Although families and kinship have been studied extensively from a historical perspective, less attention has been paid to their significance and role in the formation of local social networks.This study makes use of extensive Finnish records of godparentage to map local networks to analyze the factors (kinship, work relations, neighborhood, friendship) that influenced their formation. It argues that, in the context of a closed industrial community, occupation and kinship were the major cornerstones of these networks. Only after work-related inequality was slowly eliminated in the early twentieth century did kinship begin to gain ground as the main influencing factor.
Academics see family history as converging mainly on these issues. See Carola Lipp, "Kinship Networks, Local Government, and Elections in a Town in Southwest Germany, 1800-1850," Journal of Family History 30 (2005): 347; Muriel Neven, "The Influence of the Wider Kin Group on Individual Life-Course Transitions: Results from the Pays de Herve (Belgium), 1846-1900," Continuity and Change 17 (2002): 405; Andrejs Plakans and Charles Wetherell, "Households and Kinship Networks: The Cost and Benefits of Contextualization," Continuity and Change 18 (2003): 55; Barry Wellman and Charles Wetherell, "Social Network Analysis of Historical Communities: Some Questions from the Present for the Past," The History of the Family 1 (1996): 105.
2.
Wellman and Wetherell, "Social Network Analysis of Historical Communities," 106; Plakans and Wetherell, "Households and Kinship Networks," 59.
3.
The rationale follows Tadmor’s questioning of traditional kinship-based concepts of the family and her argument based on a microhistorical context that there existed a different and significant concept of the family emanating from relationships of coresidence and authority as opposed to a family based purely on blood ties. Naomi Tadmor, "The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth-Century England," Past and Present 151 (1996), 111-40.
4.
These have been given more and more importance over kinship, for example in Wellman and Wetherell, "Social Network Analysis of Historical Communities," 102-03. See also Barry Wellman, "The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers," American Journal of Sociology 84 (1979); Darret Rutman and Anita Rutman, A Place in Time: Middlesex County, Virginia 1650-1750 (New York: Norton, 1984), 120.
5.
On the discussion concerning family history, see Wellman and Wetherell, "Social Network Analysis of Historical Communities,: 102-03; Charles Wetherell, Andrejs Plakans, and Barry Wellman, "Social Networks, Kinship and Community in Eastern Europe," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24 (1994): 663. See also, for example, Jon Stobart, "Regions, Localities and Industrialization: Evidence from the East Midlands, c. 1780-1830," Environment and Planning 33 (2001): 1305-25.
6.
On the limitations of microhistory in using large quantities of source material and more complex and diverse social interactions, see, for example, Brad Gregory, "Is Small Beautiful? Microhistory and the History of Everyday Life," History and Theory 38 (1999): 109.
7.
In family history there has often been great difficulty in obtaining sufficient data for a genealogical (prosopographical) approach, which has prevented researchers from gaining more in-depth knowledge of the significance of kinship and family. This has also forced researchers to resort to dubious roundabout methods like the patronymic indicator. See, for example, Neven, "The Influence of the Wider Kin Group on Individual Life-Course Transitions"; Hanne Van Baelen and Koen Matthijs, "Comparing Two Methods to Reconstruct the Kin Network Outside the Household with Nineteenth-Century Antwerp Data," Journal of Family History 32 (2007): 149-60.
8.
See Gregory, "Is Small Beautiful?" 107.
9.
Neven gives us a sound reminder that a network only exists if it works. Even kinship itself does not oblige members of the kin to interact with one another. See Neven, "The Influence of the Wider Kin Group on Individual Life-Course Transitions," 412.
10.
For example, Lipp, "Kinship Networks, Local Government, and Elections," 347, 354; Katherine Lynch, "The European Marriage Pattern in the Cities: Variations on a Theme by Hajnal," Journal of Family History 16 (1991): 79-80. As status is seen as a vital element in these strategies and sources are often most extensive in the case of elites, marriage network studies have dealt with the upper classes. Of these studies, the best-known is perhaps John Padgett and Christopher Ansell, "Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400-1434," American Journal of Sociology 98 (1993): 1259-319. For studies with an occupational perspective, see among others R. A. Houston, "Marriage Formation and Domestic Industry: Occupational Endogamy in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, 1697-1764," Journal of Family History 8 (1983): 215-29; Jan Sundin, "Family Building in Paternalistic Proto-Industries: A Cohort Study from Nineteenth-Century Swedish Iron Foundries," Journal of Family History 14 (1989): 265-89.
