Youth
As the son of a blacksmith, Karl Kilbom grew up in a working-class family of Walloon origin in the small town of Österby outside Uppsala, where he started working in the steel mills at an early age.
In the year 1900, a socialist agitator visited Österby to talk to the workers of the mills. Karl Kilbom, only 15 years old, was one of the 7 people who stayed after the meeting to participate in the formation of a socialist club in Österby with the goal to establish a union. However, company spies had been present at the meeting and soon Kilbom was told he would not only lose his job, but also that his family, who lived in a house owned by the company, would be evicted, if he didn’t quit political activism. This time, Kilbom gave in to the threats.
Read more about this topic: Karl Kilbom
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Oh high is the price of parenthood,
And daughters may cost you double.
You dare not forget, as you thought you could,
That youth is a plague and a trouble.”
—Phyllis McGinley (20th century)
“I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.”
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)