Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the south, and North Dakota and South Dakota to the west. It is the 12th-largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd-most populous, with about 5.7 million residents. Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" and has 14,380 bodies of fresh water covering at least ten acres each. Roughly a third of the state is forested. Much of the remainder is prairie and farmland. More than 60% of Minnesotans, about 3.7 million, live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, known as the "Twin Cities", the state's main political, economic, and cultural hub and the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Other minor metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas include Duluth, Mankato, Moorhead, Rochester, and St. Cloud.
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population was 86,697 at the 2020 census, making it Minnesota's fifth-largest city. Duluth forms a metropolitan area with neighboring Superior, Wisconsin, called the Twin Ports. It is south of the Iron Range and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It is named after Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, the area's first known European explorer.
Hancock is a city in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population of Hancock was 4,501 at the 2020 census. The city is located within Houghton County, and is situated upon the Keweenaw Waterway, a channel of Lake Superior that cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula. Hancock is located across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, and is connected to that city by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge. The city is located within Michigan's Copper Country region.
Naselle is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pacific County, Washington, United States located about 23 miles (37 km) from the mouth of the Columbia River. The population was 421 at the 2020 census. The valley's Naselle River flows west into nearby Willapa Bay and then into the Pacific Ocean. Close about the town lie the evergreen-covered Willapa Hills. The river's name has been spelled Nasel and Nasal. An early settler along the river called it the Kenebec. The name comes from the Nisal Indians, a Chinookan tribe formerly residing on the river.
The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including Keweenaw County, Michigan, Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties as well as part of Marquette County. The area is so named as copper mining was prevalent there from 1845 until the late 1960s, with one mine continuing through 1995. In its heyday in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the area was the world's greatest producer of copper.
Juli Wood is a Finnish-American saxophonist, vocalist, composer, and band-leader from Chicago, who appears regularly in Chicago and Milwaukee area jazz clubs, on tours through the Midwest with the Juli Wood Quartet, and other groups she leads or is a part of. She plays soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone. Wood makes frequent appearances at Scandinavian jazz and blues festivals including Finland's Pori Jazz festival. Wood got her start in Milwaukee with the R&B Cadets, and gained further exposure with Paul Cebar & the Milwaukeeans—which also featured vocalists Robyn Pluer, and Paul Cebar—who toured between Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis.
Finnish Americans comprise Americans with ancestral roots in Finland, or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population is around 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Iron Range of northern Minnesota to work in the mining industry; much of the population in these regions is of Finnish descent.
Finlandia University was a private Lutheran university in Hancock, Michigan. It was the only private university in the Upper Peninsula. Founded in 1896 as The Suomi College and Theological Seminary, it was affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The university closed after the spring semester of 2023 due to enrollment and financial challenges.
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was a Lutheran church body which existed in the United States from 1890 until 1962.
Work People's College was a radical labor college established in Smithville (Duluth), then a suburb of Duluth, Minnesota, in 1907 by the Finnish Socialist Federation of the Socialist Party of America. School administrators and faculty were sympathetic to the syndicalist left wing of the Finnish labor movement and the institution came into the orbit of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1914-1915 factional battle that split the Finnish Federation. The school ceased operation in 1941.
Wilho F. Saari was a Finnish American player of the kantele, the Finnish psaltery. Kreeta Haapasalo, a well-known kantele player in Finland in the 19th century, was his great-great grandmother. His father, Wilho Sr., also performed the kantele in public, only in Washington, having brought a kantele with him to America in 1915.
Finnish studies is a research area which is part of humanities and social sciences, and usually studies Finnish language, Finnish culture and Finnish history.
Sports in Minnesota include professional teams in all major sports, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, especially in the Winter Olympics, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations and active amateur teams and individual sports. The State of Minnesota has a team in all five major professional leagues. Along with professional sports, there are numerous collegiate teams including the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and St. Thomas Tommies in NCAA Division I, as well as many others across the Minnesota public and private colleges and universities.
A Finntown is a quarter populated by Finnish American people in the cities and big villages of the United States. In the United States there were a dozen Finntowns. In the Finntowns were services for Finnish people, usually at least a co-op store, a church and a town hall. In the biggest Finntowns there were, for example, saunas, restaurants, hotels, shoemakers, tailors, barbers and record stores all serving in Finnish. The biggest communities of Finnish Americans were in Brooklyn, New York and in Harlem, in Hancock, Michigan, in Duluth, Minnesota, in Butte, Montana, in Astoria, Oregon, Chicago, Berkeley, California, Ashtabula, Ohio and Cleveland.
The Finnish Socialist Federation was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for socialism among their community.
Old Main, is a former educational building located on Quincy Street on the former Finlandia University campus in Hancock, Michigan. It was also known as the Suomi College Building. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1959 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
The Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs women's ice hockey team plays for the University of Minnesota Duluth at the AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minnesota. The team is a member of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the Division I tier. The Bulldogs have won five NCAA Championships.
For a number of decades after its establishment in August 1901, the Socialist Party of America produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in an array different languages. This list of the Non-English press of the Socialist Party of America provides basic information on each title, along with links to pages dealing with specific publications in greater depth.
Työmies was a politically radical Finnish-language newspaper published primarily out of Hancock, Michigan, and Superior, Wisconsin. Launched as a weekly in July 1903, the paper later went to daily frequency and was issued under its own name until its merger with the communist newspaper Eteenpäin (Forward) in 1950 to form Työmies-Eteenpäin.
Viola Irene Turpeinen was an American-Finnish polka accordion player. She was one of the most well-known Finnish-American musicians of her time, and is possibly the first woman in the world to record accordion solos.
