Hanna Hammarström

Who was Hanna Hammarström?

Hanna Hammarström, was a Swedish inventor and industrialist. She was the first person in Sweden to produce telephone wires commercially. She manufactured the wires for the first Swedish telephone network. She also exported wire to Finland.

Hanna Hammarström was the daughter of the cotton and silk merchant Per Hammarström and Christina Holmberg. Her father wished for all his children to learn a profession, so she learned to manufacture various forms of ornaments. Though telephone wires were invented before her, the way to make them was not known in Sweden, so the Swedish telephone network depended on foreign manufacturers. Hammarström managed to develop telephone wires by herself with the knowledge she learned by making ornaments out of metal strings. She started her own factory, and in 1883 took over the task of providing telephone wires to the Swedish telephone company. She had a monopoly on the production through the 1880s and 1890s. In her factory in Stockholm, she employed only women, whom she educated herself. In 1886, she was awarded first prize for her invention at a machinery exhibition in Stockholm. She manufactured wires for several telephone factories.