Conclusions

First-generation Finnish Americans already possessed modern citizenship skills before migrating to America; they could read and write, actively use their civil rights in popular movements, and from 1907 onward vote in parliamentary elections.

Parents and other members of the communities intentionally and unintentionally transferred their intangible heritage, political opinions, values, and civic knowledge to children in everyday social life through their discussions and major decisions. The common values in Helmi’s and Mayme’s homes were honesty, obedience, and diligence, which were taught to the children by demanding respectful behaviour towards the parents and a positive attitude towards chores and studying. According to Helmi’s memoir, her parents also emphasised material, religious, and gendered values, whereas Mayme remembered that equality, solidarity, and intangible values were highly appreciated at home.

The parents’ opinions on civic education came across in their ways of talking about education and daily politics, supporting the children in their studies, and encouraging them to participate in different kinds of social events.

However, immigrant families’ civic education involved not only passing on their own political heritage but also considering the contemporary political expectations of American society. The policy of Americanisation also defined Finnish Americans’ social and political activity. The Church Finns were usually passive supporters of the Republican Party; a few of them organised local activities in the name of the GOP, patriotism, or the policy of Americanisation. In general, however, they participated more actively in the services and other events of the Finnish American Lutheran or Apostolic Lutheran congregations. Children were guided to attend Sunday school and confirmation camps that were held in Finnish but otherwise taught the same values as the Americanisers. According to the Church Finns, good citizenship was based on patriotism, loyalty, and Christianity. Even though the Red Finns were critical of the policy of Americanisation for its chauvinism and militarism, they appreciated American democracy, equality, and civil rights. In Socialist Sunday schools, the Idealistic League, and the Young Pioneers’ summer camps, children learned about citizens’ rights, civic activity, socialism, and Finnish culture and history. Children were raised to be active, critical, and socialist citizens.

Helmi and Mayme reflected on the politically polarised Finnish-American community and carried their families’ political heritage with them. Regardless of the differing nationalist, conservative, or socialist values, the community’s shared Finnish-American heritage also involved an ethnic culture and traditions that caused problems for children at school.

The first and second generations of Finnish Americans had to react to the policy of Americanisation that set the framework for civic education and the criteria of citizenship. Both the Church Finns and the Red Finns utilised their intangible heritage from Finland and transferred it to the next generation. First, this involved maintaining the Finnish language and culture, even though English and the American way of life inevitably substituted them among the young. Second, they continued to act in popular movements and in politics in their new homeland, and they participated in the citizenship debate within their groups. The understanding of citizenship and what constituted a good American citizen varied according to the individual’s political and social affiliations, and they taught and transferred these values to the younger generation through their organisations for children. These organisations strengthened the values, identity, and fellowship of most of the group members, and they set and guided them towards a commonly created concept of citizenship.

Notes

1. Marshall’s citizenship theory divided citizenship into three categories: liberal, political, and social citizenship. Related to political citizenship, he underlined three points: first, the political rights were not new ones but were granted to new groups and sections of the society, such as workers and women. Second, political citizenship was the result of a historical process, and it presupposed the actualisation of citizenship with civil liberties, which mainly happened in the nineteenth century in most Western countries. Third, the right to education was the road to all three kinds of citizenship. See Marshall (1950, 10–11, 19–21). Criticism of Marshall’s theory has enriched interpretations of political citizenship. Later research has emphasised the significance of gender, civic activity, social struggle, and varied historical circumstances in societies in examination of political citizenship. See Turner (1993, 7–8).

2. Informal actors brought—and still bring—to the citizenship debate new aspects alongside national or other prevailing ideas, such as the rights of minorities and various social and ecological issues. See Turner (1993, 7–9, 11–14); Heater (2004, 68–71); Kalberg (1994, 100–102); Saari Juho (2013); Oosterhuis and Huisman (2014).

3. Revivalist movements, the Fennoman movement, the temperance movement, and the labour movement were political and cultural protests against the prevailing system. They each had different aims, but they rested on an understanding of equality and encouraged people to express and pursue their aims. See Alapuro (1987).

4. Helmi Mavis Hiltunen Biesanz (1919–2008) was born in Vermilion (MN). She graduated from the State University of Iowa in 1940 and worked as a sociologist and writer all her career. She married John Biesanz, a professor of sociology and anthropology. They had three children and lived in Costa Rica from 1971. Mayme Sevander (nee Corgan; 1923–2003) was born in Brule (WI). She moved to Soviet Karelia with her family in the 1930s.

