Summary:

Juha Sahi, A Baltic Sea Merchant Shipping Network: A case study on shipmaster Fredrik Henriksson Anttoora’s trade and freightage network from Finland to Stockholm in the late 19th to early 20th century

This article offers a case study on the structure and evolution of a trade and freightage network between Finland and Sweden that was established by the shipmaster, Fredrik Henriksson Anttoora (1841–1923), in Ahlainen Parish in Western Finland. Shipmaster Anttoora owned a fleet of sailing ships that carried firewood from the coast of Satakunta Province (Finland) to markets in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. This study reveals that after acquiring his first known ship in the previous decade, Anttoora established an active and incremental network for his firewood trade no later than the 1890s. Anttoora’s firewood trade and shipping operations to Stockholm expanded, as his direct connections with wholesalers and major clients in the target market became sturdier. The empirical findings of this case study sustain the hypothesis that the closer connections a shipping business has with major clients, the faster will be the frequency of shipping and the bigger the volume of exports to a target market.

Shipmaster Anttoora’s successful expansion of export activities made him a noteworthy businessman in his field. His business was significant. For example, during the 1897 sailing season the two ships owned by Anttoora transported five percent of the total imported firewood to Sweden that year. Although, this percentage is more a directional than an absolute number (because of statistical imperfections then), his success nevertheless attests to the historical claim that shipmaster Anttoora was one of the most prominent foreign firewood traders in Stockholm at the turn of the 19th century.