The way to industrialisation: A Finnish town history

Abstract

Abstract Scientific research on urban history in Finland dates from the end of the 19th century. The pioneer was Professor Carl von Bonsdorff, whose study of 17th century Turku (Åbo) is still a standard work in this field.1 At the beginning of this century Professor Väinö Voionmaa added to the literature on the old pre-industrial towns his investigation of the rapid growth of Tampere (Tammerfors).2 This city, ‘Finland's Manchester’, is a young industrial town; in order to survey its development before the beginning of the 20th century Voionmaa had to take a new quantitative approach. Since then Finnish research on urban history has grown to an extent that is quite out of proportion with the fact that urbanisation here is a late phenomenon. Historical studies now exist of practically every town, generally written by historians with professional training. In Finland historians have perhaps devoted themselves to a greater extent than elsewhere to research in local and thus also town history. The most ambitious attempt to produce a comprehensive history of a town from its foundation to the present is the history of Helsinki on which about ten historians are collaborating, six volumes of which have so far been published.3