Immigration is motivated by a variety of factors that range from the personal to the
political to the economic. Immigrants to a new nation often seek out others with a
similar culture or language in an attempt to maintain a sense of community and identity,
often rejoining friends or family who immigrated before them. This “chain migration”
characterized Nordic immigration to America, with the height of Swedish and Norwegian
immigration tapering off in the mid 1800s while Finnish immigration was still gaining
momentum. The town of Oulu, WI, maintains an evident pride in their Finnish heritage
over 100 years after its founding, offering an important case study in how Finnish
immigrants created community and adapted their language and identity to a new cultural
environment.
Language shift is the process by which speakers stop speaking one language and start
speaking another. Motivations for this process are not easily explained by sociolinguistic
categories such as ethnicity, gender, class, etc. or as drawn by areal lines (Salmons
2005). In this article, I offer a case study in support of theories of language shift
as
proposed by Frey; Lucht; Salmons (2002, 2005); and Wilkerson and Salmons that language
shift is ultimately driven by structural changes within regions, and
specifically the process of ‘verticalization,’ or shifts of social and economic control
from the local level to the state and national level.
A “region” is a socially constructed notion of space in which spaces that are relevant
to a
community shift over time (Salmons 2005). The theory of language shift adopted here
builds on notions of region as defined
by Paasi:
Regions and communities are spatially constituted social structures and centres of
collective consciousness and sociospatial identities.… [B]elonging to a locality or
community is mediated by affiliations with its more fundamental (face-to-face) structures:
kinship, friendship, neighborhood, which are constituted in various ‘larger scale’
institutional practices in which people are involved in their daily routines. (241)
Many of these daily, face-to-face interactions are encouraged by community institutions.
Oftentimes non-local, national structures do not inspire the same level of social
engagement as small-scale community institutions. Language usage is closely related
to these notions of local region and social structures, which means that shifts in
these regional structures often drive language change within these communities. American
communities have undergone drastic restructuring from local to non-local structures
since the mid-1800s. Warren describes this change as a shift from horizontal (local,
social) organizations to vertical ones (greater regional or national structures).
Theories of language shift as developed by Frey; Lucht; Salmons (2002, 2005); and
Wilkerson and Salmons apply Warren’s model of verticalization and restructuring of
communities to explain
patterns of language shift in minority language speaking communities across North
America. This article examines linguistic shift in the context of economic change
in the town of Oulu, showing how quantitative and qualitative evidence from census
data and local histories offer a systematic approach to analyzing linguistic and societal
change. This is a case study of one community that exists within a greater Finnish-American
linguistic and cultural network and whenever possible I nod to this broader context,
but more research is needed to give a more comprehensive analysis of language shift
in other Finnish-American communities.
The acts and policies that promoted Finnish immigration to Sweden and Norway in the
1600s and 1700s were slowly discontinued by the mid-to-late-19th century by the closing
of borders between Norway and Finland in 1852 and Sweden and Finland in 1889. Later
acts in Norway (1902) restricted land sales to those who spoke Norwegian at home as
a part of nationalization efforts. These restrictions on immigration to Norway and
Sweden prompted many Finns to immigrate to America instead, and even many Finns who
first immigrated to Sweden and Norway later immigrated to North America as a result
of recruiting by immigration agents, who marketed America as ripe with economic opportunities
in farming, mining, and lumbering. The first immigrants with Finnish heritage came
to the New Sweden colony in present-day Delaware in 1638, however the first major
wave of immigration from Finland did not come until the 1860s, with the creation of
permanent settlements by Finnish-speaking immigrants. This surge was prompted by a
labour shortage in the mines of the Upper Midwest caused by the American Civil War
(Kostiainen 29; Kaups 57). Many leaving Finland were farmers and labourers, and they
understandably continued
to work in these professions after their arrival in America. Over 300,000 Finns immigrated
to America between 1864 and 1920, with the greatest surge in the late 1890s and early
1900s (Knipping 10). This surge came as immigration from other European countries
was slowing down: the
height of Swedish and Norwegian immigration to America occurred over fifty years earlier
in the early-to-mid 1800s. Most early Finnish immigrants, especially those who arrived
in the 1900s, were single men. Over 60% of Finnish immigrant men were classified as
manual labourers (Knipping 12). Many came with the goal of using their experience
in agriculture and the lumber
industry to establish their own farms and work seasonally as loggers in winter. Many,
however, were forced to work as labourers in order to save enough money to purchase
a farm. Thus, many of these men were drawn to the iron and copper mines in Minnesota
and Michigan, though a number of them also worked in lumberyards and on railroads.
While many immigrant men went to work in manual labour, immigrant women from Finland
often worked on farms or as domestic labourers.
