Graduate Fellowship (Finnish American Studies Fund)

Above: 1910–1920s members of women’s and men’s athletic clubs, Virginia, Minnesota. From the Finnish American collection and included in the IHRC’s COLLAGE digital collection online.

The Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies Fund will provide financial support to graduate students engaged in studies in some area relating to Finnish American history and culture. Students pursuing research on some aspect of Finnish American history or relations between Finland and the United States are particularly encouraged to apply.

Generous gifts totaling $25,000 have established the fund. A total of $150,000 is needed to fully endow the Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies. As part of the IHRC’s endowment campaign, this graduate fellowship is eligible for a generous matching opportunity. Earnings from this investment are matchable on a 1:1 basis by the University of Minnesota Graduate School’s 21st Century Fund. The fellowship endowment is invested and administered by the University of Minnesota Foundation.

The Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies Fund is enabling the IHRC to raise public consciousness of Finnish American history, foster wider understanding of the contributions of Finnish immigrants to American life, and make a significant investment in future scholars of the Finnish experience in the United States.

About the Collection

The Finnish American Collection at the IHRC is internationally acclaimed and includes approximately 2,500 books and pamphlets, files of 240 newspapers and serials, and manuscript collections amounting to some 800 linear feet of documents. Subject strengths include Finnish temperance societies, labor and cooperative movements, political activity, local community life, and the church. Extensive runs of several Finnish American periodicals include Amerikan Uutiset (The American News), Cooperative Builder, Auttaja (The Helper), Raivaaja (The Pioneer), and Tyomies-Eteenpain (Worker-Forward). Many of the Center's newspaper files have been preserved on microfilm and are accessible through inter-library loan. Prominent manuscript collections include the records of the Central Cooperative Wholesale (Superior, WI), the Tyomies Society (Superior, WI), the Work People's College (Duluth, MN), and the Imatra Society (Brooklyn, NY). The IHRC also holds personal papers of several writers, political figures, cultural and social activists, musicians and clergymen, and various others. In addition, significant documentation on the daily lives of immigrants and their descendants is contained in the 14,000 "America letters" acquired on microfilm from Finland as well as in the extensive Minnesota Finnish American Family History Collection and the research library and papers of historian A. William Hoglund.

Your Help Is Needed... while generous gifts have established the fellowship fund, a total of $150,000 is needed to endow the award fully. The Finnish American Graduate Fellowship fund is invested and administered by the University of Minnesota Foundation.

This fellowship campaign is aided by a generous matching opportunity. The University of Minnesota Graduate School's 21st Century Fund will match interest generated by this fund. We must act quickly--the 21st Century Fund is limited. We don't want to lose this opportunity for you to double the impact of your gift.

A major national initiative, the creation of the Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies constitutes an investment in the future of research and scholarship pertaining to the role of Finnish Americans in the making of our country.

Please consider an online contribution or pledge today.

Follow the Campaign Minnesota link to use your credit card or make a pledge online at the University of Minnesota Foundation's secure site. You must type in the designation "IHRC: Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies Fund (Fund 7455)" in order to have your gift directed to this particular fund.

You may also print this paper form and submit a pledge or donation through the mail.