Red and White Families, Communities, and Political Heritage

The families of Helmi Hiltunen and Mayme Corgan were generally representative of the average Finnish-American family. Both families lived in the Great Lakes area, where half of all Finnish immigrants settled before the 1920s.6 Helmi Hiltunen’s family home was located in St.

Immigrant families were often formed of only two generations—the parents and the children. The family network of immigrants was usually based on aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived in the same area. The second generation seldom had grandparents or any other older relatives in America; they were still in Finland. Helmi’s family was an exception, however; she had five siblings as well as aunts, uncles, and—above all—grandpa Lempia around her. Helmi’s grandfather had migrated in the 1880s and married a Finnish-American woman. Helmi’s mother, Hilja Hiltunen, was a second-generation Finnish American, but her father, Peter Hiltunen, had arrived in America from the Oulu Province at the age of twenty-two in 1907 (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 17–18).

Mayme’s family had a typical immigrant background: her parents arrived in the US during the third wave of immigration. Mayme’s father, Oscar Corgan, met Mayme’s mother, Katri Alalauri—who had arrived in America from the Oulu Province in 1910—in Hancock, Michigan. They married and had four children. Oscar Corgan had a brother in the US, but the brothers fell out and did not keep in touch after Oscar turned to socialism. After his brother’s death, Oscar took care of his niece, who lived with the Corgans during her studies.

Finnish Americans were young, unskilled, and eager to work. They usually worked as construction workers, loggers, miners, maids, and farmers. At the end of the nineteenth century, migration was directed to the Midwest, where there were still plenty of jobs for in the mines and forests and land was available under the Homestead Act. The homes unskilled migrants and neighbourhoods of the Hiltunens and Corgans were typical of immigrant areas in terms of their economic and ethnic backgrounds. Helmi’s parents farmed a Homestead Act7 farm with 160 acres of land and domestic animals. According to the Hiltunen men, the Homestead Act, along with freedom of expression and religion, left the Finns indebted to the American state, which was to be repaid in sisu—in other words, perseverance and guts, and hard work (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 20).

The Hiltunen farm was located in the rural community of Vermilion (MI). Vermilion belonged to the famous ‘Iron Range’ region beyond the Great Lakes. It was once the most important American iron ore mining area, with dozens of active mines (in all 272). The story of the ‘Iron County’ started in earnest in the 1880s; railways, roads, mines, and towns were built at a fast pace; the population grew exponentially; and immigrant labourers—mostly Finns and Austrians with a few Swedes and Italians—toiled on the work sites. Besides mining, another labour-intensive sector—the timber industry—spread in the area. Thirty years later after the immigrants were settled, communities were formed, and some made their living by providing services (Lamppa 2004, 77–84, 86–88).

Mayme Sevander’s father, Oscar Corgan, had worked at first in the mines and on the railroads. In 1919, however, he was made editor of the socialist Tyomies newspaper and a trustee of the Communist Party. Mayme’s mother was a housewife. The family lived in cities. At the end of the 1920s, their home was in Superior (WI), which is located next to Duluth (MN) in the heart of the northern Great Lakes area. Superior was a city of trade and business; it was an outpost for the investors off to the east. It became a hub of transport and labour, and thousands of immigrants from the Scandinavian countries, Britain, Ireland, and Central Europe arrived looking for work in the late nineteenth century (Lamppa 2004, 59–60). By the 1920s, Superior had become the centre of the Finnish-American radical labour movement in the Midwest. Based in the city were the headquarters of the Finnish Socialist Federation’s district organisation and the Finnish-American Central Co-operative Exchange, the socialist Work People’s College, and the Tyomies newspaper. Oscar Corgan was hired as a party worker and the editor of Tyomies. After the death of their oldest son, the Corgans lived for a while in the city of Virginia (MN), the same county (St. Louis) in which the Hiltunens lived. In fact, the distance between the two families was about 50 kilometres. Oscar Corgan worked in the city as the director of the cooperative store, but he missed his political duties and returned to Superior as an agitator and lecturer. In 1932, he was offered a job as the head of Karelian Technical Aid in New York, and the family left the Midwest. In New York (NY), they lived with other Finnish Americans, first in the Bronx and then in Harlem (Sevander and Hertzel [1992] 2004, 12, 18, 24; Kostiainen 1980; Karni 1995, 106–109).