11.
Houston, "Marriage Formation and Domestic Industry," 218-19.
12.
In Finnish context, see Kai Häggman, Perheen vuosisata. Perheen ihanne ja sivistyneistön elämäntapa 1800-luvun Suomessa (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1994); Kirsi Sirén, Suuresta suvusta pieneen perheeseen. Itäsuomalainen perhe 1700-luvulla (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1999); Elina Waris, Yksissä leivissä. Ruokolahtelainen perhelaitos ja yhteisöllinen toiminta 1750-1850 (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1999); Kari-Matti Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa. Ruokakunnat, ekologis-taloudelliset resurssit ja kontaktinmuodostus Valkealassa 1630-1750 (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 2007).
13.
Sofia Kotilainen, Suvun nimissä. Nimenannon käytännöt Sisä-Suomessa 1700-luvun alusta 1950-luvulle (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 2008), 180-81; Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 206-07.
14.
Pentti Lempiäinen , Kastekäytäntö Suomen kirkossa 1500- ja 1600-luvulla (Helsinki: Suomen kirkkohistoriallinen seura, 1965), 186-87.
15.
There existed an Orthodox minority, mostly in eastern Finland, but in Strömfors only one Orthodox person could be found in the period under examination. Even in his case, the rest of his family were Lutheran. Ruotsinpyhtää Church Archives, communion records, 1880-1914.
16.
In the parish of Valkeala in south-east Finland in the period 1630-1750, 29 percent of godparents were kinsfolk. Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 252. In Sweden, the figures in the mid-nineteenth century were 15 to 20 percent. Tom Ericsson, "Kinship and Sociability: Urban Shopkeepers in Nineteenth-Century Sweden," Journal of Family History 14 (1989): 233.
17.
Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 236.
18.
Godparents were supposed to provide for the child in case of the parents’ premature death.
19.
Nils-Arvid Bringéus, "Svenska dopseder," Fataburen Nordiska museets och Skansens årsbok (1971): 70; Solveig Fagerlund, Handel och Vandel. Vardagslivets sociala struktur ur ett kvinnoperspektiv Helsingborg ca 1680-1709 (Lund: Lunds Universitet, 2002), 32; Häggman 1994, 108-09.
20.
Despite the disparities, Catholic godparent connections have also been used in social network analysis. On godparent customs in Catholic countries, see, for example, Guido Alfani, Padri, padrini, patroni. La parentela spirituale nella storia (Venice: Marsilio, 2006).
21.
See on godparent strategies Guido Alfani, Padri, padrini, patroni. La parentela spirituale nella storia; on both marriage and godparent strategies: Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa; on marriage strategies and occupation see, for example, Houston, "Marriage Formation and Domestic Industry"; Francisco Jiménez and Joaquin Valverde, "Marriage, Work, and Social Reproduction in One Area of Southern Europe at the End of the Eighteenth Century: Lorca (1797)," The History of the Family 7 (2002): 397-421. On family strategies and the problems revolving around them in the academic debate see, for example, Theo Engelen, Ad Knotter, Jan Kok, and Richard Paping, "Labor Strategies of Families: An Introduction," The History of the Family 9 (2002): 124-28.
22.
See also Piilahti on so-called "status godparents." Piilahti suggests that the acquisition of social standing was the rationale behind a connection when a godparent from a higher social group did not have a previous blood or marital tie with the family of the child; Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 258.
23.
Ahvenisto notes that in Finland people tended to think of families as monolithic units when describing social classes. Then the family is socially ranked according to the status of the head of the family. Inkeri Ahvenisto, Tehdas yhdistää ja erottaa Verlassa 1880-luvulta 1960-luvulle, (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 2008), 145.
24.
Tom Ericsson , "Godparents, Witnesses, and Social Class in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Sweden,"The History of the Family5 (2000): 273-86; Ericsson, "Kinship and Sociability"; Fagerlund, Handel och Vandel; Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa.
25.
Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 282. Here Piilahti criticizes David Sabean, Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1990).
26.
Ericsson, "Kinship and Sociability," 234-35, 237; Ericsson, "Godparents, Witnesses, and Social Class in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Sweden," 283-84.
27.
