The use of domestic manufactured products was encouraged in Sweden during the period
1719–1771, the so-called Age of Utility, or Age of Freedom. Sciences promoting the domestic economy
were also subsidised. Research into the availability and possible use of local lichens for dyeing was one
result of this, seen in the works of Johan Linder, Carolus Linnaeus, Pehr Kalm, Pehr Adrian Gadd and
Sakarias Westbeck. These writers, all with a background broadly in science or agriculture and economics,
travelled through Sweden and abroad investigating the properties and potential use of lichens as sources
of dye.