place for thousands of Finns who had left everything behind them, including their parents' possible guidance, and who were here, owing responsibility only to themselves. In the third place, it developed within the Finnish areas of settlement a body of workers in a cultural field, who profited from this experience and went on about their other endeavors as enriched individuals." Tom Hiltunen has remarked that after these groups had passed through the King Alcohol and Bogeyman Capitalist stage, the Finnish halls, with their dramatics groups, developed into a schooling in democratic principles, much as the town halls have served for American youth. And Jokinen has written in his study that this "dramatic activity became so enormously successful because in it were united the immigrants' educational, economic and political aspirations into a harmonious whole."

Poetry and poetry readings are art forms which are still alive in Minnesota. It might even be argued that never was so much poetry written and read before audiences as in the period between the two world wars. The following are among the Minnesota Finnish-language poets: Hilma Kanerva, who wrote under the pen name Kaista Kataja), Vera Keskinen, Konstant Kiikka (Hartman ), Terttu Kätkä, Adolph Lundquist, William Mattson, Wäinö Palm, Frank Selin, Robert Gilberg and Onni Syrjäniemi. Among the poets in the labor movement, Sulkanen considers Aku Päiviö to have been far above the others. Päiviö wrote and published a great number of poems - about ten volumes in print - and he also wrote many poems for special occasions, many of them for reading in the Minnesota socialist halls. Before Päiviö, Alex Halonen had published a small volume of verse, and after Päiviö came names like Moses Hahl, Felix Hyrske, Konstant Kiikka, William Lahtinen, Victor Loukola, Toivo Nousio, Eemeli Rautiainen, Mikael Rutanen, Paul Suorsa, Kalle Toivola and Mikko Uotinen. All these writers also appeared before the public as readers of poetry, and in addition to them, Syyne Alanko, Sam Koskela, Laina Partanen, Helmi Mäkelä, Hilma Pehkonen, Ernest Pitkänen, Josephine Rauma and Siiri Toivonen are remembered for their poetry readings.

The Fine Arts: Painter Juho Rissanen opened his studio in Duluth in 1944, to work on the monumental picture of the Minnesota pioneers for the MFAHS (see above) and to produce many other paintings which hang in numerous Finnish homes. The paintings of Edith Koivisto, of Hibbing, have been exhibited in New York, Minneapolis, Duluth and Hibbing. Well-known Sunday

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