Ericsson also makes the point that in spite of the general class distinction between them, journeymen and apprentices, who were classified as working-class, had still contacts and cultural links with their masters, who were classified as middle-class. Ericsson, "Kinship and Sociability," 232; Tom Ericsson, "Godparents, Witnesses, and Social Class In Mid-Nineteenth-Century Sweden," 276, 284. By basing itself on the concept of family network instead of class, this study sidesteps both the problem of wives and the role of artisans and apprentices in class theories.
28.
Recording practices varied considerably according to the time, especially with regard to occupation. Of the sources, the communion records might be regarded as more dependable as people were not economically motivated or subject to bureaucratic limitations when reporting their livelihoods to the parish. On the other hand, the communion records do not give yearly figures but list all people who were present even for a short time over ten year periods.
29.
This approach has been adopted from Houston, "Marriage Formation and Domestic Industry."
30.
On a similar kind of comparison in previous godparent studies, see Guido Alfani, "Spiritual Kinship and the Others. Ivrea, XVIth-XVIIth Centuries," Popolazione e Storia 1 (2006): 57-81.
31.
The godparent connection database (GCD) is based on Ruotsinpyhtää Church Archives, baptismal registers 1880-1914 and communion records 1860-1914. Subsequently all source data on godparent connections have been taken from the GCD and are not referenced again.
32.
It was clearly considered that both members of a married couple were godparents if either was chosen, and so the records usually give first the husband’s name and occupation and add the words "with his wife" and the wife’s name (including her maiden name). Although they were two godparents, they represented only one connection between families. In the quantitative analysis, unmarried godparents and married godparent couples are considered equivalent although this article recognizes that they might not have been so from the parents’ point of view in individual cases. This is important to bear in mind when comparing this research with other godparent studies.
33.
It should be stressed that hereafter "laborer" and "worker" refers to an unskilled laborer (male or female) who usually worked in the sawmill or performed some other mixed laboring jobs. "Tradesman" refers to a smith or other skilled workman or craftsman.
34.
The term "superiors" is used here without any reference to class theories and is simply used to distinguish this group of people from the rest of the ironworks community.
35.
C.f. Plakans and Wetherell, "Households and Kinship Networks,"56.
36.
This article follows Vilkuna’s definition, according to which the central ironworks community consisted of people who lived under the factory owner’s direct authority in a village that was sited around the central production facilities. Kustaa H. J. Vilkuna, Arkielämää patriarkaalisessa työmiesyhteisössä. Rautaruukkilaiset suurvalta-ajan Suomessa (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1996), 9. The authorities acknowledged this arrangement, and these communities were treated as separate units in the church records although not in the census lists.
37.
See on the occupation of smith and the household, Göran Rydén, Hammarlag och hushåll. Om relationen mellan smidesarbetet och smedshushållen vid Tore Petrés brukskomplex 1830-1850 (Uppsala: Jernkontoret, 1990); on gender roles, Anders Florén, Genus och producentroll. Kvinnoarbete inom svensk bergshantering, exemplet Jäders bruk 1640-1840 (Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 1991). On Finnish ironworks, see Kustaa H. J. Vilkuna, Valtakunnan eduksi, isänmaan kunniaksi, ruukinpatruunalle hyödyksi. Suomen rautateollisuus suurvalta-ajalle (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1994). On their social order and everyday life, see Georg Haggrén, Hammarsmeder, masugnsfolk och kolare. Tidigindustriella yrkesarbetare vid provinsbruk i 1600-talets Sverige (Stockholm: Jernkontoret, 2001); Vilkuna, Arkielämää patriarkaalisessa työmiesyhteisössä. See also Sundin, "Family Building in Paternalistic Proto-Industries," 273.
38.
For example, Lipp mentions that this was especially true in the case of better-off artisans, citing smiths as an example. Lipp also provides sound evidence for the fact that the voting behavior of artisans was based much more on guild than on family or kinship. Lipp, "Kinship Networks, Local Government, and Elections in a Town in Southwest Germany, 1800-1850," 358-62.
39.
Olle Sirén , Strömfors. Tehdas ja tehdasyhdyskunta 1695-1970 (Helsinki: A.Ahlström, Strömforsin tehdas, 1971).
40.
Barbro Bursell , Träskoadel. En etnologisk undersökning av lancashiresmedernas arbets- och levnadsförhållanden på Ramnäs bruk vid tiden kring sekelskiftet 1900 (Lund : Nordiska museet, 1974), 217-18.
41.
