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This is a project for Finnish-born immigrants and for their descendants in Minnesota, USA.
Brief history of Finns in Minnesota
Over three hundred years ago the first Finnish immigrants came to North America and more than one hundred years ago the first Finnish settlers came to the upper midwestern States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota (Wasastjerna, 1957). Finns immigrated to Minnesota in three concentrations. The first Finns settled in south central Minnesota in 1864. A second cluster of Finnish immigrants were in west central Minnesota by the 1870’s. The third and largest influx of Finns from Finland and Michigan, to Duluth and northeastern Minnesota in the 1880’s and 1890’s.
Drawn by the prospect of work, many Finns found employment on the mines of the iron range and in the boreal forest of northern Minnesota. The port of Duluth at the western send of Lake Superior and the six adjoining counties of Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Lake, and St. Louis contained 71.2% of the state’s Finns by 1903 (Riippa, 1981: 303). Duluth was an important dispersal point for Finnish immigrants who traveled to Minnesota via the Great Lakes route from New York, Boston and Quebec, Canada (Kaups, 1975).
For many Finns in Minnesota, working conditions were harsh and employment uncertain. Mining, for example, brought low wages, long hours, dangerous working conditions and periodic unemployment. Many Finnish mine workers were politically active and worked in the union movement. As a result, Finns were often “blackballed” from the mines and forced to seek employment elsewhere. Unsatisfactory working conditions and the lure of the land motivated many Finns to look to the rural countryside for their “haven in the woods.” Approximately, one-fourth of the Finnish immigrant population settled on homesteads. Of these, the majority settled in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin (Hoglund, 1978).
Source: https://www.swedishfinnhistoricalsociety.org/finnish-immigrant-farm...