MINNA CANTH

Minna Canth was born in Tampere 19 March 1844. Her father worked at James Finlayson´s textile factory initially as a worker and later as a foreman. She received an exceptionally thorough education for a working class woman of her time. She had attended school a Finlayson’s factory, which was intended for the workers’ children.

In 1853 her father was given the charge of Finlayson's textile shop in Kuopio and the entire family relocated there. In Kuopio, she was even admitted into a school intended for upper class children.

In 1863 she began her studies at the recently founded Jyväskylä Teacher Seminary, which was the first school in Finland to offer higher education for women.

Two years later she married her natural sciences teacher, Johan Ferdinand Canth and had to drop out of the Seminary. She gave birth to seven children and began her writing career at the newspaper Keski-Suomi, where her husband worked as an editor. She wrote about women’s issues. In 1876, the Canths were forced to leave the paper due to Minna’s writings.

The following year they were both employed by the competing paper. There, she published her first works of fiction, various short stories, which were compiled in her first book, Novelleja ja Kertomuksia.

Canth stood out when there was public debate about women’s rights.

Her play The Pastor’s Family is her best-know play.

Other plays include: The Worker’s Wife, which caused scandal, but a few months later, the parliament enacted a new law about separation of property. Anna Liisa, is a tragedy about a fifteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant without being married.

On March 19, Canth Day and Equality Day are celebrated in Finland.

She died in 1897.

Mariví Artigas Morer

English for Fun 4 A