Uusi Kotimaa

The Finnish-language newspaper Uusi Kotimaa (New Homeland) reached readers for more than fifty years, from the 1880s until 1934. For all but five of those years, its headquarters was the town of New York Mills, Minnesota—one of the largest Finnish American immigrant communities in the state. The paper changed its politics multiple times, evolving from a conservative editorial stance in its first decades to an explicitly communist one. By the heyday of the Farmer–Labor Party in the 1920s, it was one of the leading Finnish-language newspapers in the United States.

Finnish immigrant August Nylund founded Uusi Kotimaa in Minneapolis sometime between 1880 and 1882 before moving it to New York Mills (Otter Tail County) in 1884. The publication started out as a four-page weekly printed in a Fraktur Finnish typeface. It was politically conservative and included articles about religion—particularly Finnish Evangelical Lutheranism.

Nylund chose New York Mills as the paper’s new home in part because of changing Finnish immigration patterns. After the first Finnish immigrants arrived in southern Minnesota in 1864, settlement shifted to the central part of the state, and by 1880, with the development of mining, to the state’s Iron Range. Finnish families moving to central-western Minnesota in the 1870s settled in New York Mills and throughout Otter Tail County, a region known for its lumber mills and later for farming and dairy industry.

In the 1890s, Finnish settlements spread to the nearby towns of Sebeka and Menahga (Wadena County) and Wolf Lake and Susijärvi (Becker County). New York Mills was considered a Finntown, with a full complement of Finnish churches, businesses, and cooperatives. The article “A Finnish Settlement in Minnesota,” published in the March 1889 issue of the magazine The Northwest, describes a Finnish population of 4,000 in New York Mills and the surrounding region of Otter Tail, Wadena, and Becker counties.

In spite of this growth, in 1888 August Nylund moved Uusi Kotimaa to Astoria, Oregon, seeking a larger Finnish readership and more financial support. J. W. (Johan Wilhelm) Lähde, a Lutheran pastor in the Augustana Synod and the editor of Uusi Kotimaa, bought the paper’s type and printing press and started a new weekly, the Amerikan Suometar (American Finn). By 1890, however, Nylund had returned to New York Mills and reestablished Uusi Kotimaa, which absorbed the Suometar. Lähde resumed his position as editor.

August Nylund died on December 12, 1892, and his sons, Felix and August Ferdinand, continued to publish the paper. Lähde remained editor until 1894, when he left New York Mills. Uusi Kotimaa then continued under a succession of editors, including Felix Nylund, until Lähde returned around 1900.

By 1896, Uusi Kotimaa had 4,120 subscribers. The paper boasted of its appeal to advertisers, noting that its large readership extended to thirty-eight states. By 1916, its circulation had grown to 9,000. At that time, Uusi Kotimaa was considered independent Republican, reporting on national, international, and Finnish news. It provided coverage of Finnish communities throughout the region as well as local obituary notices and advertisements.

In 1919, Felix Nylund sold Uusi Kotimaa to the People’s Voice Cooperative Publishing Company, which was subsidized by the Nonpartisan League. At that time, the paper’s political orientation moved to the left, and Lähde left the paper in 1921. He had previously expressed the view that Uusi Kotimaa should not be a party organ, but instead impartially report the news.

Finnish Americans in the Communist Party purchased Uusi Kotimaa in 1923, and K. E. Heikkinen, a well-known party member, became its editor. Thereafter, Uusi Kotimaa became a communist and Farmer-Labor publication with national news, local reporting, and topical articles following the Communist Party’s line. Its focus gradually evolved to promote the interests of industrial workers, although one page in each issue remained geared toward farmers.

In 1931, Uusi Kotimaa moved to Superior, Wisconsin, where it was published weekly by Työmies Kustannusyhtiö (Työmies Publishing Company). Facing financial difficulties, the paper ceased publication around 1934. Minnesotan Uutiset (Minnesota News), another Finnish-language newspaper based in New York Mills, published an “obituary” for Uusi Kotimaa, observing that its service to the Finnish community in New York Mills and throughout the United States had been “far reaching and of great value.”

Editor’s note: This text is adapted from the profile of the publication provided by the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, a project of the Minnesota Historical Society. Digitized issues of Uusi Kotimaa, 1906-1922, are linked from the title profile in the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub. The Minnesota Historical Society digitized Uusi Kotimaa as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program for Chronicling America.