Waino, Wisconsin
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Waino is an
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in the town of Brule, Douglas County,
Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
, United States.


History


Round Finn Hall

Waino's "Round Finn Hall" was a " Finn hall", a cultural center of
Finnish American Finnish Americans (, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots in Finland, or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population is around 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to ...
s. It was the site to a number of gatherings related to the American radical movement in the 1920s and 1930s.Reino Nikolai Hannula, ''An Album of Finnish Halls.'' San Luis Obispo, CA: Finn Heritage, 1991; pg. 76. The county seat of Douglas County,
Superior Superior may refer to: *Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind Places * Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state *Lak ...
, as well as the neighboring city of
Duluth, Minnesota Duluth ( ) is a Port, port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of St. Louis County, Minnesota, St. Louis County. Located on Lake Superior in Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, the city is a hub for cargo shipping. The population ...
, were in the early 20th century a regional center of industry, including timber production and shipping, ore docks, commercial shops, and railway yards.Carl Ross, ''The Finn Factor in American Labor, Culture and Society.'' New York Mills, MN: Parta Printers, 1977; pg. 170. The region was a center of Finnish-American immigration in America, with Superior additionally the home of ''
Työmies ''Työmies'' (The Worker) was a politically radical Finnish-language newspaper published primarily out of Hancock, Michigan, and Superior, Wisconsin. Launched as a weekly in July 1903, the paper later went to daily frequency and was issued und ...
'' (The Worker), an official publication first of the
Finnish Socialist Federation The Finnish Socialist Federation () was a language federation of the Socialist Party of America which united Finnish language-speaking immigrants in the United States in a national organization designed to conduct propaganda and education for social ...
and from 1922 of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. Waino and its Round Finn Hall made a close and comfortable location for gatherings of radical Finns in a rural setting. From 1925, and for several years thereafter, this was the site of the national summer school of the Communist Party's youth section, the Young Workers League. The Finnish
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...
movement, dominated in the 1920s and early 1930s by Communist Party adherents, also held a number of gatherings and festivals at the location.


Footnotes

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Douglas County, Wisconsin Unincorporated communities in Wisconsin Finnish-American culture in Wisconsin Finnish-American history