A combination of factors pushed many Finns to leave when they did, namely an immense
population boom in the second half of the 19th century that left little opportunity
to own land and created greater competition for jobs in the cities. Famine years in
the 1860s and problems with the sharecropping system further created food insecurity
and shortage. Social unrest between the Swedish-speaking elite and Finnish-speaking
peasantry, as well as political upheaval when Russia gained power and later the conscription
of Finnish men into the Russian army also pushed many Finns to immigrate. Some of
these early Finnish immigrants came from Norway after having left the northern provinces
of Finland to work as farmers and fishermen in northern Norway where they met with
harsh conditions and little success. Such hardships made Finns singularly receptive
to the promises and solicitations of American mining company scouts.
Push factors combined with factors pulling immigrants to America such as rumours of
economic opportunity, the perceived egalitarian structure of American society, and
the more liberal political scene in the United States. All of these elements motivated
many to cross the Atlantic and seek a new life in North America. The majority of these
emigrants came from Ostrobothnia and the Northern Ostrobothnia areas in western Finland;
over sixty percent of all emigrants who left the country between 1893 and 1920 came
from the provinces of Vaasa and Oulu (Hoglund 23). Finns often emigrated to places
where their friends and family had already settled
or where they had heard of a strong Finnish presence. This allowed for the continuance
of some Finnish traditions while other traditions were adapted to suit their new environment.
The majority of Finnish immigrants came to America after much of the frontier land
made available under the Homestead Act of 1862 had already been settled. Some Finns
were able to purchase land that remained in the cutover north woods region of northern
Wisconsin. This land was often undesirable and difficult to farm because it lacked
the substantive topsoil needed for profitable farming and because it was often littered
with stumps that needed to be removed before ploughing was possible. Other Finns went
to work in mining and lumber with the ultimate goal of purchasing a piece of land
to call their own. Many of the earliest “Finntowns” in Minnesota and Michigan got
their start in the 1860s when Finns began permanent
settlements. Chain migration then brought friends, relatives, and neighbours of the
early settlers to these “Finntowns.” Wisconsin’s limited mining meant that it did
not attract as many Finnish immigrants
as Michigan and Minnesota, though many Finns did work in Wisconsin quarries and settled
in the very northern counties of the state. Douglas, Iron, and Bayfield counties,
for example, accounted for more than one half of Wisconsin’s total Finnish population
after 1910 (Knipping 12).
Oulu, WI, is located within Bayfield county, which has the 4th-highest population
with Finnish ancestry in the state of Wisconsin according to the 1990 Census, with
5.99% of the population claiming Finnish ancestry (Zaniewski and Rosen 130). The
chart below details the population growth of Bayfield county from 1900-1940
and identifies what percentage were foreign-born Finns.
| |
1900 |
1910 |
1920 |
1930 |
1940 |
| Foreign-Born Finns in Bayfield County |
222 |
610 |
707 |
611 |
514 |
| Total Population of County |
14,392 |
15,987 |
17,201 |
15,006 |
15,827 |
| Percentage Foreign-Born Finns |
1.5% |
3.8% |
4.1% |
4.0% |
3.2% |
Table 1: Foreign-Born Finns in Bayfield County, (Kolehmainen and Hill 154)
These numbers show that a sizeable portion of the population claimed Finnish heritage
and further that the number of Finnish immigrants to Bayfield county grew from 1900-1920.
This greater trend throughout the county puts the history and language situation of
Oulu, WI, in context, revealing that the Finnish population of Oulu was part of a
larger population of Finnish speakers, with new immigrants continuing to arrive throughout
the early 20th century. Finns in this county were only a small part of the greater
Finnish-American community across the Upper Midwest that extended into northern Minnesota
and Michigan.
The town of Oulu, WI, is both typical and atypical of other Finnish settlements in
terms of its population and institutions; it has maintained a degree of language preservation
in line with other Finnish settlements, but notable in comparison to other Scandinavian
immigrant groups. Finnish in-migration to Oulu began with the filing of the first
homestead in 1889. Homesteaders worked the land continuously as more settlers came
to join until Oulu became its own township in 1904 (Krueger 2004, vi). Most Finnish
immigrants to Oulu and to other Upper-Midwestern towns came from North
Ostrobothnia, South Ostrobothnia, and from the regions in the southwest around Turku.
Oulu, WI, was typical of many Finnish-American settlements with a strong tradition
of agriculture, a namesake from the country of origin, and home to a co-op, Finn Hall,
and Lutheran church.
Finns organized numerous cultural activities and societies upon their arrival in America.
