A Matchstick Museum? The World’s Only In Jönköping, Sweden

What is the strangest museum you have visited? Mine has to be the Matchstick Museum in the small city of Jönköping in central Sweden. A museum dedicated to the history of matchsticks. It won’t surprise you to learn it is billed as ‘the only matchstick museum in the world’. Have you heard of any others?

So why does such a unique museum exist in the lakeside city in Smaland? The matchstick industry was huge in Jönköping. Back in 1848 two brothers Johan and Carl Lundström set up the factory and went on to spearhead the safety match, putting Jönköping on the global map. You see, prior to the safety match, matchsticks could be lit against walls and other rough surfaces causing all kinds of hazards and fires.

This and more we learnt at the small museum, located on the site of the first match factory in the city’s old town, the Tändsticksområdet area. Some of the other factory buildings have now been turned into shops and cafes. With little else to see in Jönköping, we took a look inside.

A thin man approaching middle age manned the desk and seemed a little surprised to see us but gladly took 100 SEK (£9) as payment for my husband and I (our daughters went free). He then pondered where we should start.

“I think perhaps you should see the film,” he said, adding, “we have it in English”.

I got the feeling the Matchstick Museum didn’t get many visitors. Indeed, we were the only ones there on a Wednesday afternoon in late August.

I thought my four-year-old daughter would be bored by the 12-minute film but it captivated her. Her overriding memory was of the children whose “teeth fell out and then they died”. The 19th century was big on child labour and the white phosphorus used in the production process caused awful problems, disfigurement and death. I hadn’t realised it would be so graphic but history can be ugly. I explained to her that back then many children her age would have had to go to work rather than school. She seemed a little surprised and a bit sad for the children.

Machines eventually saw families move out of the factories but many continued the work in their houses making match boxes.

The advent of the safety match meant conditions did improve and dangerous white phosphorus was no longer used. In 1853 the factory started producing safety matches instead. It was invented by the chemist Gustav Erik Pasch and improved by Johan Lundström who made it possible to make commercially.

Aspen was now the wood of choice, a bigger match head was installed and a match could only be lit on a strip (made from harmless, red amorphous phosphorous) on the packet, just like it is done today.

After the film we wandered around, checking out some of the machines and other matchstick-related artefacts. Mrs T enjoyed seeing how they worked to create the matchsticks.

We then got to work making our own matchstick boxes with the material provided and some instructions.

Upstairs there were some bizarre and rather scary sculptures on display clearly inspired by the museum and its child labour.

There were also examples of some early match boxes.

But what fascinated Mrs T most was the lithographic press. It was used to print the artwork for the matchstick boxes using the process of lithography which uses stone, oil and water.

There was a video explaining the process which we watched – twice. It was an education for me too, taking me back to my school art classes. If you’re intrigued we have since watched a YouTube video when reflecting on the trip.

We left the small, slightly random museum having stepped back in time and become more knowledgable about an industry I had no clue about previously. It gave us some context to the small city of Jönköping, its once thriving matchstick industry and the invention of the safety match we all know and use today.

As we wandered outside, we came across the railway station. The railways would have transported the matchsticks for distribution throughout the world. Since the decline of the matchstick industry in the 1970s, Jönköping is now home to many companies’ central warehouses such a IKEA and Electrolux.

Situated next to Sweden’s second largest lake, Jönköping is also a rather picturesque spot.

In case you were wondering, the factory was eventually taken over by the Swedish entrepreneur Ivar Krueger. He bought up all the other Swedish match factories to create one company, STAB (Svenska Tändsticksaktiebolaget) in 1917. The Jönköping factory closed in 1970.

Need to know
Jönköping is around 1 hour 30 drive from Gothenburg. Our visit was part of our summer road trip through Sweden from Oslo to Stockholm. We stayed at the excellent Vox hotel. The matchstick museum costs SEK 50 (£4.50) for adults March-September. Admission is free November to October for everyone. Under 19s are free all year around. Visit the website here.

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