arried women in the status of minors was removed. Furthermore, women were then eligible for different occupations, particularly the common school teacher. However, by mid-century, Norway was still far from a "democracy". Voting was limited to officials, property owners, leaseholders, and burghers of incorporated towns. There was some dissatisfaction with this backwardness.
Still Norway remained a conservative society. Life in Norway (especially economic life) was "dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government." There was no strong bourgeosie class in Norway to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control of the economy. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was largely unaffected by revolts that year. Most revolts broke themselves on the granite conservativism of the Norwegian society. Indeed, the Thrane movement was the only "revolt" that broke out in Norway in 1848.
Marcus Thrane was a Utopian socialist. He made his appeal to the labouring classes urging a change of social structure "from below upwards." In 1848, he organized a labour society in Drammen. In just a few months this society had a membership of 500 and the society was publishing its own newspaper. Within two years 300 societies had been organized all over Norway with a total membership of 20,000 persons. The membership was drawn from the lower classes of both the town and country. For the first time these two groups felt they had common cause with each other. In the end, the revolt was easily crushed, Thrane was captured and sentenced to three years in jail for crimes against the safety of the state. Upon his release from jail, after serving his sentence, Marcus Thrane migrated to the United States of America.
In 1898, all men were granted universal suffrage, followed by all women in 1913.
Independence
Christian Michelsen, a shipping magnate
