Paper Title
Finnish Miners versus Ivy League Capitalists
Location
Fisher 127
Event Website
http://www.finnforumx.com/
Start Date
12-4-2014 11:40 AM
End Date
12-4-2014 12:00 PM
Description
Finnish immigrants were recruited to work in the copper mines of Michigan by Boston capitalists intimately associated with Harvard. Boston capitalists defined the culture of capitalism in the United States. They extended their culture across the continent as they acquired mines and railroads. Finnish workers encountered Ivy League capitalism in Michigan, Minnesota, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Arizona—often with the same interrelated group of capitalists. The two groups continually met in explosive confrontations in Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Arizona. To the Ivy League capitalists, Finns were terrorists who threatened the American social order. For the Finns, it was a war for social justice. In my presentation, I will trace the experience of Finnish workers in corporations controlled by Ivy League capitalists from the first strike at Calumet & Hecla in 1873 to the Red Scare of 1919-1921.
Presenter Bio
With academic training in history and anthropology, Laitala has worked as a college teacher, oral historian, journalist and editor, and wrote Down from Basswood, a work of historical fiction. Currently she is researching New England's colonization of North America.
Finnish Miners versus Ivy League Capitalists
Fisher 127
Finnish immigrants were recruited to work in the copper mines of Michigan by Boston capitalists intimately associated with Harvard. Boston capitalists defined the culture of capitalism in the United States. They extended their culture across the continent as they acquired mines and railroads. Finnish workers encountered Ivy League capitalism in Michigan, Minnesota, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Arizona—often with the same interrelated group of capitalists. The two groups continually met in explosive confrontations in Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Arizona. To the Ivy League capitalists, Finns were terrorists who threatened the American social order. For the Finns, it was a war for social justice. In my presentation, I will trace the experience of Finnish workers in corporations controlled by Ivy League capitalists from the first strike at Calumet & Hecla in 1873 to the Red Scare of 1919-1921.
https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/copperstrikesymposium/Schedule/Saturday/20
