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:
“The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows for the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We
all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we
are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in
others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we
grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins
the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a
charm to any character, and so our struggle with them
dies away.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Why hast thou nothing in thy face?
Thou idol of the human race,
Thou tyrant of the human heart,
The flower of lovely youth that art;”
—Robert Bridges (1844–1930)