Ellen Key present and future
How has Ellen Key been interpreted in contemporary time, and which significance will she have in the future? In December 2023, the Swedish Government decided to appoint a committee with the task of developing a Swedish cultural canon, a guide to the country’s common cultural heritage which includes 109 ”windows” to cultural phenomena, with the purpose to be a “living and useful tool for education, community and inclusion”. The results were presented by professor Lars Trädgårdh the 2nd of September 2025 at Uppsala University. One of the chosen literary titles for the canon was Ellen Key’s book The Century of the Child (Barnets århundrade). The motivation read as follows: “[Ellen Key] Our most famous female intellectual, who angered her contemporaries and posterities, but who also was active at the turn of the century which discovered children […]. For the Swedish 1890s, of which Ellen Key was a representative, beauty and imagination were central themes. She preached a gospel of art. For her, love was more important than marriage, children more important than books. The prophetess built a monument over herself through her Strand […]. Ellen Key was translated primarily into German and she became a European celebrity.” (SOU 2025:92, my transl.)
In another attempt to seek an answer to the question above we asked the AItool at GOOGLE to reflect on the word combination “Ellen+Key+future+vision”. Within ten seconds it delivered this short answer:
”Ellen Key's future vision centered on the transformative power of beauty in everyday life, focusing on creating beautiful and comfortable homes to foster individual and societal progress, particularly for women and children. Her influential work "The Century of the Child" emphasized the crucial importance of childhood, advocating for reforms in education and family life to nurture children as the foundation for a better future society. Key's vision combined progressive ideals with a belief in the inherent worth of femininity, advocating for a more humane and evolved future shaped by the positive influence of well-cared-for children and aesthetically enriching environments.”
The work of Ellen Key, her future vision and her importance for society is thus summarized and explained. But the questions remain: Are these summaries reliable answers? Are perhaps important perspectives omitted? Is it possible to trace a bias? In this thematic path a few of these contemporary interpretations of Key’s ideas will be presented, as well as a reflection on the possible value of them in the future.