Jacob Letterstedt, born Lallerstedt, is best known in Sweden for his charitable foundation Letterstedtska Foreningen, which funds Nordic cultural projects. Born at the end of the eighteenth century, he left Sweden at the age of 23, escaping debts and failing business ventures. He went to London, changed his name, and joined the first group of settlers the British government sent to the Cape Province in southern Africa. Through his marriage to a widow of Boer descent who owned a large estate, he became established as a landowner and important merchant, but also as a slave owner. Exploiting his workforce and business contacts, his fortune grew as he sold flour to passing ships and the increasing population in Cape Town, as well as exporting beer to Europe. He entered the local political arena upon obtaining British citizenship, but his Swedish background also proved valuable as he was appointed Swedish (later Swedish-Norwegian) consul. Through this position, he could spread information about the conditions in the Cape Province and promote Swedish trade with South Africa and beyond. In addition to mercantile endeavors, his wealth grew both from compensation for his slaves after the abolition of slavery and from the work of "free" laborers of "many nationalities" in the fields or in his mills and breweries. In a global transnational perspective, Jacob Letterstedt was an active participant in British imperialism. He acted to take advantage of this for his own business, but also for national interests. As Swedish or SwedishNorwegian consul, he paved the way for many Swedish industrial capitalists, ship-owners and in some sense also workers to profit from British imperialism in South Africa. Through his donations to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and to the part of his fortune that would become Letterstedtska Foreningen, based on the work of slaves and "free" laborers, he also contributed to Nordic culture and research. Now we know the origins of the money.

This article is a case study of the political economy of the Western Cape Winelands c.1900. The analysis covers three intertwined processes that were crucial for the advance of a capitalist mode of production: the making of capital, the making of a commodity market, and the making of a labouring class. The making of capital was achieved after the mid-1800s. However, even at the end of the century, the market for Cape wines and the making of a labouring class remained obstacles to the advance of capitalism. Some wealthy farm owners, though, were about to overcome these obstacles. A small group of them were of old Afrikaner origin, while others, mostly investor capitalists of British origin, were quite successful in establishing a capitalist mode of production on their wine farms. In particular, drawing on a vast array of primary sources, we discuss the many labour recruitment programmes that were organized as private and state initiatives.

By World War I, the Northwestern Knitting Company was the largest workplace for gainfully employed women in Minnesota and the largest garment factory in the United States. Lars Olsson investigates the interplay of class, gender, marital status, ethnicity, and race in the labor relations at the factory, illuminating the lives of the women who worked there. Representing thirty nationalities, particularly Scandinavian, the women worked long hours for low pay in roles that were strictly divided along ethnic and gendered lines, while the company directors and stockholders made enormous profits off of their labor. Management developed paternal strategies to bind the workers to the company and preempt unionization, including bonus programs, minstrel shows, and a pioneering industrial welfare program. With the US entry into the war, the company was contracted to produce underwear for soldiers, and management expanded the metaphor of "the Munsingwear Family" to construct not just company loyalty, but national loyalty. This book sheds new light on women's labor in WWI and the lives of textile workers in the United States.