Gateways and shipping during the early modern times - The Gothenburg example 1720-1804

• In the 2010 Journal of Transport Geography Notteboom presented how the structure of Europe's container ports has been during 1985-2005. An economic historian who has studied trade during the early modern times immediately recognises the overview. There are striking resemblances between the gateways and multi-gateways port regions that Notteboom works with and with trade during the early modern times. The trade routes and transport systems built up during the age of sail ships have, in large part, the same importance today. This clearly shows that research in early modern trade and shipping has an important role to play when it comes to understanding modern infrastructure. In our paper, we will work with the shipping and trade through the gateway city of Gothenburg during chosen years between 1720 and 1804. The city's location between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea places it in the middle of one of the central regions in the world's economic development during the first period of globalisation. It was in this region that the superpowers of the time got much of the raw materials they needed. To try to understand the shape of shipping and trade in this region is therefore vital to understanding global developments. The source material is made up by custom records from Gothenburg harbour. These will be used to track ship movements to and from Gothenburg to determine the city's place in a larger system of gateways, primarily when it comes to the textiles and coal groups of goods, as well as products related to the substantial herring fishing industry. The theoretical starting point for the study is the extensive structure of theories that have been developed around gateways. Different opportunities to use the custom records in an analysis of shipping structure will be discussed. Which part of the information in the source material is suitable to use (goods, skipper, destinations)? How can one, in the best possible way, make the results comparable to other studies? This is a few of the questions that will be discussed in our methods section. The main point of this paper will be the analysis of the gateway system as seen from the Gothenburg horizon.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

gateway

shiping

Gothenburg

urban history

trade

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vet (ämneskategori)

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