Twentieth-century Finland Research Articles

Hilja Pärssinen and the religious grounds for socialist welfare in early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT The schoolteacher and poet Hilja Pärssinen (1876–1935) was the most influential and internationally best-known female socialist in Finland before the Finnish Civil War (1918). She was a member of the Finnish Parliament, the leader of the Finnish Social Democratic Women’s Movement, and the most prominent ideologue of the Finnish Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) welfare programme. For instance, Pärssinen promoted paid maternity leave, public daycare, legalised abortion, and compulsory education with free meals and school supplies. Historians have acknowledged Pärssinen’s leading role as the architect of Finnish socialist welfare, but also pointed out that she was an aggressive opponent of the Evangelical Lutheran church. However, the studies have mainly failed to note that instead of rejecting religion itself, Pärssinen claimed all the reforms demanded by socialists were based on Christianity. Finnish scholars have argued—mainly based on writings by the party male elite—that the SDP rejected religion and adopted secular/antireligious ideology at the beginning of the twentieth century. I argue that this paradigm is based on an oversimplified and gendered interpretation. This paper will show that shifting the perspective from male socialist leaders to female ideologues can change and widen the comprehension of the history of socialism drastically.

Creating an entrepreneurs’ movement: SME associations as political actors in late twentieth-century Finland

When scholars study business power, they usually focus on big business. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which comprise the vast majority of companies, are therefore excluded. The article looks at how Finnish SMEs have defended their interests in an increasingly corporatist country. It focuses especially on how they have managed to resolve the collective action problem, which prior theoretical studies have identified as a major issue in the heterogonous SME sector. We find that one association managed to build ‘a movement’ by underlining common threats to SMEs. We also assess the steps taken by other, smaller and less populist SME associations, arguing that that such diversity has brought some benefits, as competing associations have employed different tactics and been active in separate arenas. This article is based on the archives of SME associations and other business associations as well as earlier research, memoirs, other published works and newspaper articles.

Bird feeding devices exclude unwelcome visitors. More-than-humans shaping the architecture and technology of birdfeeders in twentieth-century Finland

In this article, we investigate the evolution of the birdfeeder and analyze it as a multispecies technology, a technological artefact that has co-evolved between multispecies interactions of humans, the target species of the feeding, and unwanted visitors. We use close reading as a method to examine pictures, design descriptions, photos and text sources published in Finnish magazines and newspapers from the late nineteenth century, when birdfeeders were first discussed, until the late twentieth century, with the aim of analyzing how birdfeeder designs and models have changed in relation to various (and especially unwanted) visitor species. Birdfeeders are visited not only by species that humans want to feed but also by several unwanted visitors, such as birds, mammals, bacteria and the weather. Being inspired by posthumanism and Science and Technology Studies (STS), we ask what the role of unwanted visitors has been as co-designers of technological artefacts, here the birdfeeder. Our article discusses the broader subject of how people welcome or exclude other beings from shared environments. We argue that it is vital for environmental humanities scholars to study artefacts and technology and vice versa, for design studies and STS scholars to examine non-humans. We hope to encourage other researchers to ponder how animals, and unwanted users in general, participate in designing technology and artefacts.

Contemporary archaeological perspectives on intersectional inequality in a welfare state in twentieth-century Finland

AbstractSocial inequalities and marginality often go unrecognised in the Nordic welfare states. This project examines the effects of neoliberalism and intersectional inequality in Finland from a contemporary archaeology perspective; the case study is a Second World War German military camp turned into a working-class community occupied until the 1980s.

Human impact on forests in early twentieth century Finland

ContextIn northern Europe, changes in forest ecosystem structures are commonly attributed to the ubiquitous impact of modern forestry. However, the starting point for modern forestry was not a pristine forest, but landscapes influenced for centuries by diverse human activities.ObjectivesOur aims were to (1) describe spatial patterns of forest structure and species compositions over large scales in 1920s Finland, and to (2) analyze how these characteristics were influenced by human population and past land-uses.MethodsWe mapped ca. 3000 systematic sample plots measured in the first Finnish National Forest Inventory (1921–1924) and produced a series of maps of large-scale variation in forest characteristics in upland forests. We analyzed forest age and size structures, and species compositions relative to human population and land-use data.ResultsWe found strong geographical and regional gradients in forest age and size structures, and tree species composition. Depending on the variable, these characteristics were at the stand-level best explained by human population density, reflecting the long history of various forest uses. Tree species composition was clearly associated with site productivity, but also with the history of slash-and-burn agriculture and forest grazing.ConclusionsForest landscapes in the early twentieth century Finland exhibited a strong human fingerprint, visible as the abundance of young forests in populated areas, while in remote areas forest characteristics typical of natural forests prevailed. These gradients in human impact a century ago are still reflected as legacies in forest structure, a situation that needs consideration in management and restoration.

