Tidevarvet (The Era), 1923–1936

Tidevarvet (The Era) was a politically independent periodical that appeared from 1923 until 1936. The aim of periodical was stated as being "to be a meeting-place, an arena, where men and women may strive together to promote a liberal outlook and to seek to apply it in society and its legislation." The programme statement in the first issue in 1923 emphasises that "Tidevarvet considers that everything is women’s business and that what they think is the business of everyone else, as will be proved since they have now achieved their civic rights." The background was that women hade attained the right to vote, which marked a new era. The periodical was started and edited by women, most of the contributors were women and many articles dealt specifically with women’s activities and enterprises, historically and in the present.

Behind Tidevarvet stood the same group of socially engaged women who had created the Women´s College for Civic Training at Fogelstad as well as Andrea Andreen and Eva Andén who were part of the enterprise from the beginning to the end. Their roots were in the liberala samlingspartiet (Liberal Coalition Party) but in 1914 they had founded an independent women’s association, Frisinnade Kvinnor, (Liberal Women) outside the party, and they felt a strong need of a mouthpiece for the liberal-radical women’s opinion. These women were convinced that women’s suffrage marked the transition to something completely new, a new era, in which women’s influence, channelled and focused in women’s new civic status, would in the long run change the world.

A great number of well-known writers and authors contributed to Tidevarvet like Klara Johanson, Mia Leche-Löfgren, Frida Stéenhoff, Alexandra Kollontay, Moa Martinson, Hagar Olsson and Alva Myrdal.
Ada Nilsson was the publisher and the first editor of Tidevarvet was Ellen Hagen. She was succeeded by Elin Wägner in 1924. Carin Hermelin became the last editor.