Kent D Randell

Book Chapter in "Identity Palimpsests: Ethnic Archiving in the United States and Canada"

No Bottleneck Here: The Role of Physical and Cultural Place in Finnish American Archival Collections.

Although the Finns do not make up a large American ethnic group, there are two large repositories for Finnish American archival collections: the Finnish American Historical Archive and Museum (FAHAM), housed in the Finnish American Heritage Center at Finlandia University (formerly Suomi College) in Hancock, Michigan; and the Finnish collections at the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Additionally, there are Finnish holdings at a variety of other archives, including Northern Michigan University, the Bentley Historical Library, the Iron Range Research Center, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the National Archives.

The chapter compares the FAHAM and the IHRC, detailing their complementing strengths and weakness as different types of institutions (a private, religious university versus a state-run university), distinctive geographic locations (the centrally-located IHRC versus the remote FAHAM), and the role that having staff with Finnish language skills has assisted the FAHAM. The chapter also discusses the cooperative efforts that have recently taken place between the FAHAM and the IHRC, and the recent efforts that Finlandia University, which is no longer a seminary, to broaden its collection foci. Another element to consider is that some historical Finnish-American donors viewed themselves as ‘American,” not necessarily ‘Finnish-American.’