Beginnings and Early Intellectual Influences

Gunnar Myrdal was born in 1898 in the Swedish province of Dalarna. His origins were humble: he could trace three centuries of peasant stock in his ancestry. His father, however, departed from that occupational pattern. Though equipped with little formal education, he succeeded as a largely self-taught member of the building trade, specializing in the construction of railway stations. His mother, who also had slight exposure to formal education, was a conscientious Lutheran. The young Myrdal and his three younger siblings were instructed in the teachings of that tradition — as were their contemporaries who participated in the ‘Kristendom’ (Christianity) program then obligatory in Swedish schools. As an adult, Myrdal lapsed from churchgoing. Even so, Biblical overtones lived on in his intellectual style.