stockholm to manage the original ownerless archives.
Since then, the Centre for Business History has continued to grow, both in its original archival management activities and with new supplementary services, not least editorial offerings relating to the companies' own use of history. It has become a leader in the concept of history marketing. The current activity is described here.
