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the Finland swedes  79 were married to a Swede or a Swedish American than to someone from their own ethnic group.129 Hopkins,west of Minneapolis,included twenty-five Finland Swedes—most residing on small truck farms. Some of the men began working at the Minneapolis Moline Power Implement Company’s factory in Hopkins during the 1930s.130 Duluth Northeastern Minnesota was the Finland Swedes’ primary domain, and Duluth was their midwestern Helsingfors . Duluth’s first pioneers settled by sawmills along the St. Louis River, including in their number Matt and Hannah Kynell, who arrived in 1882 from the lumber town of White Cloud, Michigan. Anticipating that Duluth would be a large city with urban comforts, Hannah Kynell was moved to tears when she instead saw wooden walkways and a crude waterfront.131 Only a few Finland Swedes resided in or maintained businesses and offices in downtown Duluth; one was attorney Charles Sawyer from the Åland Islands. A significant movement of Finland Swedes to West Duluth’s large Swedetown started during the early 1900s. Here, many men, Matt Kynell among them, became known as carpenters and building contractors, notably the three Jacobson brothers (Jacob, John, and Joseph), who formed a construction company that built many major structures throughout northeastern Minnesota. Finland Swedes, by 1904, were operating a pharmacy, two saloons, and a grocery store that,in 1907,became the largeWest Duluth Mercantile Company on Ramsey Street; nearby was the West Duluth Realty Company,also owned by Finland Swedes.132 By 1920, the number of Finland Swedes in Duluth reached 542, or 14 percent of the entire Finland-born population.Some still resided along GarfieldAvenue,close 80  people oF minnesota to the St.Louis River’s shipyards and sawmills,but the largest concentration remained in West Duluth, where they clustered along Wadena and Ramsey streets and an area between Forty-eighth and Fifty-third avenues west. (A number of these homes were later razed for freeway construction .) The 253 employed males included 140 laborers; eighty engaged in skilled trades; twenty-three as proprietors ,salesmen,supervisors,and professionals; and ten pursuing other occupations.133 Only twenty-six women, most of them unmarried, worked outside their homes in 1920: twelve laundresses, servants, and maids; six factory workers; five seamstresses and weavers; and three in professional and supervisory positions (a nurse, bank stenographer, and match factory inspector ). Although Finland Swedes were less likely to have boarders than their Finnish-speaking compatriots,Hannah Kynell operated a boardinghouse on Nicollet Street for several years. In 1900, her house had nine boarders as well as the family’s four children.After Matt Kynell’s 1909 death,his fifty-six-year-old widow continued to operate the boardinghouse , which accommodated eight boarders and three of heradultchildrenin1910.By1920,HannahKynellwasliving in her son’s home,along with a Norwegian daughter-in-law, four grandchildren,and two boarders.134 Iron Range When mining began in northeastern Minnesota,some Finland Swedes immediately made their way to the district; one, Gust Nyman, began working on the railroad between Two Harbors and the Vermilion Range in 1883–94 and was subsequently employed for almost forty years by the Oliver IronMiningCompany.LutheranclergymanCarlSilfversten observed, nonetheless, that Finland Swedes were not keen on pursuing a “life in the mines.” In fact, by 1920, only 442 immigrant Finland Swedes resided throughout the Iron ...

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