Some of these organizations became increasingly more American over the course of the
20th century, they continuously fostered a sense of community. The first Finnish ethnic
organizations were temperance groups who built halls as meeting places starting in
the 1880s (Kostiainen 173). While these halls were founded to promote temperance
ideals and curtail alcohol
consumption, they also served as gathering places for dances and other meetings. These
halls were widely appealing because both church Finns and red Finns supported temperance
ideals. Red Finns were supporters of the Social Democratic Party and many did not
agree with the religious practices and values of the church Finns. These halls therefore
became spaces of shared values and heritage, a function unobtainable in some Finnish-American
churches. Many Finnish-American temperance societies organized a wide array of cultural
activities including gymnastics clubs, musical bands, and choral groups to promote
their ideals (Kostiainen 173). These halls proved important for helping Finns to
socialize into their new country
and some of the social organizations continued even after prohibition had been repealed
in the 1930s (Kostiainen 91). Finns in Oulu, WI, also held such dances, where local
residents report frequenting
the nearby Finn Hall in Iron River during the early 1900s until it was discontinued
in 1955.
The key aspect in which Oulu differed from other Finn settlements was its geography.
The community of Oulu is and was in Wisconsin rather than in Minnesota or Michigan,
where most Finnish settlements were. As already noted, Wisconsin had fewer mines than
the iron and copper country of Michigan, which made the primary occupations farming
and logging. Many Oulu residents became intimately familiar with Superior and Duluth,
in later years even travelling there for work, thus asserting the community’s connection
to the broader Finnish-American network. Finnish-language newspapers also circulated
in the area. One prominent example is the publication Pelto ja koti, which ran from 1912-1921 and was issued by the Työmies Publishing Company. Pelto ja koti was considered the “best known and largest paper especially for Finnish American
farmers and the cooperative
movement” (Hoerder and Harzig 224). In addition to its regular newspaper from 1904-1950,
the Työmies publishing company
also issued several annual magazines, first from Hancock, Michigan, from 1904-1914,
and later from Superior, Wisconsin. The paper combined with the east coast Eteenpäin in 1950 to create the Työmies-Eteenpäin, which ran through to the 1990s. Notable publications include Amerikan Matti (running from about 1909-1917) and Lapatossu (1911-1921), both radical and humorous magazines. Given this circulation and traffic,
the language situation in Oulu is one small part of a larger Upper-Midwestern picture,
where varying degrees of Finnish may have been used in these urban centres and influenced
language usage in Oulu. The Finnish-American community and Oulu specifically exemplify
the “doctrine of first effective settlement,” which states that if a group of people
settle an area in sufficient numbers and establish
successful community institutions, then they are able to not only sustain their own
culture but also absorb newcomers into the cultural community (Zelinsky 13, 76).
The farming town of Oulu would continue to grow, but Oulu’s population size would
always pale in comparison to the populations of notable Finnish settlements in Michigan
and Minnesota like Hancock, Cokato, and Calumet. Many Finnish settlements in Minnesota
and Michigan got their start in the 1860s around mining centres and drew far greater
numbers of people than the logged-over farmland of Oulu, WI, ever would. At its height
in 1920 Oulu had only 1,077 residents, barely half the population of many other Finnish-American
settlements of the time (Krueger 2004, 7). While Oulu, WI, had a smaller population
than many other Finnish settlements, this
is hardly surprising given its rural location compared to the hubs of industry in
Wisconsin’s border states. Despite its smaller size, Oulu had an extraordinarily high
percentage of Finnish-born-and-descended residents, which made it an overwhelmingly
Finnish community even in comparison to these larger settlements. Though its population
was small, the social institutions and language practices in Oulu, WI, were similar
to those of other Finnish-American communities across the Upper Midwest.
Given this background on Finnish immigration and where Oulu, WI, falls in this broader
narrative, I now turn to an analysis of census data and the quantitative evidence
it adds to this examination of language and community shift. In the following section,
I examine census data from 1910 and 1920 to give some basic evidence of linguistic
and economic change and what it reveals about language usage in Oulu. I also discuss
various limitations of using census data and how they impact the given analyses.
The 1910 and 1920 Censuses both asked questions that yield limited insights into life
and language usage in Wisconsin. The 1910 Census asked each person within a household
ten years of age and older if they could speak English and if not, what language was
spoken. This gives information only about monolingualism in non-English languages:
only those who could not speak English were asked what other languages they could
speak. The 1920 Census asked everyone in a household over the age of ten if they could
speak English (yes or no) and, of those who had immigrated to America, what their
mother tongue was. This question tells about the language knowledge of immigrants
to America, but it does not directly answer what languages those born in America might
know other than English. I draw on this quantitative data collected in these censuses
to examine language usage in Oulu, Wisconsin.
