The Search for Sanna Kannasto

In many ways, I can thank Sanna Kannasto for my career as a historian. No, I never met her, as she died about 15 years before I was born. Instead, her fascinating work and life were the focus of my MA project at Lakehead University, which resulted in my first peer-reviewed article (Journal of Finnish Studies, 2007), and led me to pursue my PhD with Varpu Lindström at York University. Even though my research has taken me into many different directions over the years - though Finnish North Americans have almost always been at the core - I can’t seem to stay away from Sanna for very long. No matter what aspect of Finnish North Amerian life I am researching, she tends to show up in the archive. I’ve decided, then, to take that as a very good sign to develop research about her and, currently, I am putting together an exciting new project with Sanna Kannasto as the focus (more on that later!). Here is a recent general overivew of Sanna Kannasto that I wrote for the October 2021 issue of Finnish American Reporter:

“Food for the soul.” “A priest for the modern day.” “The best and wisest speaker around.” But also “a dangerous radical.” These are just some of the ways Sanna Kannasto was described in the early twentieth century. She was one of the most active and influential political organizers in North America in her time. While her work among Finnish immigrant communities may have left her lesser known than other celebrity radicals of the era, such as Emma Goldman, her story has continued to fascinate the curious for decades.    

I have been tracing Sanna’s story on and off again for about fifteen years, mostly because she has a funny way off turning up in just about all of my research on Finnish immigrant history. Even after moving my focus away from her, there she was, again and again. For example, when I was looking for newspaper coverage of an accidental house fire, the next column had a discussion of Sanna Kannasto’s views on moving pictures. When I sought out information about lumber unions, she appeared in descriptions of her west coast speaking tour. There are pieces of Sanna Kannasto throughout the historical record of Finnish immigrant communities in Canada and the United States, and with every new trace, we learn something new about her remarkable work. 

Sanna Maria Mahlakallio (shortened to Kallio after emigration) was born in the village of Ylihärmä in the Vaasa province of Finland, on September 26, 1875. She was the third of ten children and seems to have been working as a domestic servant in Lapua when she applied for a passport in the spring of 1898. Very little is known about her first years in the United States, but she is said to have joined the Socialist Party of America by 1905. Around this time, she also began a relationship with fellow Finnish immigrant socialist active John Victor “J.V.” Kannasto. They moved to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada, around 1905. The couple did not legally marry, as was the socialist fashion of the time, but Sanna did take J.V.’s last name, which she used for the rest of her life.

By 1908, Sanna Kannasto had become well established in socialist politics in Canada, serving as a Finnish representative (and one of two women) at the first Ontario convention of the Socialist Party of Canada. In 1911, she played a key role in brokering the establishment of the Social Democratic Party of Canada, as well as in the formation of the Finnish (Socialist) Organization of Canada. At this time, she was hired as the first official organizer and touring speaker for the new national association.

Sanna Kannasto

Kannasto’s job was to travel to Finnish enclaves big and small - and even to those off the beaten path - to deliver lectures on pressing issues of the day, hold discussion events and short courses, organize and motivate Finnish socialist branches, and to sell socialist literature. In addition, she had to prepare and study, report on her activities, and maintain her correspondences, all while travelling long and often difficult distances. Articles in newspapers like Toveritar, Työmies, and Vapaus show Kannasto zigzagging across Canada and the United States throughout the 1910s and1920s. Her reports and letters to the Finnish Organization of Canada headquarters demonstrate the intensity of her workload, and her willingness to sacrifice health and sleep for the job. Counting only hours engaged directly in lecturing, for example, Kannasto reported performing 69 hours of scheduled speeches in October 1919 and 62 hours in December 1919.

When Sanna Kannasto arrived in town, she would typically set up shop for two to four days, often giving three lectures per day. She was particularly respected for her ability to speak about complex economic and social issues in a way that was understandable to ordinary people. She was known to link socialist theory and philosophy with ease to people’s interest in music, theatre, and sports. She held open events, where she was said to regularly outdebate even the fiercest (male) challengers on burning questions of the day. Sanna Kannasto was a household name among Finnish immigrant socialists in North America.

