The Tender Shoots of Social Mobility

In studying social mobility, the horizontal aspect is perhaps even more interesting than the vertical. The graph of the occupations of the fathers of Vyborg Nation students (see Figure 8.1) and the later occupations of the students illustrate the expansion of the professions, the decline of the clergy, and the rise of the new middle class.

Economic and cultural capital gave families the chance to grasp the new opportunities offered by modernisation and the disintegration of traditional roles in the society of estates. Many members of elite families could secure themselves roles both in private business and public administration. The Alfthans, (Autio 2002)15 for example, were originally a family of clergymen. However, none of the family members in Vyborg entered the clergy after the eighteenth century. During the nineteenth century, they were active in many other administrative and economic duties. Obtaining professional training was considered important, as was studying abroad.

Figure 8.1 Vyborg Nation students (1833–1899, n = 918): occupation

The development of the professions determined much social stratification in the nineteenth century. Medical experts and foresters usually had their background in academic families, as did those who were later involved in commerce and banking. This fact further strengthens the picture of the importance of family background and networks. The decline of the clergy among the higher echelons of society was quite dramatic, however, and it reflects the socially progressive transition that was also taking place.

Marriage served as a means of securing one’s social standing; crossing the gentry seam was often accompanied by marriage into the gentry (Wirilander 1974, 234–247).16 For example, Salomon Lindh, the verger of Virolahti parish, must have been satisfied with the achievements of his sons: while one of them became a clergyman, the other qualified to become a doctor—and to top this all, both married into an aristocratic family (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852: Daniel Lindh; Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852: Anton Lindh). In fact, a successful marriage remained a precondition for a career in the administration for a quite long time. One of the first Vyborg Nation social climbers in the civil service was Gustaf Hellman. Marrying in 1883, he chose a spouse from outside the gentry. This tanner’s son later became the Director of Postal Services (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1853–1899).17

The data suggests that upwardly mobile, talented, young lower-class men were regarded as acceptable spouses; the number of unmarried students among the less well-off social groups (sixteen percent) was lower compared to students with a father in the clergy (thirty-three percent) or civil service (thirty-four percent). The number of bachelors among the latter two groups seems very high when early mortality is not excluded (1833–1852). On the other hand, this might simply reflect the isolation of higher social groups, as their members saw themselves as having fewer potential partners (Database18 on Vyborg Nation students 1833–1899).

The growing number of intermarriages between social classes is perhaps the clearest sign of the society’s increasing fluidity. As Kai Häggman (1994, 126–128) has shown, the rank order distinctions within the gentry began to vanish earlier than the actual seam between the gentry and the common folk. One of the first Vyborg Nation students to marry a farmer’s daughter was forester Magnus Forsstrom in 1866.19 However, the most socially distanced marriage in the studied material was probably that of Johan Sihvonen, a young clergyman, and Julia Gripenberg, the aristocratic daughter of a general, in the 1860s.20 Another interesting contemporary case is the marriage between Otto Blomgren, another young clergyman, and Hilma Rehbinder, who was a baron’s daughter.

Despite increasing social mobility, there were prejudices against lower-class students among those of a higher class during the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the 1880s, the rapid expansion of schooling led to a debate on whether there were now too many students, and what inflationary effect this was having on standards. Docent F. Elfving, who worked as a university teacher, wrote in 1885 (Ojala 1962, 366–367):

[W]e know all too well those young men with questionable talent and even more questionable tidiness, who are from uncultivated homes sent to study at university. After their studies they begin to talk about the ‘cause of the people’ as apostles of civilization in various parts of the country.

Elfving’s fear of lower class ‘apostles of civilization’ preaching Fennomania was not groundless since as many as half of the teachers that had been Vyborg Nation students came from a lower-class background. University Rector Th. Rein, too, had doubts about students from the lower classes. According to him, ‘many a young man whose natural talents would have made him an excellent shoemaker or tailor pushed his way into university to become a poor civil servant or scholar’. However, E.G. Palmen, who was Elfving’s colleague, replied that in his experience, the worst students actually came from higher-class families. To get into university, lower-class students had been already forced to show that they were both talented and studious (Ojala 1962, 366–367).

The intellectual capacity of individuals is one variable in social mobility that is greatly discussed and not readily apparent from student matriculation records, even if success at exams might provide some indication when tallied with later career paths. The most outstanding example of such success was perhaps the son of a vicar, C. I. Qvist, who later wrote his doctoral thesis on philosophy and then became one of the leading liberal journalists in Finland before embarking on a career in medicine (Ylioppilasmatrikkeli 1640–1852). However, there seems to be no significant correlation between the family background and the ‘quality’ of a student. Among the student cohort of 1833–1852, the average grade of those with a background in the gentry and those without was the same (18.1 votes). Furthermore, there was no difference in the number of early ‘drop-out’ students since students with a background in the gentry formed seventy-three percent of the total number of students and seventy-two percent of those whose studies came to an end prematurely (Database on Vyborg Nation students 1833–1899).