In the 1910 Census, information on the 621 residents in Oulu, WI, reveal that 169
were monolingual Finnish speakers (27.2%). Five of those 169 monolinguals were born
in America. Because Finns did not begin immigrating to Wisconsin in significant numbers
until the late 1880s, the 1910 Census data may not capture a significant portion of
second generation Finns who were born in America. In the 1920 Census, information
on 1,077 residents reveal that 344 reported Finnish as their mother tongue (31.9%),
none of whom were American born. Twenty-nine reported Swedish as their mother tongue
(2.7%), with seven of these Swedish speakers from Finland. This data is displayed
in table 2.
| |
1900 |
1920 |
| # of residents |
621 |
1077 |
| # of foreign-born Finns |
164 |
344 |
| Percentage of population that were foreign-born Finns |
26.4% |
31.9% |
| Percentage of foreign-born Finns that were monolingual Finnish speakers |
27.2% |
48.9% |
Table 2: Oulu Census Data
Between 1910-1920, 36 individuals immigrated to Oulu from abroad, 31 of them from
Finland. Thus, in the 1920 Census data, only 1% of participants with Finnish as their
mother tongue were newer immigrants from after 1910. From the 1920 data, of the total
number of Finns who immigrated, 31 individuals immigrated after 1910 and 20 of the
31 reported not being able to speak English. Thus, in the 1920 Census, 5.8% (20/344)
of foreign-born Finns were late immigrants who came post-1910 and could not speak
English at the time of the census collection. This means that according to the 1920
Census, 43% of foreign-born Finns in Oulu could not speak English even after having
lived in America for at least ten years. The fact that nearly half of immigrants from
abroad reported not being able to speak English after living there over a decade reveals
that knowing English was by no means a necessity for survival in this community in
the early 1900s, and it further suggests a high rate of bilingualism amongst the second
generation (United States Census, 1910; United States Census, 1920).
Oulu’s economy was similar to many new townships in this region in that it was based
on agriculture and the lumber industry, with co-op stores later established to promote
local business. According to the Census, the three most common occupations in Oulu
in the early 1900s were farming, labouring, and “none.” It is important to note that
many of those reporting “none” were women who ran the household and often performed
a significant portion of the
farm work. While six participants in 1920 identified “housework” as their occupation,
it is likely many of these homemakers still reported “none” as an occupation, where
“none” was indicated as an occupation for children as well. While there was a wider
array
of occupations reported in the 1920 Census (about 32 as opposed to 20 in 1910), the
same trends persisted: the greatest number of persons reported no occupation, followed
by farming, and then some sort of labouring (whether farm labouring or standard labouring)
with a significant increase in reports of “farmlabourer” as an occupation between
1910 and 1920. Table 3 lists the most common occupations
in Oulu and what percentage of those who claimed that occupation were monolingual
Finnish speakers.
| |
1900 |
1920 |
| Farmer |
112 |
56.3% |
183 |
29.5% |
| Farmlabourer |
5 |
40% |
131 |
4.5% |
| Labourer |
78 |
38.4% |
11 |
27.3% |
| None |
396 |
17.6% |
691 |
14.7% |
| Total # of Residents |
621 |
1077 |
Table 3: Most common occupations in Oulu as reported in census data
# all persons | percentage of occupation that were monolingual Finnish speakers
A significant portion of the Finnish immigrants in Oulu were farmers. 56.3% of farmers
in 1910 were monolingual Finnish speakers, and 29.5% of farmers in 1920 were monolingual
Finnish speakers. Many Finns also worked as labourers: Finnish speakers accounted
for 38.4% of labourers in 1910 and 27.3% of labourers in 1920. This is not unexpected,
as most Finns who immigrated at the turn of the 20th century were unskilled workers
who had the goal of purchasing their own land to farm and either began farming upon
their arrival or laboured in lumberyards or mines. Interestingly, the 1920 Census
reveals that a plumber, sawyer, and waitress were reported as Finnish speakers and
unable to speak English. This indicates that not only were the more isolated farmers
using Finnish but that some tradesmen and those in the service and lumber industries
were also able to work in the community without knowledge of English. The fact that
there were monolingual speakers of Finnish and English in Oulu suggests there were
many bilingual speakers of both English and Finnish who communicated between the groups,
especially since some of these monolingual Finnish speakers worked in occupations
that required frequent communication with customers (United States Census, 1910;
United States Census, 1920). Similar findings of monolingual German workers in service
industries have been discovered
for German speaking communities in southern Wisconsin (Wilkerson and Salmons).
