Finns in Michigan #4 on Amazon's Hot New Releases

Gymnasts in front of Saima Temperance Hall in South Range, Michigan. The early labor movement grew out of "liberal" factions of the temperance societies. This charge toward labor consciousness was led by thespians and early socialists, known as the "Apostles of Socialism," like Tanner and Hendrickson who traveled across the U.S. "preaching" the socialist message. Soon a splitting occured between the more conservative temperance members and the "free thinkers." The splits of Finnish immigrant groups are covered extensively in Finns in Michigan.

Finns in Michigan is #4 on Amazon's Hot New Releases (in Michigan). Here is a link to that page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/14279091.

When it became known that I was writing a book titled Finns in Michigan a few folks pointed out, “Holmio already wrote that book.” This is true and not true...let me explain...Holmio’s book, titled Michiganin Suomalaisten Historia, was written in 1967 (in Finnish). The translation, which some erroneously call “The Finns in Michigan,” was translated into English by Ellen Ryynanen in 2001 and titled History of the Finns in Michigan. The current book that I wrote, Finns in Michigan, is part of Michigan State University Press’ “Discovering the Peoples of Michigan” series. This series is a very popular ongoing effort of Michigan State University Press that brings to light Michigan's extensive ethnic diversity and I was more than happy to add the Finnish American experience to this wonderful series.

Physically, the two books differ in one main way, Holmio’s book in original Finnish version is 639 pages long and the English version is 512 pages. Finns in Michigan is 136 pages, including end materials.

Stylistically, Finns in Michigan differs from Holmio’s offering in that this rendition of the Finns’ history in Michigan is a broad survey, rather than Holmio’s comprehensive look at the history of Finnish immigrants and Finnish Americans in Michigan. Holmio’s book also has a number of lists of first settlers and pioneers in various communities, which genealogists might prize, while Finns in Michigan is more of a rolling narrative.

Additionally, Finns in Michigan looks at the Finnish experience in Michigan using a much different “lens” than Holmio’s work. Holmio was a pastor in the Suomi Synod and educator at Suomi College. His book is noticeably written from the viewpoint of a person with this background. I remember a discussion I had with Olaf Rankinen, archivist emeritus, when I first hit the scene researching Michigan Finnish immigrant union groups in 2003. After sitting down with Olaf to discuss Työmies and quite frankly not knowing the full history between Suomi and Työmies, I asked Olaf for sources about Michigan Finns in the labor and working class political movement. He gave me a number of sources and included Holmio’s book stating, “He’s a Synodian, but fair to labor and Työmies.”

As Olaf acknowledged, I recognized a predilection in Holmio’s writing and decided that as a social and labor historian, I wanted to offer a different angle on the history of Michigan’s Finns. I am not claiming that what I wrote is better, truer, or somehow more factual; I am just writing that what you will read in Finns in Michigan comes from a different perspective and thus is not a retelling of Holmio’s Michiganin Suomalaisten Historia.

Hope this might clarify the difference between the two books, but of course don't take my word for it, read them both and come to your own conclusions.

Presidential Inauguration

Below is an article I wrote for The Finnish American Reporter about the election of a black president. I write a monthly column in that newspaper dealing with aspects of heritage and there is generally plenty of historical fodder for articles, but with the election of a President who some folks have been disparaging of because of his ethnicity, I dedicated one article to this contemporary issue.

Generally, I'm not a big supporter of established politics (i.e. "The Man"), but I supported and will support Mr. Obama, retaining the option to be critical of his stand and action on organized labor...its been a long time since labor has had a true advocate in the White House, hopefully this will change today...Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

The article:

Ask the Archivist…Having a Black President with Muslim Heritage isn’t so Strange

As this year’s Presidential election has come and gone, I am reminded of some of the truly awful comments that were made in the media and that I personally heard regarding the race and heritage of our new President-elect Barack Obama. Some folks took special disliking to the fact that Obama’s father was an African Muslim.

Regardless of political affiliation, I think we all can agree that this election was a very important watershed event in our nation’s history; perceivably for the first time in American presidential history, the color of a person’s skin mattered less than the measure of the individual.

In thinking about the historic nature of the election and some peoples’ behaviors towards race, culture and heritage, I began to wonder how these things have affected the perception of Finns in America. I looked to the archive for answers and found that not so long ago, Finns were on the bad side of some truly stupid thinking regarding race issues and unfamiliar cultural practices.

Not so long ago, the Finns as a race were often characterized as less than honorable people lacking intelligence, responsibility and stimulus control. In fact, often in casual conversation or media jottings Finnish immigrants and their families were referred to as a race of “Jack-pine Savages.” As it was then, race today is a socially constructed entity that typically is built by prevailing power structures intending to divide and compartmentalize.

