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In the Swedish religious and political tradition, the connection between Lutheranism and Swedish national identity stayed relevant long after the disappearance of religion as an all-encompassing norm in daily life. The current chapter investigates the role of anti-Catholic ideas for the formation of norms regarding the relation between religion and critical debate in the public sphere in Sweden in the period 1850-1870. Increased religious freedom awakened fears that the Catholic Church would start a propaganda invasion. In debates in the Swedish Parliament, a number of ideas regarding the habits of the Catholic Church in making proselytes, were contrasted to how the Lutheran state church should behave in order to attract followers. In Sweden there were few Catholics, and the negative images were part of a shared European legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the impact of the electric telegraph on news reporting in peripheral areas in the mid- to late-19th century, with a particular focus on the Swedish provincial newspapers "Öresunds-Posten" from Helsingborg, Sweden, and "Norrbottens-Posten" from Piteå, Sweden. According to the author, telegraph technology introduced new ideas about these towns' temporal and physical relationship to the rest of the world. It is suggested that a new spatiotemporal awareness combined with the relative expense of telegraph technology reinforced rather than bridged distances in time and space. Other topics include telegraph personnel, the exchange of European political news, and transportation technology.