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 (
Finntown (Brooklyn)) and in Harlem, in
Hancock, Michigan
Hancock is a city in Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, Michigan, Houghton on the Keweenaw Peninsula. The population was 4,634 at the 2010 United ...
, in Duluth, Minnesota, in
Butte, Montana
Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the ...
, in
Astoria, Oregon
Astoria is a port city and the seat of Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1811, Astoria is the oldest city in the state and was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains. The county is the northwest corne ...
, Chicago, Berkeley, California,
Ashtabula, Ohio
Ashtabula ( ) is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States, and the center of the United States micropolitan area, Ashtabula micropolitan area. It is located at the mouth of the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie, nort ...
and Cleveland.
The Finntowns flourished until the 1950s, when they started to vanish. Nowadays the biggest Finnish-American community is in
Lake Worth and
Lantana
''Lantana'' () is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropical regions of the Americas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in ...
in Florida. There 18 000 Finnish residents, both old and new immigrants.
[Turun sanomat]
References
{{Reflist
Sources
*Pitkänen, Silja & Sutinen, Ville-Juhani: ''Amerikansuomalaisten tarina'', Tammi, 2014. ISBN 978-951-31-7568-9.
*Turun Sanomat, 5 April in 2006, https://www.ts.fi/teemat/1074112019
Finnish culture
Finnish diaspora
Finnish American
Finnish-American culture