In research on the development of a nineteenth-century "science for the people", initiatives by scientists or people well-trained in science has been emphasised, while the writings, roles and initiatives of elementary teachers are normally just mentioned in passing. In this study the development of nineteenth-century elementary science textbooks is analysed. While practitioners and popularisers of science established the genre as such, writing the first textbooks on elementary science and arguing for its place in elementary education, elementary teachers were prime movers in developing the genre both pedagogically and scientifically. In doing this they not only contributed to further strengthening the cultural status of science in late nineteenth-century Sweden but most probably strengthened the elementary teaching profession as a whole, formulating the expertise of the teacher in relation to elementary science.