”We had two preachers on the 17th of October”. Diary writing and religious life in Kågeträsk in the 1890s.
The article is based on a diary written by two sisters in a Swedish agricultural environment during the late 1800s – in the village Kågeträsk in the county of Västerbotten (1891–1901). The main focus of the article is the religious context of the diary. The importance of the church and the revival moments as literacy sponsors is discussed. The diary also reveals details of the religious life in the village, where several preachers came to give sermons and to distribute religious texts. The article concludes that both the church and the revival movements acted as significant literacy sponsors by providing printed religious texts, so that the two sisters had access to both literacy and the Swedish written language. Access to printed media was crucial for the diary writers’ ability to maintain and develop reading literacy, but also important for developing skills in Swedish writing.