Ture Nerman

Ture Nerman (18 May 1886, Norrköping – 7 October 1969) was a Swedish socialist. As a journalist and author, he was a well-known political activist in his time. He also wrote poems and songs.

Nerman was a vegetarian and a strict teetotaler. Alcoholism was a major social problem in Sweden in the early 20th century, and Nerman considered alcohol to be a drug that made the working class passive instead of fighting for better conditions.

Ture Nerman had younger twin brothers, the artist Einar Nerman and the archeologist Birger Nerman.

Background

Nerman grew up in a middle-class family in the working-class, industrial city of Norrköping. His father owned a bookstore in the city and had married an employee who was many years younger: she became the mother of Ture and his two younger brothers. As a boy, Ture Nerman loved reading the books at his fathers store, especially western books about cowboys and Indians.

Nerman graduated from Norrköping gymnasium (secondary school) in 1903 at the age of 17. On his graduation day he took his school bible and tossed it in the Motala ström river. In his autobiography, Nerman describes this as his first revolutionary action. Some years later when he was asked by the Swedish Social Democratic Party's leader Hjalmar Branting what had made him a socialist, Nerman answered that it had been the questioning of religion.