Politics in play: the playground movement as a socio-political issue in early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT This article studies the history of playgrounds in Finland and focuses on the emergence and implementation of the objectives of the international playground movement in the early twentieth century. Specifically, it examines the relations between supervised playgrounds, women’s emancipation, child welfare policies, and political discussion on social class. In doing so, the article illustrates the transnational circulation and implementation of early twentieth century “child-saving” ideas, such as the playground reform. The analysis is done by cross and close reading a wealth of contemporary texts on playgrounds, such as magazines, newspapers, and archival materials. By tracing the interwoven aspects of the playground movement and the history of Finland, especially the significance of the Civil War of 1918, this article argues that supervised playgrounds were utilised in reconciling the socio-political issues of the newly independent state.

Itinerant traders: elusive subjects moving at the intersection of historical fields

ABSTRACT This special issue on itinerant trade includes new research on a range of non-fixed traders who engaged in both transnational and smaller-scale moves when trading. Itinerant trading stands at the crossroads of different historiographical fields: it can be studied through the lens of commercial and consumption history, but also as a history of migration and labour, or of the underbelly economy and deviance. More recently, this topic has interested historians of material culture, emotions and folklore. The contributions to this special issue highlight these new directions and important trends in research into itinerant trade. The five contributions explore moving traders in the early modern and modern periods in Britain, the Nordics and across the wider European continent. The articles investigate: the space, temporality and material culture of the saloop stall in early-modern London; female rural petty trading in early twentieth-century Finland; the British Liberal authorities' approach to regulating itinerant trade in late-modern Britain; the geographic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and networks of itinerant traders in the late-nineteenth century Nordics; and the transnational networks of early-modern peddling in Europe.

Women as mobile vendors: petty trade and rural poverty in early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT By focusing on poor rural women, this paper offers an exploration of the practices of itinerant trading during an era marked by modernisation and proletarisation. There are few sources regarding small-scale trading practiced on the margins of society, informally or on the fringe of legality. There is also a very limited amount of archival material, such as fiscal and legal sources, concerning these small-scale, informal forms of exchange. In this paper, I examine ethnographic material collected in the 1960s, when the Finnish Heritage Agency circulated questionnaires to collect information about traditional forms of trade among country folk. Such questionnaires were sent to a panel of respondents who regularly participated in enquiries on diverse themes. In their responses to questions on the subject ‘travels for trade’, persons with a rural background depicted customary and local practices of trading. How are female itinerant traders depicted?.

Managing fragile democracy: Constitutionalist ethos and constrained democracy in Finland

This article examines the role that the constitution and the deep-seated, cultural respect for constitutional and administrative stability have played in Finland. The text examines this tradition in a long historical perspective stretching from the nineteenth-century administrative and cultural ‘defence’ battles to the militant legalist protection of the constitutional stability in the 1930s, and, finally, analyses the slow but determined turn towards a more distinctively ‘Nordic’, more integrative and inclusive, model of managing the fragilities within modern democracy. The article argues that Finland of the early twentieth century presents an exceptionally early case of militant and defensive democracy, and, moreover, one that demonstrates the role of the long-term politico-cultural traditions in the adoption of features of militant democracy in a society. This distinctively defensive, and at times, militant constitutionalist ethos has served to protect democracy at many critical moments in the history of twentieth-century Finland. Yet, the protection has often been secondary to the main priority, namely, the maintenance of the stability of the existing constitutional order. This attitude has marked the notions and practices of modern democracy throughout the twentieth century in Finland.

Living Machines with Gentle Looks

This paper discusses the modernization of cattle tending in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Finland from viewpoints of materiality and embodiment. In accordance with new materialist theories, both human and bovine bodies are seen as material-discursive phenomena constituted in the entanglement of material and cultural practices. The paper investigates how bovine bodies, embodiment, and agency were represented and conceptualized, and what kind of qualities “good cows” had at the time. The materials used in the study consist of answers sent to an ethnographic questionnaire, as well as ten cattle tending guidebooks, all dating back to the turn of the twentieth century. It is argued in the paper that questions of agency and subjectivity in modernizing animal husbandry were multidimensional, and that the consequences of increasing objectification of bovine bodies were not just negative for cattle.

