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Acknowledgments As a general note, this book comes out of thesis work done in the Industrial Archaeology program at Michigan Technological University. With the help of the original manuscript readers and the editors and staff at Michigan State University Press, I have hopefully made the contents more readable from the thesis work and more agreeable to book form. An undertaking such as this has a number of people and places that I must thank for their help in bringing this work to completion. First, and above all else, I would like to thank my family, Denina, Sofia, Niilo, Art, Edie, and Grandma Vienna, for their support and interest in this work and for keeping me grounded. I should also thank my four-legged kids (sled dogs) for letting me bounce many ideas off them when no one else wanted to listen (or perhaps when I was reluctant to talk with two-footers about my ideas). Thank you to Ruutu, V, Robi, Gretzky, Michi, Kivi, Kesä, Laikku, KaBluwie, Karhu, and Musta. Next, I would like to thank those individuals who helped me along in the research, writing, and editing process. Carol MacLennan, Larry Lankton, Kim π xi xii π Acknowledgments Hoagland, and Christa Walck provided great insight and helped to focus what could have easily been (and almost was) a never-ending thesis. I would also like to thank the entire faculty and staff of the Industrial Archaeology program at Michigan Technological University. I received an incredible education from them, and the lessons learned shape more clearly how I view my surroundings. I would especially like to thank Pat Martin for taking a chance on accepting a late application from Minnesota and thus letting me into the program. In the realm of translating selected works that proved too much for my limited abilities, I would like to thank Anna Leppänen, Jarno Heinilä, Tanja Aho, and Harry Siitonen. Their work was instrumental in getting a complete picture of the subject matter. I would like to thank Kent Randell for his work digitizing sections of the Finnish American Historical Archive’s oral history collection. Working with digital was so much better than analog. I would also like to thank Vern Simula for his early reads and enthusiasm on the topic. Institutionally, I would like to thank the Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections in the Garden Level of Michigan Technological University’s Library. Erik Nordberg, Julia Blair, Christine Holland, and their work-study students were always helpful and willing to assist even with the strangest of requests, namely, the “corduroy book.” I would like to thank the Immigration History Research Center on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Joel Wurl, Donna Gabaccia, Daniel Necas, and staff were instrumental in opening that great collection of Finnish American materials, both through their knowledge and in sponsoring the Michael G. Karni Research Grant (a memorial grant to the late, great Dr. Karni); my thanks go to Karen Karni, Dr. Karni’s wife, for her support of labor history as well. I will also take this chance to thank two history Profs at Minnesota State University-Mankato: my social-and labor-history professor at Minnesota State University-Mankato, Charles K. Piehl, and my history department advisor Erwin “Ernie” Grieshaber. They focused my interests, pushed my buttons, and opened my eyes. I would also like to thank the readers of the original manuscript (specifically for their insightful comments and thoughts) and Michigan State University Press. It has been a pleasure working with them, and it is wonderful to see their support of Upper Peninsula history. Acknowledgments π xiii Last, but in no way least, I would like to thank the Finnish immigrant working class, of which my grandfather, Neal, was a member. This book is dedicated to them. Their history is remarkable; I only hope that I have fulfilled what I might term my responsibility to them by shedding light on the important contributions they made to the history of Michigan and America. ...

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