Kannasto’s tours included special programming for women. She would speak on the importance of women’s involvement in the socialist cause and women’s special role in children’s and youth programming. She was considered an expert on children’s education and upbringing, and her teachings were often further discussed in the Finnish socialist women’s newspaper Toveritar. Sanna was regularly invited to communities to help establish children’s socialist Sunday schools and youth groups. Sanna Kannasto also spent time directly with the children of the communities she visited, and gave popular children’s lectures that instilled socialist values through age-appropriate analogies. One such lecture was called “Touching Wet Paint,” though the specifics of the presentation’s content are unfortunately currently unknown.    

Sanna Kannasto saw women as much more than just mothers, wives, and supporters of the movement. She fervently championed women’s equality, rights, and education. To the surprise of some attendees, her women’s meetings included discussions of contraceptives and abortion, and she argued, “marriage, even in the best cases, places people in bondage.” On this, she spoke from experience, as her common-law marriage to J.V. ended, seemingly at least in part, due to her desire to continue touring and working after becoming a mother. By 1919, Sanna Kannasto had added the challenges of single parenting to the demands of her organizational work. Though her correspondence shows she struggled to be away from her son when on the road, she was resolved. She declared, “I will never again bind myself to a man. I have wed myself to revolution.”

Indeed, Sanna Kannasto’s dedication to the socialist cause required her to be a “woman made of iron.” Her travels and lectures were closely monitored by local and border authorities. Amidst the Red Scare wave of 1920, Kannasto was detained, interrogated, and fined several times on both sides of the border. In May 1920, she was arrested and imprisoned in Alberta. The available letters from this period are an extraordinary testament of her character. She wrote: “it annoys them [the police] that they cannot anger me and annoy me and then make me cry and confess. I am made of iron. I’ve never known how much I can endure.” She believed, “the fight for freedom is beginning and freedom’s price is high.” Kannasto was similarly arrested after a lecture in Hibbing, Minnesota, in May 1925, seemingly in an attempt to prevent her from entering the United States once and for all.  

By 1930, having become well known by anti-socialist authorities far and wide, it was very difficult for Sanna Kannasto to continue traveling. The Finnish Organization of Canada could no longer safely use her as their official agitator. Her home base continued to be North Branch, a rural area just outside of Port Arthur. Instead of Sanna visiting socialist branches, she began to accept women and girls to her farm, where she would offer them her teachings. Her public profile began to wane in the Finnish press at this time, though she was still reported to attend women’s meetings at branches in the Thunder Bay area from time to time.

Letters to her relatives in Finland from the late 1940s bare no hint of her previously active political life. In her 70s, she continued to run her small subsistence farm. On several occasions, she referred to herself as “a woman, half man and a quarter horse.” Her work ethic had not changed one bit, but now her primary focus was directed at battling insects that were after her harvests, rather than the bourgeoisie. She remained close with her son, whom she had longed for while on the road decades prior. In letters from this time she noted twice that despite hardships, “I am in my own way happy.”           

In 1951, as the Finnish Organization of Canada celebrated its 40th anniversary, Sanna Kannasto featured prominently in the story of its origins. Influential Finnish immigrant organizer Jussi Latva wrote: “Comrade Sanna is now spending the evening of her life in quiet solitude. We however remember her work for the cause of enlightenment.” Sanna Kannasto died in Port Arthur on February 15, 1968, at the age of 92. Her death notice in Vapaus acknowledged her contribution (though limited to her work among women), but, in its brevity, also hinted that the movement she had worked tirelessly to build had become something else.   

Telling Sanna Kannasto’s story now, with the best sources and information I currently have, I am struck by how many gaps remain. Just as she slyly evaded the police as she crossed the continent, she seems to always be just out of grasp in the traces she left. But I know with dedicated research and pursuing new documentary trails, I can now find more of her voice, her life, her networks, and the legacy of her work. In the indomitable spirit of Sanna Kannasto, I am eager to carry on the task of finding and telling more about her remarkable life.

If you have any leads on Sanna Kannasto’s life and work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me!