Co-operative stores were championed by Scandinavian Americans throughout the late
19th and early 20th centuries, appealing to farmers as a way to avoid the price gouging
that often happened at the hands of distributors and retailers. Finnish socialists
were greater champions for co-ops than any other group, though they did not hold a
monopoly over them (Dregni 152). Finnish immigrants set up the Co-operative Central
Exchange in Superior, Wisconsin,
in the 1910s in an effort to extend the buying power to all co-ops in the area. There
was disagreement in management of the exchange, with socialists ultimately retaining
control. Some socialists saw the co-ops as serving the community rather than a political
agenda, which led to both the opening of the exchange to more outsiders and to a decrease
in the use of the Finnish language in the larger branches (Dregni 152). As early
as 1930 the Cooperative Central Exchange hired its first non-Finnish speaking
fieldman, who emphasized that the cooperatives could not continue to grow unless they
adopted English as the primary language of the stores (Alanen 121). Finns were stronger
champions of co-ops than other Scandinavian-American groups,
likely because they provided food to workers during strikes and because they kept
prices reasonably low in the rural areas where most Finnish settlements were.
The number of Co-op stores in the cutover and throughout Wisconsin grew rapidly between
1910 and 1930 (Gough 85). Co-op stores served an important role for Oulu’s economy.
The Oulu Cooperative opened
in 1916, and some locals reported that Finnish speakers were available to serve customers
all the way until its closing (Krueger 2004, 20). The Oulu Cooperative Creamery was
organized in 1910, closed in the 1920s, and reopened
in Iron River in 1923 as the Iron River Creamery before merging in 1949 with another
creamery, which indicates that by the 1950s milk from Oulu was being shipped out of
the community (Krueger 2004, 21). Locals report that the Iron River Co-op had Finnish-speaking
employees through the
1950s, a further suggestion that English was not necessary to all business exchanges
in and around Oulu. Another business important to the local economy was Oscar Lehto’s
Corner Store, which operated through the late 1960s. “Along with providing gas and
food supplies, it was a popular location for catching
the bus to school athletic events” (Krueger 2004, 21). Such sentiments reveal how
integral to the community these stores were, not merely
as spaces for trade but as gathering places as well. Further discussion on economic
shift in the cutover region is addressed later in the discussion on verticalization.
Using census data to make assumptions about the picture of language use in a community
has its limitations, as indicated in Wilkerson and Salmons. First, those who reported
a knowledge of English did not necessarily have an advanced competency. The question
asked in the 1910 Census, Question 17, was “Can the person speak English? If not,
what language does the person speak?” Such a question leaves a lot of room for interpretation,
and those who had any understanding
or ability in English likely reported that they did indeed speak English, given some
of the nativist stigma at the time. Without any more specific criteria, census takers
likely took a person’s self-reported language skills at face value. This phrasing
makes it likely that rates of monolingualism in a non-English language were underreported
since any level of ability in English, even only knowledge of a few phrases, might
have been considered “ability to speak English.” This underreporting of Old World
languages other than English was gradually reversed
in more recent census findings as people began to over-report their competence in
a native language as ethnicity came to be considered more fashionable and less threatening
(Fishman). Thus, in some ways, the census questions can be a better gauge of a community’s
feelings about their heritage language rather than an accurate reflection on their
language usage.
In the 1920 Census, Question 20 asked for the “Person’s mother tongue” and question
25 asked “Can the person speak English?” While these questions offer a more complete
language assessment than the questions
on the 1910 Census, there are failings with these phrasings as well. Firstly, question
20 was only asked of those who immigrated to the United States. Many immigrant families
reported at least one monolingual Finnish parent, making it likely that the language
of the home was Finnish, and making it quite possible that the children’s mother tongue
was in fact Finnish as well, though they were born in the United States. Second, the
1920 Census has the same issue as the 1910 Census: there is no clear criteria for
ability to “speak English.” Because Question 25 was answered with a simple “yes” or
“no,” the ability to say even a few phrases in English might have warranted a “yes,”
even if the person did not have an advanced command of the language. Many immigrants
likely knew enough English to get by with work or when visiting town but otherwise
had limited ability.
Interestingly, the phrasing of questions 20 and 25 on the 1920 Census reveals much
about bilingualism in the community. Question 25 was only asked of persons over the
age of 10. The fact that this was the criterion—rather than whether or not the person
was born in America—reveals that there was a need to assess if children of immigrants
were learning English. All of these children reported “yes,” but it is quite possible
that those children under the age of 10 who had not yet
started school may not have had knowledge of English. While many nuances of language
usage may not be captured in these census questions, the data still reveals a slowness
to learn English among some immigrants from Finland and suggests a strong tradition
of bilingualism in the community.
