The thesis considers three women conferences arranged by the National Council of Women of Sweden (NCWS) in Stockholm at the turn of the 20th century. NCWS was a branch of the International Council of Women and at its height it was an umbrella-organisation for about forty Swedish women organisations. The focus is on the role of the conferences as arenas for women who wanted to prove their ability and competence in society. The content, the form and the function of the conferences are analysed.

The question whether the conferences arranged by the NCWS reflected the ideas, dilemmas and strategies of the bourgeois women’s movement is addressed. A larger historical development is illuminated – the formation of the bourgeois women movements for the public sphere in the process of modernity. The thesis explores different theories and shows how the concepts of class, gender, public sphere, modernity and trans-nationalism were dealt with at the conferences.

The women conferences have been treated as manifestations; as a quintessence of the ideas and ambitions of the movement. The thesis asserts that the ideology of the movements was formulated and expressed not only in spoken words, but also in festivities, symbols and sisterhood. The class identity was manifested in the form of which the conferences were conducted. On the one hand, the conference women showed loyalty to the conservative society and the rigid class position. On the other hand, the conference initiators wanted to improve women’s opportunities of becoming citizens and to move the boarders between the public and the private. Ideologies such as Internationalism and Scandinavism became important in creating a collective identity.