Swedish ethnology has its roots in descriptions of popular culture from the 16th century and the centuries to come. In the 19th century the interest for Swedish popular culture was deepened under the influence from romantic and nationalist tides. This interest started with oral traditions, later came an interest for material culture. Ethnology was organized as a university discipline in the beginning of the 20th century, mostly as a consequence of the rapidly growing museum collections around folk culture at that time. These collections were the focus of the Swedish ethnology up to the 1960s. Then a transformation of Swedish ethnology started, where historical studies had to make room for more present day studies and theories from sociology and social anthropology became rather dominant.