The data on language usage in Oulu and a slowness to learn English correlates with
records of Finnish communities in Minnesota and Michigan as well. The Finnish communities
in Minnesota and Michigan were generally much larger than Oulu, WI, as many were centred
around mines. One would thus expect an even greater degree of language preservation
because of a higher concentration of Finns. A study showed that Finnish miners in
Minnesota and Michigan became bilingual more slowly than other groups, with 64.2%
of Finnish immigrants in copper and iron mining communities in both Michigan and Minnesota
becoming bilingual after five to nine years (Loukinen 169). This is similar to data
for Oulu, where about 43% of Finnish immigrants remained
monolingual as many as ten years after immigration, meaning about 57% became bilingual.
Many consider the adoption of English loanwords into Finnish phonology not to be proper
Finnish, but rather a mix between Finnish and English, or “Finglish.” This use of
loanwords and code-switching amongst bilingual speakers is typical in
communities experiencing language shift. These processes do not make the Finnish or
English any less “correct” like the term “Finglish” sometimes implies, but discussion
of these nuances in terminology is outside the
scope of this article. Here, I consider speakers of Finnish with English loanwords
to be Finnish speakers.
Many communities maintained Finnish language ability in as many as fourth-generation
Finnish Americans, as Larmouth observed in interviews he conducted from 1966 to 1971
in rural Minnesota (356). This trend differs drastically from other Scandinavian-American
communities. Many
Swedish- and Norwegian-American children had some knowledge of the language of their
parents, but parents often promoted speaking English, even when they themselves did
not speak it well, which led some children to “scorn their parents … because something
old country is always attached to them” (Ager 62). Children raised to believe English
is a superior language may have difficulty valuing
the immigrant heritage of their parents. Much of this difference between Finnish and
other Scandinavian communities can be attributed to the fact that Finns tended to
settle in rural communities with other Finns and therefore felt less social pressure
to learn English. English was also structurally quite different from what they were
familiar with. Finnish, a language of the Finno-Ugric language family, is completely
unrelated to English and other Indo-European languages. Many Swedes and Norwegians
settled in what would become major towns and had greater need to learn English for
trade. English, like Swedish and Norwegian, is a Germanic, Indo-European language
and relatively closely related to the Scandinavian languages. Finnish settlements
tended to have close ties between urban and rural centres, evidenced by the travelling
of many Oulu residents to Duluth and Superior for work (Wargelin). While rural locales
can maintain heritage languages by avoiding the influence of
vertical institutions, they may also quicken their loss: smaller populations make
it more difficult to support organized language maintenance programs or even church
services in the minority language, while urban centres with larger concentrations
of minority language speakers may be able to sustain them longer when more resources
are available. Future study comparing language shift and Finnish usage in urban centres
of high Finnish concentration such as Duluth, MN, and Hancock, MI, to the more rural
locales explored here is vital for understanding both how these regional networks
have shifted over time and whether urban centres can indeed offer more resources for
the preservation of minority languages.
Many communities in northern Minnesota and Michigan were similar to Oulu in how they
maintained their Finnish culture and language and raised their children to be bilingual,
but already in 1918 a “Speak English Movement” started in some of these rural communities.
The “Speak English Movement” discouraged the use of Finnish in the interest of making
immigrant families “100% American” (Loukinen 171). Even Finnish-language newspapers
such as Koti-Home promoted the use of English by publishing articles in both Finnish and English; a
1922 note from the editor described the popular magazine as a tool in “educational
Americanization work” (“Ystävillemme” 1). This signalled the start of a gradual shift
from using Finnish to using English,
and by the 1940s some rural communities had difficulty finding Finnish-speaking pastors.
The number of people across the U.S. claiming Finnish-language ability declined by
52% between 1940-1960, according to U.S. Census of Population data (Loukinen 172).
Oulu experienced a similar shift. Services at the Oulu Evangelical Lutheran church
were more likely to be in Finnish than English until the 1950s and examination of
church records reveals mixing between English and Finnish in notes already in the
1930s, which suggests a tradition of bilingualism prior to church services switching
to English (Krueger 2004, 3).
The similarities in language shift in rural small towns across the Upper Midwest raises
the question of whether this phenomenon is the same in communities across America
or if there is a specifically Upper-Midwestern force at work. Jim Leary has argued
that the Upper Midwest is a region with its own brands of hybridization in folk music,
as seen with the Goose Island Ramblers (2006). He asserts that the Upper Midwest
is home to many and diverse ethnic groups who
have coexisted and culturally blended for over two hundred years; census results from
1980 indicate that residents in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin were the only
states to have over 90 percent of residents indicate a nationality other than “American”
(Leary 11). The strong pride in immigrant and Native heritage demonstrated in those
responses
is indicative of the language preservation seen through communities in the Upper Midwest.