Helmi’s and Mayme’s families reproduced ethnic, social, and political values in ways typical of the era. In Helmi’s family, Finnishness was crystallised into culture, and modesty. According to Grandpa, it was his duty ‘as the patriarch of the clan to enlighten’ others on the Old Country, and he talked about old Finnish habits, stories, and Finnish history under the Russian regime.

Mayme’s parents also espoused traditional, home-based values. For example, they believed in honesty, loyalty, and hard work. Mayme’s mother was a full-time housewife; she was constantly cleaning, baking, and cooking. Mayme’s father studied alongside his work and later worked long days. There also was a gendered hierarchy in the family; her father’s ‘word was law’, and her mother did not question his decisions. At the dinner table, adults were allowed to talk, but the children were not. The children were raised to be good and obedient and not to complain. Otherwise, Mayme’s parents raised their children according to soft methods; they preferred discussion, explanation, and non-violent discipline in raising their family (Sevander and Hertzel [1992] 2004, 6, 14–15, 30–32, 38).

In addition to these cultural traditions, the Finns also brought with them their religious, political, and societal values from Finland (Kero 1997) The first-generation Finnish Americans were born and lived their early years of adulthood in a society where civic activity, popular movements, and modern media had shaped them as members of civil society.

Those Finns who had religious-based values were mostly Lutherans by denomination, but there were also Laestadians (Apostolic Lutherans) among their number, especially in the Midwest. Together, they formed a group called the Church Finns. Lutherans were conservative and emphasised the home, religion, and patriotism. Traditional gender roles and the authority of parents were highlighted. Children were raised at home; the mother was responsible for the daily care of the children, but the father was the head of the family. Christianity and its values were the basis of the Lutherans’ activities. Religious upbringing, worship, and obedience to the church system—but also to the authorities—were essential parts of life for them. Belief in hierarchy and authority was stressed in social and political attitudes (see Lidman; Kero 1997).

The Apostolic Lutheran orientation was mostly maintained by lay preachers, and it was known for its negative attitudes towards materialism, such as any ornamentation related to physical appearance, funerals, or even services. The values of Apostolic Lutherans were certainly conservative and hierarchical: according to the decisions of the 1908 conventions, prohibition and loyalty to the government were supported, while theatre, dancing, life insurance companies, and labour unions were condemned. Even though Apostolic Lutherans belonged to the working class, they mostly shared the same social and political values as other Church Finns but not the same ecclesiastical doctrine. Furthermore, they used the Finnish language in services for decades.8

The labour movement achieved popularity in Finland at the end of the nineteenth century, both in the cities and in the rural areas. Even if not all its members adhered to a purely socialist ideology, they did at least believe in values such as equality and freedom, which were attractive to young, landless, and poor Finns. Thousands of them migrated to America with high hopes of a decent life with adequate earnings, equality, and justice, but they were disappointed; in reality, their status as unskilled workers was low, both in places of employment and in society. They joined labour movements and formed the rank and file of the radical American trade union and labour parties, and some of them rose to leading positions in these organisations. The Red Finns were radical reformers who wanted to restructure working conditions and political rights; they sought to shake off the old order, patterns, and attitudes in their new homeland. They felt they had a right and a duty to participate in civic activities and promulgate socialist ideas (Kostiainen 1978, 26–37).

Socialist activity was effectively and rationally organised. Finnish- American socialists had their own party with an official platform, district organisations, hundreds of workers’ associations, educational organisations for children and youths, a party organ, several local newspapers, and dozens of agitators to ensure the socialist message reached poor and working-class Finnish Americans. Union and party agitators were educated at the Work People’s College. The Finnish-American labour movement was part of the Socialist Party of America and aligned with radical trade unions that regarded immigrants as equal members of society (Kostiainen 1978; Goings 2011).