In 1983, Finnish American sociologist Peter Kivisto wrote in the International Migration Review, “Finns occupied the status of a definite ‘out-group’ even though they are White Protestant. They were depicted as ‘Jack-pine Savages,’ Mongolians (in 1907, an attempt was made to deny them citizenship by invoking existing anti-Oriental legislation), and violence prone revolutionaries.”

The seemingly strange socio-cultural practices of Finnish immigrants further added to others’ misconceptions about their neighbors from Suomi. Strange practices, such as nights when entire families went naked into super-heated buildings to sweat made Finns a rather strange looking lot to those who had never met someone from Vaasa or Oulu.

While sauna was strange and the nakedness of the ritual spit in the face of everything proper and Victorian of that era, borrowing from a feasible, but fictionalized account of Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio’s Finnish immigrant population in the late 19th Century we see another practice could stir the deepest fears of others’ regarding Finns.

A book that I am currently reading in the Archive by author Kalle Potti, Iloinen Harbori (Happy Harbor), addresses the strange way in which others saw the Finnish immigrant practice of cupping, which in theory relieved pain through the process of bloodletting. (In cupping, a healer would make small slits in a person’s back, suck on the leather-covered small end of a hollowed out cow horn while attaching it to the victim’s…I mean patient’s back and then blood would drain into the horn until the horn with the “bad” blood dropped off the back.)

“Soon the word spread around the whole city that four men had been murdered by sucking the blood out of their bodies…People and police gathered around the building, but no one dared go in to inspect. The next day the sheriff and his deputies arrived and (made) an inquiry about the whole affair. Not until all the men showed their backs to the sheriff and Kreeta demonstrated and explained the Finnish method of bloodletting, did the sheriff accept the fact that no murders were committed…The Irish, however, believed for a long time that the Finns had actually murdered four of their own men by sucking the blood through tubes made of cows’ horns.”

Having a bi-racial president with Muslim heritage doesn’t seem so strange does it?

Finns in Michigan Hits MSU-Press Catalogue

An image from the book, a circa 1927 advertisement from

a Finnish American consumers' cooperative

publication for their proletarian-inspired coffee line

Finns in Michigan has officially hit the Michigan State University Press 2009 Spring Catalogue. Below are the kind words used to describe the book taken from the catalogue. The following is the link to the "Discovering the Peoples of Michigan" series web site and Finns in Michigan page, which has early ordering information: http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3645

"This book presents an unvarnished history of a surprisingly diverse group of immigrants. In Finns in Michigan Gary Kaunonen probes the intricacies of immigration, labor, and ideology among the members of this intriguing and historically important ethnic group. He skillfully traces the evolution of a vibrant, diverse, dramatic, and at times deeply quarrelsome people who left an indelible mark on the state's history."

"Kaunonen examines the many schisms and splits that define the course of Finnish social life in Michigan. Michigan's Finns flocked to diverse cultural organizations that span a broad ideological spectrum. This book examines an extraordinarily wide range of organizations, including religious institutions, temperance societies, working-class political and labor groups, the cooperative movement, and a nationalist association of Finns."

"Finns in Michigan is a study of the contributions of Michigan's Finns in the workplace, in society, and in cultural life. Unlike previous, sometimes mythologized, histories of the Finns in Michigan, Kaunonen's rendition strives to be a more accurate representation of 'the good, the bad, and the other" activities of a group he calls "possibly America's most diverse family.'"

Discovering the Peoples of Michigan
Paperback Edition:Photos, notes, references; world rights 136 pp., 5.5 " x 8.5 ", April 2009 paper, $12.95 0-87013-850-2 978-0-87013-850-8

Finns in Michigan on Amazon

Strange to see something like this, I've searched Amazon hundreds of times for books, but now there's one on it that I wrote. It looks like this book thing is actually happening and I've got to admit while I'm pretty stoic most of the time, I'm a bit excited at this moment. The proof, a listing on Amazon. Order early...

http://www.amazon.com/Finns-Michigan-Dscovering-Peoples/dp/0870138448/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228926302&sr=1-2

Progressive Era Presentation in Calumet

Text from an article by Jane Nordberg that appeared in the Daily Mining Gazette regarding a presentation I gave on the Progressive Era at the Calumet, Michigan, Public Library, Thursday, November 20, 2008:

The [Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History's] exhibit tells the story of the Progressive Era in the United States when a broad-ranging reform movement worked to make government more democratic, to lessen the effects of industrialization and to regulate business.

Kaunonen's talk Thursday is expected to bring those topics into closer focus.
"It was an era of reform driven by the middle class and the educational aspirations of individuals and families that, for the first time in their family's history, had the means to send their children to college," Kaunonen said.

