Nick Ford
Lund University

On 5 November 1829, two new educational institutes opened in Scandinavia. In Sweden, a craft school directed at the poor youth of Gothenburg; in Denmark the Polytechnic Institute, which was attached to the University of Copenhagen. Today, those two institutes are respectively Chalmers University of Technology and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Both Chalmers and DTU came to resemble each other over the course of their first century: two scientifically grounded institutes that would train thousands of scientists, technicians and engineers between them. But whereas Chalmers was seemingly well-regarded for the quality of its educational offering, DTU was the subject of significant debate throughout the nineteenth century. A key theme of the criticism was the lack of industry relevance to the skills its students acquired.

The graduates of Chalmers and DTU, 1829–1929

Using biographical data, I examine the employment patterns of the over 7000 graduates of Chalmers and DTU between 1829 and 1929. In the first instance, I test whether the graduates of Chalmers were more likely to work in private enterprise than the graduates of DTU. Thereafter, given the different possible applications of engineering skills in the public sector, I explore graduate employment related to a transformative public works programme in the nineteenth century: the development and operation of railways.

Despite differences in the structure and organisation of Chalmers and DTU, my results show that a similar share of their graduates recorded at least one private sector job. However, a larger share of DTU graduates recorded at least one public sector job. These results are robust to controls for differences in household backgrounds and locations. Consistent with this, I find the graduates of DTU were more likely to record employment at the national railways in Denmark and Sweden.