It also suggests that the Upper Midwest may have different degrees of language preservation
when compared to the rest of the nation. While this question of the uniqueness of
language shift in the Upper Midwest cannot be definitively answered by this case study,
it is a question worth further consideration.
A strong tradition of Finnish usage persisted in Oulu through the 20th century as
evidenced by local histories and accounts by local residents, though an examination
of census data indicates a slight decline in monolingual Finnish speakers between
1910 and 1920. These shifts in favour of learning and using English can be considered
one part of a larger societal shift occurring across America, termed verticalization,
in which local groups were integrated with those outside of the community and thus
experienced a corresponding decline in the “cohesion and autonomy” of the local community
(Warren 52). More recent scholarship has used this model in conjunction with sociolinguistic
theories to explain language shift in German-speaking communities in Wisconsin (Frey;
Lucht; Salmons 2002, 2005; Wilkerson and Salmons) and Cherokee-speaking communities
in North Carolina (Frey). These communities did not exist in isolation from neighbouring
towns and villages
but maintained interaction with other local groups. Verticalization refers to the
pressures in the management of schools, post offices, and stores that came with the
focusing of power and authority in state and federal governments rather than local
ones. Other models of language shift that focus on ideas of language prestige are
difficult to trace through any systematic means. Examining evidence of verticalization
through both language usage in census data and evidence of the reorientation of the
local community to extra-community networks of business and trade yields tangible,
quantifiable measures that enable researchers to trace a timeline of language change
within a community, including intermediary steps like a growth of bilingualism.
The timeline of verticalization in Oulu in many ways reflects economic shifts in the
broader cutover region of northern Wisconsin, as outlined by Gough. The cutover region
drew many farmers in 1900 who wanted to continue the tradition of yeoman farming that
had been established in the rest of the state. Yeoman farming is a system in which
a family was economically independent, owning and working their own land and exchanging
work with neighbours (Gough 2-5). However, many farmers and experts did not fully
understand the conditions in the
cutover, a region where “native peoples [had been] pushed aside [and the] land cutover
by commercial timber
harvesting … an infrastructure developed for resource extraction, not agriculture”
(Gough 5). Many settlers moved to the region and experienced partial success from
1900-1920,
the very same period in which Oulu’s population was growing and the decades in which
it reached its height. These farmers’ successes were largely due to the system of
depending on the family for labour while also exchanging work with neighbours. This
further helped to foster social cohesion and the development of community institutions
such as co-op stores and churches (Gough 5). Today some residents still speak longingly
of the sense of togetherness that was
held “in the old days” even as late as the 1970s.
The agricultural depression of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s took
a toll on the region and both public officials and agricultural experts “were concerned
with the high rates of public assistance and municipal fiscal insolvency
which characterized the region by the end of the 1930s” (Gough 6). As a result, policies
were implemented in the 1930s in an effort to promote reforestation
and tourism and to encourage the relocation of failing farmers. Many experts believed
that these policies would “improve the physical environment of the region, and protect
economically all of the
residents of Wisconsin” (Gough 6). As a result of these policies, outsiders considered
the region one where farming
should be discouraged, despite the decades of success in some communities. Gough thus
concludes that the decline in farming in the cutover region was not entirely due to
unfavourable environmental conditions but rather to public policies and limited resources
available to farmers, which made it more difficult for yeomen farming to thrive (Gough
231). The economic depression experienced in Oulu and the rest of the cutover region
in
the mid 1900s is one piece of a greater trend towards the reorientation of local communities
to state and national institutions, in this case as mandated by state policies. This
reorientation away from reliance on others in the community further promoted a shift
towards English in order to better communicate with those further and further outside
of the community.
Verticalization is also evidenced by the closing of numerous local co-operative stores
of Finnish-American origin across Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin between 1964
and 1973. Alanen notes that these closures were part of a greater trend: many similar
stores across the Upper Midwest that sold food, variety, and convenience merchandise
closed as well during this period (125). Alanen further notes that while many co-operatives
failed in the more urban centres
of the Upper Midwest, co-operatives in rural communities in the Western Great Lakes
Region were still thriving, perhaps due to “more social cohesiveness, less competition,
or a greater manifestation of cooperative
spirit” (127). These observations agree with general trends in the verticalization
of societies,
where rural areas take longer to integrate into the broader society. In Oulu, WI,
the local branch of the Iron River Co-op did not close until 1984, and the town’s
last store closed in 1991 (Krueger 2004, 20). The closing of these stores and the
growing numbers of people driving further away
for jobs are both parts of this greater, gradual shift away from being locally oriented
that started already in the late 1910s, but had gained momentum by the 1960s. This
is also seen in the closing of the local Finn Hall in 1955 and in the increase in
English usage during church services. At the turn of the 21st century, according to
the 2000 Census, only 30 residents out of Oulu’s 540 worked in the agriculture, forestry,
fishing, hunting, or mining industries, a steep decline from a century before and
further indication that people increasingly looked outside the community for employment
(Krueger 2004, 75). Rural, isolated communities such as Oulu took longer to integrate
into greater society
than others, both in terms English usage and in maintaining local institutions, and
residents can thus offer an important perspective on how language shift and verticalization
not only occurred together in this instance but are fundamentally tied together.
