ABSTRACT
The Finnish Women's Association has always tried to co-operate with the women of the working classes. Thanks to the very democratic sl?irit of the country~ this has not met with serious dIfficulties. The Finnish peasant woman is, as a rule, intelligent and pensive, likes to read, and has been led to consider serious social questions, partly throu~h great religious movements, partly through the natIOnal movements which have stirred up our country during this century. The Finnish monthly, Home and Society (Koti ja Yhteiskunta), dedicated to the interests of women, has many subscribers among working women and peasant women, who also contribute to the ;pa:per small articles. The Finnish Women's AssoCIatIOn has eleven branch unions in the country, whose members, to a great extent, are peasants' (yeoman farmers') wives and daughters, crofters' wives, seamstresses, girls in workshops, &c. Last year the seamstresses in the capital dissolved their trade union and joined the Finnish Women's Association, in connection with which they started a club with the same aim as the former trade union. Of course, the Association feels deeply the responsibility of this added work. A great difficulty has been our small meanswhich are so small that you could scarcely imagine ~he sums-because what these members mostly need IS lectures and classes of all kinds. However, this
~um~er we managed to arrange three large meetings III dIfferent parts of the country, which succeeded
October 15th, 1896, very well and, thanks to the co-operation with the branch unions and the generosity of the lecturers, did :not empty our treasury. The outline of the programme for the meetings was laid by our able Vicepresident, Miss Hilda Kakikoski, who is a beautiful speaker and very much liked by the working women. The lecturers sent by the Central Union were Mrs. Maria Furuhjelm, Mrs. Elizabeth Stenius and Miss Mathilda von Troil. The meetings were called "the days of the home," to signify that we wanted to give the women, who are the chief builders of the home a.nd the most active workers in it, an op~ortunity to a.ssemble and discuss questions concerrung the interests of the home. Every branch union where meetings were held paid about 35s. to the Central Union, who added the rest of the sum needed for the lecturer's travelling expenses.
