Object of the month: Christmas carols

Christmas carols

The booklets were used at Jansnes, founded as the Talvik tuberculosis hospital in 1923 by the Norwegian Women's Public Health Association. Jansnes was burned down during World War II and rebuilt after the war as a nursing home. From 1970 it was run as a psychiatric nursing home, and from 2001 Jansnes was part of the District Psychiatric Centre for Vest-Finnmark. When Jansnes closed in 2015 the booklets were donated to the museum along with many other objects.

Advertising booklets with Christmas carols were popular with many companies. Three of the booklets came from Sverre W. Monsen, producers of workwear in Bergen since 1868. The heart-shaped booklets are of local origin, namely the shop Gunnar Berg in Talvik, Alta. These booklets are dated with the business’ anniversary in 1966. The shop, then known as Brødrene Berg, started 60 years earlier, when brothers Ludvig Halvdan Berg and Hjalmar Alfred Berg received a permit to open a general store on the 10th of November 1906.

We join the holiday greeting on the booklets: Merry Christmas!

Written by Lena Karlstrøm, curator