A question of dignity? Intersectional perspectives on the establishment of old people’s homes in Sweden at the turn of the 20th century

Care for older persons is a universal issue, but around 1900, new groups of wage-earners created a need for an age of retirement, forming a new era of institutional care. These old people’s homes were often charitable trusts, which required them to be seen as respectable to attract funding. Residents therefore faced a two-way contract: being offered dignified housing if they met societal standards of worthiness. Through a quali­tative analysis, this article shows how such institutions needed to distin­guish themselves from poorhouses, how their economies could be a mix of private and public funding and how they contributed to disciplining old age. Gothenburg Old People’s Home is used as an illustrative example to show how the image of old people’s homes was negotiated in terms of dignity, intersecting with class, gender and age whilst the upholding of social order-shaped notions of equality.