The Finland-Swedes are pre-Viking descendants who settled on the Åland Islands and the coastal margins of today’s Southern and Western Finland. They lived in Finland prior to the 1200s and were part of the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809. For the many thousands of Finland-Swede emigrants who found their way to North America in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the term “Finland-Swede” may not accurately identify the people described in this book. Today defined as natives of Finland with a Swedish mother tongue, this immigrant population involves many who left the Grand Duchy of Finland during the reign...

Similar to other ethnic groups who found North America to their liking, several waves of emigration affected Finland. The first major wave occurred between 1864 and 1913. The first Finnish emigrants to head to North America began from northern Norway in 1864, destined for the agricultural regions of Minnesota and the mines of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Prior to 1887, only 21,000 had arrived from Finland.¹ Between 1887 and 1892, some 40,000 immigrants arrived.² The strongest overseas emigration during the first wave occurred between 1893 and 1913, when over 260,000 Finns left the country, with most settling in the United States.³...

Some of the first people from Finland recorded in Michigan include Fredrick Randall and Fredrika Bremer. Randall was a forty-eight-year-old sailor who was enumerated in the 1850 U.S. Census in Huron County on the shores of Lake Huron.³¹ The first Finland-Swede to travel through Michigan also dates to 1850, when Fredrika Bremer visited North America between 1849 and 1851. As noted earlier, an exhibition hall was established in her honor by the American Swedish Heritage Museum located in Philadelphia. Her accounts of travels in which she mentions Lower Michigan were published in the two-volume work titledHemmen i den Nya...

Along with other ethnic groups that immigrated to America looking for a new life in the “Promised Land,” where opportunities for economic success were plentiful, many Finland-Swedes were often at a loss when their plans and hopes were dampened by harsh work conditions, illness, and untimely death. Although many immigrants brought little organizational pattern or background to combat these problems, they soon established several organizations that helped thousands of Finland-Swedes across the country. The first was Imatra, a benefit society, in 1889, followed by the temperance society Aavasaksa in 1892. Both were established in Worcester, Massachusetts. Interestingly, the first benefit...

Finland-Swedes are a small ethnolinguistic minority that deserves our attention. In Michigan many Swedish-speaking immigrants from Finland established their homes close to other Finnish immigrants, but some differences in distribution in the state exist. While Finns have remained dominant in Houghton and Keweenaw counties, Finland-Swedes have historically held more dominance in Dickinson and Delta counties. Concentrations in the Lower Peninsula, however, are not as well known or documented. A considerable concentration of Finland-Swedes was once found in areas such as Muskegon and Mason counties. Their work, community, and church activities were very similar to those of other groups. Some of...