posal to be realized: in 1895 the Minneapolis Finnish Women's Club was organized, along the lines of a club organized the previous year in Calumet, Michigan, with an aim to acquaint women with good literature and to discuss literature in their club meetings. But the Minneapolis club also engaged in other activities, keeping a Sunday school for children, arranging meetings and program events open to the public, sponsoring lectures which were most frequently concerned with questions of morality, the responsibilities of motherhood, etc.

Later, in 1919, there was established another women's club, the "Fennia Club", originally for aiding the Red Cross but then gradually shifting to charity and social work. In the Fennia money has been raised through membership dues, with suppers and coffee parties, gifts, sale of Christmas cards - even with such events as sponsoring an exhibition race in 1925 between Paavo Nurmi and American track stars. Membership, numbering about 40, has been limited exclusively to women of Finnish origin or descent or to the wives of Finnish men. Hannah Södergren, Sophia Haddox, Esther Sarenpa (Saarenpää), Ellen Södergren, Effie Wuorie, Madie Hakarinen, Hulda Storm, Marie Hake, Lempi Lindquist and Signe Wuollet have served as chairmen of the club.

The temporary Temperance Society: Shortly after the Women's Club was formed, people remember vaguely "another Finnish society", presumably the Vesa Temperance Society founded then. It was at a time when Finns and alcohol did not agree with each other, and when Uusi Kotimaa could write as it did: "A certain Finn has the honor of being the first to be arrested for drunkenness on New Year's Day. When he came fact to face with Judge Coley on Monday morning he declared himself ready to vow that he would never again touch hard liquor if the court would forgive him this time. He was acquitted on this condition."

To prevent incidents of this sort, Finnish temperance societies were established everywhere where Finns lived in the United States. The Minneapolis Vesa Society, however, was unusual: after about six years of activity it ceased to function, but was revived again, only to find itself becoming the center of the local socialist movement. After a first, so-called "Speakers' Club" socialist organization, a Finnish Socialist Workers' Association was formed in 1903, to which the Vesa gave all its assets and in which the former Vesa members joined. Functioning first as a subsidiary of the local Minneapolis Socialist organization, in 1905 it became a member of the Finnish Socialist central body in America. Beginning with a membership of 27, it had 176 members in

121