Suomi hall culture was an essential part of the Finnish-American labour movement. The halls were representational spaces designed and intended to be places for socialist but also ethnic activities. The idea was brought over from Finland, and it carried on conventions, activities, and political ideas of the Finnish labour movement and youth organisations in the new homeland. Most of the Suomi halls were places where the Red Finns used to spend leisure time, and they hosted all kinds of activities, for example, acting, singing, different kinds of studies, sport, and music. There were also libraries with Finnish novels and newspapers (Kero 1997).

Finnish-American communities were ethnically coherent but politically divided; immigrants of the first and second generation strongly maintained their Finnish cultural heritage, but they were sharply divided politically, with the religious and patriotic Church Finns on the one side and the socialist Red Finns on the other. An American-born Finn, Clemens Niemi (1921, 24) wrote in his thesis that the Finnish church—the Suomi Synod—was ‘a positive agency for Americanization’. According to Niemi (1921, 24–26), it brought together the native born and immigrants and provided contact with American ideals, customs, and ways of thinking, such as charity, fund raising, and celebrating important American days like Mother’s Day and Washington’s Birthday.

The Red Finns implemented American values in other ways: by defending workers’ rights and promoting socialism. They were even ready to take on the authorities, as happened in Hancock in 1906, making the Church Finns feel ashamed of their compatriots. The city council banned red flags after a Finnish workers’ rally, but the workers ignored the order and used the red flags again the following year. As a result, they were arrested and accused of violating flag regulations (Holmio 1967, 386–387). Six years later, a major split happened throughout the Finnish-American communities after the Copper Country strike in the Upper Peninsula. Finnish-American workers were already known for their union activities; many strikes in the Midwest, for example in Rockland in 1906 and in Mesabi in 1907, were run by Finnish leaders and strongly supported by Finnish-American workers. The Copper Country strike and the Italian Hall disaster became known nationwide (Lamppa 2004, 205–208; Lankton 2010, 191–206). Employees, authorities, and newspapers began to call Finnish-American socialists and unionists troublemakers and unpatriotic. The Reds were seen to contravene appropriate norms, values, and conventions by many Americans, including some Finnish Americans. These Finns set up Finnish Antisocialist Leagues as a counterweight to the socialist associations to prove their patriotism. Attitudes towards socialists hardened in the 1920s; the Church Finns generally referred to socialists as traitors, and Finnish-American newspapers reminded their readership that radicalism could result in deportation under the Immigration Act of 1922 (Kostiainen 1978, 62–64; Ainasoja 2006, 36–37, 45–47; Holmio1967, 403).

Helmi thus lived in a Finnish-American community in Vermilion that was split in two. According to Helmi, the schism reached every level of the community; it was felt ‘within Helmi’s family, among her friends, in the community, and in the co-operative movement’. Dramatically, the differing values also divided families—Helmi’s brother, Victor, joined the Communist Party in the end of 1920s (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 175). Later we shall see that the main arguments that separated the two sides mainly concerned politics, unions, and patriotism. Mayme’s community seemed to be more homogenous because it was surrounded by like-minded people who believed in the same ideas and ideology. Just like everywhere else, the Red Finns in Superior gathered in their Suomi hall to attend various political and cultural events. It was just down the block from Mayme’s home on Tower Avenue. She remembered how her parents on some evenings headed off to the hall and how she stood ‘watching them from the window as they walked down the street, holding hands, sometimes, as they set out for an evening together’ (Sevander and Hertzel [1992] 2004, 7, 14).

Finnish-American children were exposed to their ethnic culture and political heritage as far as they lived at home and participated in childhood communities. At the same time, however, they were surrounded by American society and culture. As the awareness of Americanisation increased, it also seemed to increase confusion among the immigrant children. Compared to their parents, the second-generation immigrants generally had a more difficult time in terms of decision-making and self-identification; as children, they lived in the middle of old and new, Finnish and American, past and future—they were raised and educated in both cultures and communities, and it was assumed they would grow up to become decent citizens. What it meant exactly depended on one’s perspective.