While verticalization contributed to shifts in favour of English usage, the Oulu community
has retained a strong pride in its Finnish heritage. The new Oulu Cultural and Heritage
Center opened in the summer of 2014 with the goals of “showcase[ing] and preserv[ing]
over a century of Oulu history” (http://www.ouluculturalcenter.org). The centre includes
several renovated structures from the area including two homes
of original settlers, a traditional Finnish savusauna “smoke sauna,” a chicken coop, a co-op building, and a one-room school house. The
centre’s meeting
place is housed in the renovated Pudas house, which served as a gathering place for
community and religious activities in the early 1900s before public buildings were
constructed (Krueger 2007). The centre hosts a weekly Finnish conversation table
and annual summer school day
camps for youth. The dedicated work of Oulu residents has created a space for community
members to gather and remember their history through the buildings that are currently
being renovated and preserved on the property.
A strong history of bilingual practices, evidenced by census data and church records,
have perhaps aided in the use of the Oulu’s Finnish heritage as a marker of its identity.
Finnish flags are still painted on the welcome signs to the community and plaques
reading sisu, a Finnish characteristic defined by William Holtz in Gathering the Family (1997) as “perseverance beyond reason,” are available for purchase in the community
centre’s gift shop (quoted in Lockwood 184). These bilingual practices were complemented
by a growing canon of local, Finnish-American
traditions such as the community’s Juhannus midsummer celebration held annually from
1976 until 1984 with live music and a traditional bonfire and which has been revived
in recent years (Krueger 2004, 64-7). The community also celebrated St. Urho’s Day
in the 1980s, a Finnish-American holiday
celebrated in the Upper Midwest—and other parts of North America—on March 16, the
day that the legendary St. Urho chased the grasshoppers out of Finland (Krueger 2004,
64-7). The town’s Finnish and Finnish-American traditions were also complemented by
more
typically American pastimes such as the establishment of a community baseball team
in the 1930s and a 4-H club organized in 1949 (Krueger 2004, 31-2). As verticalization
occurred and businesses gradually left the local area, the residents
of Oulu strove to maintain a sense of community rooted in their heritage, suggesting
that people consciously shape both their personal and community identity through choices
to perform their heritage through language, celebrations, and the creation of monuments
and museums.
These trends towards verticalization in Oulu as evidenced by linguistic and economic
shift are demonstrated both qualitatively by local histories and quantitatively by
census data. This article uses these approaches to systematically account for language
change as developed by other scholars in analyzing other heritage language-speaking
communities in Wisconsin (Frey; Lucht; Salmons 2002, 2005; and Wilkerson and Salmons).
Oulu, WI, offers a clear case study of how changes in language are driven by patterns
of verticalization and in an increasing departure from all things local in favour
of stores and institutions outside of the community. Verticalization in Oulu was partially
driven by economic depression throughout the cutover region of northern Wisconsin
in the mid 1900s and by subsequent state policies that discouraged farming in the
area. The process of shift from Finnish to English usage in Oulu has also occurred
in other rural and urban Finnish-American communities in the Upper Midwest. Further
research into these communities is needed to be able to compare timelines of shift
and to examine how differing socioeconomic and regional factors affect the process
of language shift.
Census data provides quantitative evidence of language usage in Oulu, WI, and indicates
the preservation of Finnish immigrants’ native language and suggests a high degree
of bilingualism within the community. This growth of bilingualism indicates the beginnings
of a shift in favour of English. This language shift and growth of bilingualism supported
a change in identity from Finnish to Finnish-American. Furthermore, this quantitative
data is corroborated by local histories and interviews with long-time residents of
the community discussing the creation and discontinuation of local stores and traditions.
A number of heritage speakers of Finnish in Oulu are still alive today, as is evident
pride in the town’s history and heritage. That Oulu still maintains this pride is
a testimony to the Finnish-American identity this community has created and continues
to perform despite the effects of verticalization on this community and others across
the Upper Midwest.