Finland-Swedes in Michigan

Immigration to the United States

3 ImmigrationtotheUnitedStates S imilar 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 Of this number, over 40,000 came from Swedish-speaking rural parishes in Finland (see map 1).4 The large influx of all immigrants was curtailed by the restrictive American quota laws passed in 1921 and 1924. In 1924 only 471 immigrants from Finland were allowed into the United States, while a year earlier some 12,000 were admitted.5 Still, this was the period of a second major wave of emigration from Finland that took place after World War I. Between 1920 and 1929, some 55,000 immigrants arrived in North America, but due to the changes in immigration laws, most settled in Canada. Up to 1930 some 400,000 emigrants left for North America. Of this total, some 320,000 settled in the United States, and 80,000 in Canada. Some have estimated that a third of all immigrants returned to Finland for good. Some 4 Mika R oinila scholars have calculated that by 1930 Finland-Swedes and their descendants accounted for 80,000–85,000 individuals, or about 20 percent of the total immigrant population on the continent, while others dispute these figures.6 Allowing for return migration and also for the deaths among Finland-Swedes for the whole period, there may have been about 35,000 of these immigrants in the United States and Canada in 1930.7 Identifying the number of Finland-Swedes in the United States has always been very difficult or impossible, because available census statistics simply do not isolate the mother tongue from the country of birth. Until recently, the only method of establishing numbers has been the painstaking, manual analysis of the original manuscripts tabulated by census enumerators. In the past, the way to get to such data—thousands of pages and millions of entries —was through microfilmed versions of the original manuscripts, which are available in libraries and state historical societies. Today, census tabulations are available online for anyone interested in researching material from the 1800s to 1930. Among the best-known online sources are Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest Online.8 Material obtained through these sources provides 100 percent coverage of all individuals encountered in the country, and, depending on the census year involved, it also provides various details on birthplace, age, marital status, ethnic ancestry, language spoken, occupation , and so on. In order to identify Finland-Swedes, it is possible to see birthplace (Finland) and language spoken (Swedish), which helps identify the number of Finland-Swedes who arrived from Finland. Of all the census years, the 1930 census provides the best data in identifying the number of Finland-Swedes in the country and in Michigan. However, a sampling of these census data is available today through Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) at the Minnesota Population Center. Through this source, it is possible to discover some of the complexities of linguistic abilities and the trends in the use of languages in the homes of all ethnic groups in the United States, including the Finland-Swedes.9 Unfortunately, a major restriction is that IPUMS uses a small data sample. The IPUMS-USA uses a 1 percent sample through a 1-in-100 national random sample of the population for the 1910–1970 census periods, while a 5 percent sample, or a 1-in-20 national random sample, of the population is used for 1980–2000 census counts. For this book, I will use data available from both Map 1. Distribution of FinlandSwedes in Finland, 2008. Source: http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Suomenruotsalaiset. 6 Mika R oinila the detailed manuscript records as well as the IPUMS-USA sources, hoping that the two methods will support each other in their findings. Because of the above data source, the total number of Finland-Swedes (born in Finland with Swedish mother tongue/language) in the United States, along with the proportion of Finland-Swedes...