Deconstructing Oral Histories of Family Strategies through Record Linkage: Comparing Interview, Tax, Welfare, and Parish Sources from Early Twentieth-century Finland

This article demonstrates empirically how triangulation with other sources can alter the interpretation of oral histories of family strategies. While the interests of oral historians have shifted to postpositivist approaches, basic facts about material context and family events still tend to be drawn from the same narratives. Oral histories of two worker households in early twentieth-century Helsinki are linked with detailed Finnish tax, parish, and poor relief records. The findings point to a number of significant omissions, turn seemingly innocuous factual statements into meaningful strategic representations, and suggest systematic biases in describing livelihoods and sources of income.

A Twin Grip on “The National Disease”: Finnish Anti-Tuberculosis Associations and Their Contribution to Nation-Formation (1907–17)

Abstract Tuberculosis was a major killer in early twentieth-century Finland. It was also the target of the first genuinely national public health campaign. The first stage of this campaign was led by two non-governmental anti-tuberculosis associations, both founded in 1907. This article charts the founding and the early activities of these associations and argues that they made a significant contribution to nation-formation. This contribution was both ideological and practical. Through their activities, and through the rhetoric and imagery of “tuberculosis propaganda,” the associations heightened the sense of a nation threatened by and united against a common enemy. They took part in raising modern, medically observant citizens, and they introduced concrete health-care solutions that would survive well into independent Finland. Reflecting the political realities of the last decade of Russian rule in Finland, the antituberculosis campaign was top-down but not state-driven.

Emotions, trading practices and communication in transnational itinerant trade: encounters between ‘Rucksack Russians’ and their customers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACTThis article examines relations between ‘Rucksack Russians’, itinerant traders from Russian Karelia, and their local customers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural Finland. Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, but, according to Finnish law, itinerant trade was illegal for people without citizenship rights in the Grand Duchy. The trade was, thus, illicit, although often seen through the fingers. We study trader–customer relations through emotions, trading practices and communication, with a special focus on the consumption of women. We argue that analysing the relations from these perspectives deepens the understanding of the functions of itinerant trade for the shaping of a consumer society. For access to a consumer perspective, we use ethnographic questionnaires, a source type that historians have acknowledged only in recent decades. The questionnaires complement and nuance the predominantly negative attitudes towards itinerant trade conveyed in the newspapers, which mainly represent the viewpoints of the authorities and local merchants. Through the theoretical perspectives and through shifting focus from the consumption of the elite to that of that of the lower strata of society, the article offers a fresh take on such aspects of trader–consumer relations that previous historical research on itinerant trade has overlooked.

Putting the spiritual into practice

The aim of this article is to examine how Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical ideas were reflected and put into practice in the lives of the Finnish couple Olly (Olga) Donner (1881–1956, neé Sinebrychoff) and Uno Donner (1872–1958). They encountered anthroposophy in 1913 and subsequently embraced it as the guiding principle of their lives. Through a close examination of these two people we aim to shed light on how a new worldview like anthroposophy, which was gaining followers in early twentieth-century Finland, was also a manifestation of wider changes in religious culture in Europe. Our perspective could be described as biographical in the sense that it has been characterised by Simone Lässig (2008: 11) who writes that ‘the reconstruction of individual life courses helps to discover more about the context – for example, about daily rituals, pious practices, or kinship relationship’. Thus, the biographical perspective serves as a tool for grasping how something as deeply personal as an anthroposophical worldview was understood and practised, not only by Olly and Uno Donner, but also by a larger group of people who in the early twentieth century were looking for new ways to make sense of the surrounding world.

The political transfer of parliamentary concepts and practices in the European periphery: the case of obstruction in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

SUMMARYThis article examines parliaments as transnational institutions. It uses Finland as an example to analyze how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European representative assemblies were part of a joint publicity. This publicity, facilitated by the press, was actively used in developing and shaping national practices, especially in countries without an established parliamentary tradition. The transnational parliamentary publicity changed how parliaments functioned and deliberated. It was utilized in assemblies’ procedural formation and revision, democratization, and parliamentarization. The mediated models and examples were used selectively and innovatively to interpret, contextualize, and frame domestic political questions. The article examines the transfer of parliamentary obstruction from European parliaments to the four-estate Diet and the unicameral parliament of the Finnish Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. Obstruction became part of the Finnish political repertoire soon after the Irish obstruction appeared in the British House of Commons in the late 1870s. Although no systematic obstruction campaigns were organized in early Finnish parliamentary life, the concept of obstruction was a rhetorical and ideological tool of the Finnish nationalists and socialists. The article positions Finnish discussions within wider European debates on parliaments, democratization, the rise of mass parties, and the problematic relationship between representative and deliberative aspects of parliamentary politics.

