SCA’s archive of almost 6,000 shelf metres, which until now has been housed in Villa Merlo in Timrå, will now be moved to us at the Centre for Business History in Stockholm. It secures the material’s future life in professional archive premises, while at the same time making it accessible to even more researchers from all over the country. The migration also opens up for collaborations with local archival actors such as Näringslivsarkiv in Norrland.

Forest magnate Fredrik Bünsow built Villa Merlo in 1885 as his summer residence. The residence eventually passed into SCA’s ownership and for the past 70 years has primarily functioned as the forest group’s central archive. Almost 6,000 shelf meters of material have been collected here.

“It is a large and unique documentation of Norrland’s industrial history, from the ironworks movement at the end of the 17th century to today. But the house started to get full, and above all it was not a suitable archive environment in terms of humidity, fire protection and other archive aspects,” says Anders Edholm, communications director at SCA.

SCA therefore started looking at a new solution for the archive in early 2022, with a hope to move the archive already during the year. Among possible alternatives, the Centre for Business History was chosen, with our archive depots in Bromma and Uppsala, and almost 50 years of experience in taking care of large company archives. The scope of the archive, the research service that the Centre for Business History offers and the nature of the archive premises were factors that guided the choice.

“It is a great and fine responsibility that SCA now gives us when they choose to deposit the archive with us. During the autumn, the material will be moved to our archive premises, where it will then be available to researchers and other interested parties. In addition, we look forward to continued cooperation with SCA and business organizations in Sundsvall and the surrounding area,” says Alexander Husebye, CEO of the Center for Business History.

Among such business organizations is Näringslivsarkiv i Norrland (NIN), which participated in the talks with SCA and the Center for Business History regarding the archive’s future.

“We receive and preserve Norrland’s business history and Norrland’s business archives. When it became clear to us that SCA wanted to move its entire archive, and also already in 2022, we reviewed our possibilities to cope with it. We had the ambition and desire to receive the archive, but SCA chose a different solution. When it was clear to us, it was obvious to collaborate with the Centre for Business History. We look forward to continuing the good cooperation with them as well as with SCA, who have been members of NIN for a long time and deposit archives with us, such as the important archives after Graningeverken and its predecessors,” says Daniel Nordin, director at Näringslivsarkiv in Norrland.