On our last day in Jönköping, before we were to catch our trains again in the afternoon; we took the kids to the swimming hall and left them there while Pia and I went back into the city to go visit the Matchstick Museum.
This museum is located in the area of town where the large match factory once stood, and the production of the first matches began in the middle of the 1800s. Yes, safety matches is indeed a Swedish invention, and Sweden is still the world's largest match producer.
In the museum they show the production processes of the time, all the way back from where the matches were completely handcrafted to when machines gradually replaced the human manual work. The factory here in Jönköping was in use until 1970.
The museum also talked about the, sometimes rather horrid, work situation of the employees.
On the second floor, a huge collection of different matchboxes in different shapes, sizes and from different countries was displayed.
Sure, this museum is indeed rather random, but it is small and quick to visit. I certainly became more knowledgeable about this industry about which I didn't know much previously. I found it very interesting as the safety match is a product we all know and use today all over the world.
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