5. About autobiographies, see Baggerman (2002). Literary autobiographies best capture certain aspects of historical reality. They make it possible for historians to rethink and ‘refeel’ past experiences. Wallach (2006); Abrams (2010, 97–103).

6. Approximately 350,000 Finns, mostly younger than 25 years old, migrated to the USA by the 1920s. Half of them settled in the Midwest because of the mining and logging work available in this area.

7. The Homestead Act was enacted in 1862. Its aim was to tempt immigrants to settle on uncultivated land and to thus expand American property and legitimise the state’s claim to it. By law, a farmer received 160 acres of land with certain conditions. www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act.

8. It is also known that the Apostolic Lutheran Church allowed its members to participate in the Calumet strike of 1913–1914, but otherwise the Suomi Synod was hostile towards strikers. This was understandable because most Apostolic Lutheran male members worked as miners in that area. Earlier and in the later years of the Calumet strike, the movement condemned socialism and labour unions. “The History of the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America”; Holmio (1967, 266–274, 398); Penti (1998, 6, 10–11); articles in Vartija in the 1920s.

9. According to the Federal Naturalization Act of 1790, every white immigrant was permitted to become a citizen of the USA after two years’ residence instead of the earlier five years. In 1870, naturalisation was granted to African Americans whose ancestors had already lived in the USA. Examples of the tightened acts are the Basic Naturalization Act in 1906 and a special Naturalization Examiner in 1926.

10. E.g. Redgranite’s Finnish Socialist Club (WI) decided to assist with naturalisation certificates for its members to make it easier to deal with the authorities. The club acquired a naturalisation lawbook from the Bureau of Naturalization. Minutes January 8; Minutes January 22, 1911; Minutes of the Students’ Association December 6, 1912; Minutes of the Students’ Association December 20, 1912; Sevander and Hertzel ([1992] 2004, 6).

11. Fingelska was a kind of creole; its vocabulary was a combination of English and Finnish. For example, the word beti was based on the Finnish word peti and the English word bed, and the word puuka was ‘book’ pronounced in a Finnish way. See Hiltunen Biesanz (1989, 57).

12. Ainasoja, 13–14, 44–46, 53–57. ‘[The child] must know the language of the parents. If he doesn’t, he can’t teach any Americanization to his parents. Children are the best Americanizers of this country’, Uncle John’s Letter to Children, Koti 1/1922, 14–15. ‘The Church has done a great deal as an Americanization agent. The newcomer comes in contact with the already partly Americanized. They are imbibed with the American spirit and ideals since the Church observes the American holidays’, The Finnish Immigrant, Koti 5/1922, 11. About fathers and sons spending time together in an American way, Toimitus, Koti 4/1922, 12–13; ‘So kindness is a quality to be greatly appreciated and cultivated by all’, wrote Virginia Lignell about values in Koti 2/1922, 11.

13. Original expression: ‘puhdasverisiksi lojalisteiksi Amerikan hallitsevaa kapitalistiluokkaa kohtaan’.

14. The Luther’s Small Catechism and its principles were followed even in the 1970s when new volumes of textbooks were published, such as The Worship Service of Children: A Small Handbook for Sunday School (1976). Association of American Laestadian Congregations; “The History of the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America” 26, 35, 55; Penti (1998, 10). Announcements on confirmation schools in Vartija in April and May 1927.

Archival Material

Association of American Laestadian Congregations. Finnish American Heritage Center, Finlandia University. Hancock.

Minutes January 8, 1911. Redgranite’s Finnish Socialist Club. Finnish B5. Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRC Archives), The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

Minutes January 22, 1911. Local Minutes 1908–1911. Redgranite’s Finnish Socialist Club. Finnish B5. Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRC Archives), The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

Minutes of the Students’ Association December 6, 1912. Folder 47. Work People’s College/Students’ Association III. Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRC Archives), The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

Minutes of the Students’ Association December 20, 1912. Folder 47. Work People’s College/Students’ Association III. Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRC Archives), The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections (ASC).

“The History of the Apostolic Lutheran Church of America”, Flesner, Dorris. Saarinen Daniel 1964. HT 331, Finnish American Heritage Center, Finlandia University. Hancock.

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