Kaunonen, archivist at the Finnish American Historical Archive and Museum at Finlandia University, will also provide an overview of changes to the national and local labor movement.
"Progressive reformers were not advocates of the groundbreaking change that many working class political and labor organizations advocated," Kaunonen said. "This dichotomy is best seen locally in the 1913-14 strike."

The Western Federation of Miners was an organization bent on the transformation of the economic order, he said, while Michigan's Gov. Woodbridge Ferris was a believer in the power of Progressive Era reforms.

"Ferris looked to implement gradual and metered change," Kaunonen said, while "the WFM and union-minded Copper Country workers looked to radically transform the power structure of the mining companies on the region."

Good news...

The Finns in Michigan is now on its way to the presses. The book is set to arrive on shelves in April of 2009.

(The image is one that did not make the final cut, but none-the-less is pretty interesting. It is an image of the reviled one-time Governor General of Finland Nikolai Bobrikov. The Finns especially detested Bobrikov because he ushered in some of the late 19th and early 20th Century Russification programs designed to intensify subjugation of Finns in the Russian empire. The Finns responded to these programs by assassinating Bobrikov in 1904.)

Thinking back on the process, I have the utmost respect for editors and the editors who worked on The Finns, Kristine Blakslee and others from Michigan State University Press, were absolutely amazing. I cannot thank them enough for turning my ideas into a coherent narrative.

As I wrote earlier, the process from idea to page to book is pretty involved. I'll detail it here...

This process of writing The Finns started when I ran across a non-descript folder in the Finnish American Historical Archive. The materials were early correspondences between a previous author and Michigan State University Press for Finns in Michigan. The author had began the process of writing and then given up on the book. I still haven't figured out why, but the contract lapsed and the book was sitting out there waiting to be written.

This is a link to the series web site: http://msupress.msu.edu/series.php?seriesID=1

I made some inquires around the area to make sure the previous author was out and then contacted Art Helwig, series editor. After talking with Art and noting that The Finns would have a great audience, I set to contacting the necessary folks to get the ball rolling. After speaking with Art, I contacted Julie Loehr at Michigan State University Press, studied the "Peoples in Michigan Series" to see if what I had as a vision for the book would fit. It did and after getting the pertinent info together and contracts signed I thought well this has been easy so far...

That all changed with the writing and editing. I started my first draft in September of 2007 and worked on that to rough draft completion for about half a year. I last modified the draft in April of 2008. The first official edit occurred prior to April 08 and in between the first guided edit and the final draft submission on advice of the MSU-Press staff, I added and subtracted a number of things including a small section on suffragette, temperance crusader and women's activist Maggie Walz and more information about Finns in downstate Detroit area.

After the final draft was okayed it went to production. From production I got back page proofs, which are a sort of book draft. I looked that over and at this point you can only make critical corrections. I did two and then the page proofs were done. When all the pages were in a final order, it was time to do the index. I did that process myself and that is pretty time consuming as well. Once the index was done, the book was ready for print. A long process, but well worth it. I'm very happy with the outcome and working with the good folks at MSU-Press was great.

Challenge Accepted Rough Manuscript In

I finally have a complete rough manuscript for Challenge Accepted: A Finnish Immigrant Response to Industrial America in Michigan’s Copper Country and it is off for a last check for overall content before heading to the editors. I'm hoping that the two images above can be used for the cover. They are from 1913 and were printed in the satirical publication Lapatossu. I think these images are great depictions of the growth of the Finnish immigrant labor movment. The top image represents the awakening of copper mine workers. The little portly fellows running are the mine owners. The image on bottom is the result of the awakening, a strike demonstration by the mass of workers.

Before beginning the process on these books I had no idea of how difficult and how many moving parts there are in the publishing business. Its pretty incredible to see a book move from what you write to bound copy; though as I wrote, that's an involved process. I have the greatest respect for book editors. As a person that is grammatically challenged, what these folks do is pretty incredible.

Now, a little about Challenge Accepted. This book grew out of my thesis work at Michigan Tech. I'm going to include a link to a page at Tech about the thesis: http://www.social.mtu.edu/gradthesesia.htm. If you scroll down three thesis abstracts you will get to an abstract and some images from my work.

The book is quite a bit different from the thesis in that I have included some additional research and more line drawings of the actual buildings. Also included is much more about the 1913-14 Michigan Copper Miners' strike. The book version also has 7 chapters in its current form, a big departure from the thesis, which had only four. I'll update with some more information and a little info on an upcoming speaking engagement in Calumet, MI, I have regarding a history of the Progressive Era.