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of V. S. Alanne's work, Fundamentals o f Consumer Cooperation, a work sponsored by the Northern States Cooperative League. To the same category belong The Story of the Virginia Cooperative Society through 30 Years o f Progress, 1909-1939, and many others.
Finnish Population : A considerable number of Finns have lived outside the city proper, in the suburbs and elsewhere in Hennepin County. Recently, of course, many second and third generation Finns have favored the suburbs. (Hopkins, Osseo and Robbinsdale had Finnish aid committees, with their chairmen, respectively, being F. F. Sefcik, A. P. Hechtman and J. W. Roche. )
Statistically, there were 397 Finnish-born residents in the 228,340 population figure of Hennepin County in 1900. The peak number of Finns, 1,218, appeared in the 1930 census, when the county's population was 517,789. In 1950, when the county's population had increased to 676,579, the number of Finns had fallen to 847.
Ramsey County and St. Paul
East of Hennepin lies Ramsey County, with the state's capital, St. Paul, which is situated so close to Minneapolis that the two cities are often referred to as the "Twin Cities." After the Jesuit priest Father Lucien Caltier in 1641 built here his chapel dedicated to St. Paul, the village which grew up around it took the same name. During most of the 19th century the population of St. Paul was much greater than that of St. Anthony (which became Minneapolis), but in 1890 Minneapolis overtook the capital and has remained ahead. (In 1950, Minneapolis had 521,718 persons; St. Paul, 311,349.) As far as relative numbers of Finns in the two cities are concerned, the disparity has been even greater: very few Finns have ever lived in St. Paul. Of course, there were less opportunities, too, for it would have been difficult for nonEnglish speaking Finns to seek jobs anywhere but on the railroads or in -the factories in St. Paul. The first Finn is believed to have arrived in 1867, one A. E. Mellgren, whose son later owned the St. Paul Stamp Works, located on East Fifth Street.
A graphic picture of what life was like has been preserved in a letter one Finn, "V. S.", wrote on 5 February 1886, "on the St. Paul railroad" to his wife in Finland, which was published in 1946 in Finland in the Jouluviesti yli Atlannin : "I approach you here, dear wife, with a few scribblings and thousands of good wishes and greetings, and to let you know that I am well, which is the same I hope you are, and to let you know I am at work
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