Great programming at Lanesville Community Center  like this special event next week with a visiting scholar. You can help with research! Check your family libraries:

Cape Ann Finns:   A Literary History
Tuesday, July 23rd, 3-5:00 p.m.

Prof. Kirsti Salmi-Niklander of the University of Helsinki will lecture on newly-discovered materials in the rich Finnish-American literary history of Lanesville and Rockport, where Finn Halls and families shared books, newspapers, political broadsheets, poems, and songbooks in Finnish.    Salmi-Niklander’s research has uncovered the 1903-1925 issues of the hand-written newspaper Walotar, which would have been read aloud at meetings of the Salon Leimu Temperance Society in Rockport.   Also found are an 1899 children’s primary reader and other books reflecting both the immigrants’s strong ties to Finland and their evolving assimilation in America, including the development of “Finglish”, a unique blend of Finnish and English languages.   Prof. Salmi-Niklander would also be delighted to see other Finnish-American literature from Cape Ann, so if you have inherited some old books or newspapers and can find them in your attic or on your bookshelf, please bring these along to the lecture.  All to be enjoyed with the traditional afternoon coffee and Nisu.

Summer 2019