Boktryckarna i Åbo 1750-1828. En bokhistorisk studie genom ett yrke

When the immigrant printer from Germany, Johan Christopher Frenckell (1719-1779), became co-owner and principal of the academic printing house in Åbo in 1765, the old competition with the Royal Finnish Printing Office in Stockholm became obvious. The privileges to print catechisms and hymnbooks in Finnish now belonged again to the university of Åbo, but the Carlbohms continued to print these best-selling articles in Stockholm. According to my thesis the name of the printer is symbolic capital, which by means of symbolic and material investments, social networks and habitus(Bourdieu)by time converts the printer's name to a trade mark symbolizing the printing enterprise both materially and culturally. Frenckell's victory in the battle was twofold: he obtained both the privilege to print these profitable books and was authorized to use his own name on the title-page of the academic works from the academic printing house. Frenckell's name was occuring on title-pages of academic prints as well of texts of more popular character, and was thus contributing to the efforts for the best interests of the Enlightenment. This epoch of the Finnish Age of Enlightenment, at the same time the epoch the two first university printers Frenckell in Åbo, Johan Christopher Frenckell I,(1719-1779),and Johan Christofer Frenckell II (1757-1818),forms the background of the decades during which the name of Frenckell is making a symbolic transfer to cultural capital. The social status of the printers was rising, and they would gain, with time, cultural as well as economic capital.