Useful citizens, useful citizenship: cultural contexts of Sámi education in early twentieth-century Norway, Sweden, and Finland

This article investigates Sámi elementary education in early twentieth-century Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The main focus lies on cultural contexts that frame and limit language use. The key analytical concepts are useful citizen and useful citizenship. Through these concepts the article probes the ways in which governmental educational authorities and Sámi teachers talked about education and citizenship. Studying these concepts and the cultural contexts behind them sheds light on the formation phase of Nordic citizenship. Full-scale citizenship was not offered to all individuals inside the nation state. Where it was, it had certain conditions that excluded cultural elements of minority populations. Sámi teachers defined citizenship mainly within the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish nation states. However, some tendencies towards a more cross-national notion of Sámi identity can be discerned.

Gender, class and lodging in urban Finland around 1900

ABSTRACTThe popular image, if any, related to lodging in industrial and urban society is one of young male lodgers and female landladies. The aim of this article is to discuss the identity of lodgers and landlords/ladies in gender, age and social perspective. Can we find evidence for proximity in origin, gender and social class between those who looked for and those who provided lodgings? While the middle classes saw lodging as a social evil, were their fears of moral and hygienic degradation realistic? Was keeping lodgers a way of fleecing vulnerable migrants and forcing them into a life of squalor? Or is it possible that the people who acquired an extra room, for a bit of income, or squeezed in an extra bed, were at the mercy of builders and slum landlords with multiple houses? We should perhaps remind ourselves that the ultimate power of control of building quality and flat size lay in the hands of the social class that was pointing its finger at those at the bottom of the social ladder. Through the combination of surveys and census data with oral history collections from early twentieth-century Finland a narrative is constructed of the life as a lodger or landlord/landlady of the working class, demonstrating networks of friendship and mutual support, as well as systems of lodging that were simple economic arrangements for the survival of both parties.

The Making of the Finnish Working Class in Early Twentieth-Century Working-Class Literature

Abstract Working-class literature was one of the cultural areas that defined social class in early twentieth-century Finland. As a starting point for this article, it stems from E. P. Thompson's key points: first, the working class was active in its own making, and, second, that class needs to be understood as a relationship between people. In the present article, I consider how the working class is represented and valued in poems, newspaper articles, labor-movement songs, novels, and political leaflets written by Kössi Kaatra, Hilja Pärssinen, and Esa Paavo-Kallio—three working-class writers in whose works we witness the various discourses on class as well as the different genres of working-class writing. As I will show here, the representations of the working class created by these writers are in conflict with the hegemonic discourses on class, and these representations are produced through processes that include gender and nationality.

A New Social Risk? Social-Scientific Knowledge and Work-Life Balance in Twentieth-Century Finland

Work-life balance, or the reconciliation of work and family, has been discussed recently as a “new social risk” in comparative research on the welfare state. According to this discussion, the social security systems of traditional welfare states were built after World War II in order to protect (male) breadwinners against the “old social risks” such as the loss of income due to old age, sickness, accident, or unemployment. Scholars have argued, however, that these postwar policies have been inadequate for dealing with the new types of risks that resulted from complex changes in employment practices and family life. This article reflects critically upon the conceptualization of work-life balance as a new social risk by focusing on one of the Nordic countries, which have come to be known for their policies that combine (female) parenthood and paid work. In particular, it analyzes the problematization and governance of work-family reconciliation in twentieth-century Finland. Overall, the article argues that social scientific knowledge played a key role in the ways in which work-life balance was rendered intelligible and manageable as a social policy issue.

Good for girls or bad for boys? Schooling, social inequality and intrahousehold allocation in early twentieth century Finland

Apart from the commonly emphasized historical or cultural explanations, was there an economics behind the early, extensive schooling of girls in Europe’s Nordic periphery? This article analyses factors behind the emerging female majority in secondary schooling in early twentieth century Finland through resource allocation within households. We argue that a significant part of the female educational advantage can be explained with a classic unitary Beckerian schooling investment model. We apply an Engel specification widely used in development economics to a household budget dataset from the 1920s to estimate the effect of the age and gender of children on schooling investment across social groups. We find a pro-girl bias among households of low socio-economic status, explained primarily by the sizable penalty to boys caused by opportunity costs and expected returns. Worker boys could generate significant income from an early age, making their education initially expensive for cash-constrained families. Contrary to previous claims, the dropout rates of boys were also higher than those of girls. Together with a propensity to leave home earlier, this lowered the expected net returns to schooling. Meanwhile, the expansion of modern services created attractive job opportunities for secondary educated girls. We find no evidence of intrahousehold bargaining. The findings resemble certain cases in development economics and the economic history of advanced countries including the USA. Rather than matching with patterns of anti-girl discrimination in many developing countries, our results highlight the prehistory of the currently emerging pattern of female educational advantage—and male disadvantage—in OECD countries.