Getting to know Minna Canth by sewing

My hobby often leads me to follow weird paths and fall into rabbit holes. After seeing the cute Garibaldi blouse on Minna Canth at her engagement photo in the 1860s, I decided to replicate the whole outfit. Then I started digging into her life and writings and oh boy she was a woman of character! What is nice, is that all of her work is now freely available online and some of it even in her own hand-writing.

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However, let’s start from the beginning. Why is Minna Canth so fascinating? For me, it starts with language and social class. Often history is filled with upper-class men doing upper-class things. In Finland, Finnish used to be the language of the peasant class. The upper classes spoke Swedish. Any higher education was available only in Swedish and the women didn’t have any access to higher levels of learning.

Minna Canth’s life

Minna Johnson was born to a working-class family in Tampere where her father worked in the Finlayson cotton mills. The family’s modest background is revealed by the surname. Johnson was the surname given to all the kids from the Finlayson factory orphanage. Minna was put in the factory school. Many of her classmates were poor and had to work in the cotton mills after school to support their families. Minna’s father, however, had risen to a headman and he was charged to take care of the Finlayson yarn shop in Kuopio. Minna’s father’s business luck helped Minna to get into a good school, even though the girls’ schools generally didn’t offer as much education as the schools for boys did. Most of the school hours were spent learning to do handicrafts.

Minna continued to study in the teacher seminar in Jyväskylä but dropped out after getting married to her science teacher Ferdinand Canth. She settled into the role of a wife and mother and gave birth to 7 children. Ferdinand edited a local newspaper and Minna started writing opinion pieces for the paper. She also started writing a play when suddenly Ferdinand got ill and died. The youngest child of Minna was still a baby.

Minna moved back to Kuopio and took over her family’s yarn shop starting her business career. She didn’t abandon her writing, though, and her short stories and plays found an enthusiastic audience. Her realistic style also ruffled many feathers but Minna didn’t care. She was also one of the first Finnish feminists: “Freedom for women! Freedom for action! Freedom for thought!” she wrote.

But watch my video to find out more:

Minna’s 1860s outfit

The garibaldi blouse was a popular style during the 1860s. What caught my eye, was the handmade embroidery. I believe Minna probably embroidered the blouse herself and the skewed embroidery looks so cute. Minna is famous for saying “Not all women need to do handicrafts.” I think she probably counted herself among those women who chose to spend their time differently. She was much happier selling yarn and fabrics to those who liked making garments.

I made my blouse using the Truly Victorian Garibaldi blouse pattern. For the fabric, I chose white linen and I decorated it with green chain-stitch embroidery. I based my skirt on the Truly Victorian Elliptical skirt but I redrafted the front to be able to pleat it like it seemed to be in the original photo.

I also made a hairnet to match the green color theme using this pattern I found on Etsy.

The finished outfit

Here are some photos I took out of the finished outfit.

The only thing I regret is that I should have made the skirt longer. I am planning to lengthen it at some point by taking out the hem and replacing it with a bias binding. That will add a bit to the length and if that is not enough, one can always add a ruffle. I also admit that my petticoat which is uneven at the hem and a bit too long makes the hem look worse than it is.

Read Minna’s work!

If you are interested in reading Minna Canth and know Finnish, you can find all her works here. Unfortunately, not many of Minna’s works have been translated into English. I found

Parson’s family, translated by Owen F. Witesman in 2001

The Nursemaid, a short story translated by David Barrett

East 15 Acting School has filmed their play Workman’s wife by Minna Canth, translated, adapted, and directed by Ronja Siljander

The Burglary and the House of Roinila are also available in a pretty recent translation.

To conclude

I started this project in the spring of 2023 and it took me almost to Christmas to finish it. I ran out of embroidery thread and then realized that I couldn’t buy it anywhere in Finland. Finally, I ordered the thread from the UK. Then I got myself into research and writing mode and it took me ages to get this video edited and posted. You may have noticed that it was still autumn when I was filming the reveal scenes! But now I can tell everyone that I have gone to gather mushrooms while wearing a crinoline!

Anyway, I have so many projects that I have completed simultaneously with this one so stay tuned! Happy sewing!

Katja