Andrea Eneroth was a pedagogical pioneer of women’s handicrafts and founded a handicraft-training programme in Stockholm.
Andrea Eneroth was born in Gothenburg in 1873. Her parents were the wholesale merchant Anders Otto Eneroth and Lisette Charlotte Trahn. Andrea Eneroth’s elder sister Carola Eneroth was one of the founders of Etisk-pedagogiska institutet (the institute of ethical pedagogy) at Upsala Enskilda skola.
Andrea Eneroth attended B.C. Rohde’s primary- and elementary-school in Gothenburg and the Åhlinska school in Stockholm. When she was 17 years old she graduated from Praktiska arbetsskolan (the practical work school) for children and young people, later known as the Palmgren co-educational school, and at the age of 18 she graduated from Hulda Lundin’s handicrafts teacher-training programme. Further to this, she also attended short courses by various private handicrafts training programmes, at the Tekniska school, and at the academic handicrafts workshop in Uppsala.
Andrea Eneroth began her career as a teacher of women’s handicrafts at Uppsala högre elementarläroverk (advanced elementary school) for girls and its training-programme from 1891-1901, and Upsala Enskilda Läroverk from 1901-1907. She also taught on the course called “metodiken för kvinnliga handarbeten” (methodology for women’s handicrafts) from 1900–1907 at Fackskolan för huslig ekonomi (the trade school for home economics) in Uppsala, and at the Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundet (association) rural home economics school in Rimforsa in 1908. The teacher Hedvig von Bahr had set up these courses as voluntary classes for future school-cookery teachers for the spring term of 1898. The one-term course initially ran four hours a week and included classes in knitting, sewing, darning, mending, and tagging. The course was adapted for public school and used the so-called Lundin method of teaching women’s handicrafts, developed by Hulda Lundin.
Andrea Eneroth published Handledning vid undervisning i handarbete i högre flickskolor, at the Uppsala Fackskola in 1904. This was a teacher’s manual for use at girls’ schools and comprises both descriptions of what was deemed to be suitable items for students to make and plans for structuring teaching according to different school systems. The suggested items differ from those which appear in Hulda Lundin’s manual. Andrea Eneroth’s manual contains peignoirs and knickers embellished with lace and ruffles. The students of the girls’ school who were to make them clearly belonged to a social class which could afford such materials.
In the summer of 1904 Andrea Eneroth travelled to France and Germany in order to study those countries’ different approaches to teaching women’s handicrafts. She also undertook study visits to Denmark and Norway. Further, she served as an expert on the 1915 Folkundervisningkommitté (people’s education committee) and on the 1921 skolkommission (schools commission).
Andrea Eneroth’s handicrafts school and training programme was founded in Stockholm in 1907. Initially the teaching occurred in apartments on Kammakeregatan 39. Students could choose between attending two, three, or four terms and to specialise in sewing clothes, sewing linens, artistic sewing, or learning to weave. This freedom of choice remained in place until 1930 at which point the authorities decided that the programme should be of two years’ duration and include practical as well as theoretical subjects. When these changes were introduced the classes moved to Handarbetets Vänner (friends of handicrafts association), when the Förening Handarbetets Vänner and Andrea Eneroth’s advanced handicrafts programme was established. In 1950 Handarbetets Vänner re-organised the enterprise and Andrea Eneroth’s handicrafts programme once again became independent. All private teaching programmes became state-run programmes in 1961 and the last handicrafts teachers graduated from Andrea Eneroth’s advanced handicrafts programme on 13 June 1961.
Andrea Eneroth died in Stockholm in 1935. She is buried in the family grave at Uppsala old cemetery.
