The Rise of Finnish-Language Popular Literacy Viewed through Correspondence to Newspapers 1856–70

Abstract

In the mid-19th century, a significant number of persons among the Finnish-speaking rural populace learned to read fluently and write for the first time. One of the first purposes to which Finnish-speakers could put their writing was letters to the press. This paper first provides a brief overview of how rural Finnish-speaking commoners acquired functional literacy. It then examines what letters to newspapers written by self-educated commoners reveal about writers’ motives, the uses to which writing could be put in mid- 19th century Finland, and the tensions which arose when newly literate commoners began to criticize their social superiors in the press and no longer needed their help in reading and writing.