Drawing on a study of historical national accounts and statistics, this article shows that a growing supply of mass-consumption textiles and clothing in Sweden during industrialization did not fully meet increasing demand. As a result, high demand for second-hand items remained even at the turn of the twentieth century. Records from a local auction house from 1830 to 1900 show that, even in the 1880s, more affluent urban consumers were still active on the second-hand market. Thereafter, they turned to the market for new goods, while potential demand from labourers and servants continued to be provided for by the second-hand market. Mechanization meant that more items entered this market. It changed the range and quality of objects available, consequently affecting the attractiveness of second-hand textiles and clothing. After the 1870s, falling and converging prices can be discerned, while more durable fabrics largely retained their value. We conclude that the consumer revolution (in a broader sense) had by this stage gained a foothold among ordinary Swedish urban households. The auction trade was part of a democratization of consumption. The general lesson is that understanding mass consumption requires research not only into second-hand consumption, but also into different regional settings.

In less than 15 years, child baptism has gone from being a mainstream tradition to a minority practice. This decline is a result of both high unaffiliation, especially with the Church of Sweden, and a more diversified religious society due to migration. Using microdata from parents of children born in 2005 and 2015, we were able to discern that differences in the practice of child baptism in the Church of Sweden are positively associated with the parents' relation to the church, residence in rural areas, and income. Our LPM analysis shows that the probability of a child being baptized are mainly determined by the parents' relation to the church when controlling for all the other variables. The most influential factors are the mother's affiliation and an urban lifestyle. Parents' marital status and socioeconomic circumstances have a strong effect on the decision to baptize a child, therefore affecting who becomes a future member of the church.