Sundin, " Family Building in Paternalistic Proto-Industries," 286.
42.
That is, individuals who succeeded in creating connections with higher ranking groups.
43.
Cf. Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 236. This clearly indicates that godparent relations between laborers and superiors were cases of "status godparenthood," in which asking a superior to act as a godparent was a conscious act by the family to gain status and protect the child.
44.
See Häggman, Perheen vuosisata, 108-09.
45.
See also Fagerlund, Handel och Vandel, 32; Lempiäinen, Kastekäytäntö Suomen kirkossa 1500- ja 1600-luvulla, 71, 188, 190.
46.
For example, in Strömfors roughly 45 percent of children had only one godparent, 38 percent had three or more, and only 4 percent had four or more. See also Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 258.
47.
Lempiäinen, Kastekäytäntö Suomen kirkossa 1500- ja 1600-luvulla, 71, 188, 190.
48.
These include craftsmen, millers, and also charcoal burners employed by the ironworks, as the work of the last-mentioned group was organized like a traditional craft with masters, journeymen, and apprentices and an old tradition of inheriting the trade.
49.
Juuso Marttila, "Pääomien leikkauspisteessä. Seppäyhteisön erityisasema ja sen kohtalo Strömforsin ja Ramnäsin rautaruukeissa vuosina 1880-1970" (MA thesis, University of Jyväskylä , 2006); John Rule"The Property of Skill in the Period of Manufacture," in The Historical Meanings of Work, ed. Patrick Joyce (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Kari Teräs, Arjessa ja liikkeessä. Verkostonäkökulma modernisoituviin työelämän suhteisiin 1880-1920 (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 2001), 66, 184; Merja Uotila, "Ammatti käsityöläisten identiteetin rakentajana 1800-luvun alun maaseudulla," in Aika ja identiteetti. Katsauksia yksilön ja yhteisön väliseen suhteeseen keskiajalta 2000-luvulle, eds. Laura-Kristiina Moilanen and Susanna Sulkunen (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 2006).
50.
Ruotsinpyhtää Church Archives, communion records 1880-1914.
51.
Fagerlund, Handel och Vandel, 217; Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 236.
52.
For example, Bursell, Träskoadel, 248-50; Marttila," Pääomien leikkauspisteessä," 39-50.
53.
Bursell, Träskoadel, 225; Anders Florén, Mats Isacson, Göran Rydén, and Maria Ågren, "Swedish Iron Before 1900," in Ironmaking in Sweden and Russia. A Survey of the Social Organisation of Iron Production before 1900, ed. Göran Rydén and Maria Ågren (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1993), 36-37.
54.
In the period 1880-1914, 11.5 percent of all connections of smiths involved superiors while superiors were involved only in 7.3 percent of all connections of laborers.
55.
Cf. Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 238; see also Fagerlund, Handel och Vandel, 32.
56.
See Piilahti, Aineellista ja aineetonta turvaa, 258.
57.
For example, several smiths and their sons from an established family of smiths called Forsberg became laborers, but they still frequently appear in the godparent network of smiths.
58.
See Florén et al., "Swedish Iron Before 1900," 36-39; Marttila, "Pääomien leikkauspisteessä," 107-08; Sigvard Montelius, Säfnäsbrukens arbestkraft och försörjning 1600-1865. Studier i en mellansvensk bruksbygd (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1962), 221-22; Sirén, Strömfors, 81; Sundin, "Family Building in Paternalistic Proto-Industries," 274.
59.
In Finland, this was a normal custom at least in the eighteenth century. Vilkuna, Arkielämää patriarkaalisessa työmiesyhteisössä, 68-70. In Sweden, on average one-quarter of brides were smiths’ daughters. Rydén, Hammarlag och hushåll, 212-13; see also Sundin, "Family Building in Paternalistic Proto-Industries."
60.
There can be found ten couples married in the years 1860-1900 of whom both spouses were descended from smith families (albeit not all working in the same ironworks). The custom seems to totally disappear in the twentieth century.
61.
For example, smiths of the Lihr family can be traced in a father-to-son lineage in Strömfors from 1749 till the closure of the forges there in the 1950s. Ebba Dahlström and Olle Dahlström, "Släkten Lihr under 350 år," Uppsatser: Skrifter utgivna av Helsingfors släktforskare 6 (1984): 128. The Forstén family, for example, could also boast three generations of smiths in Strömfors and even more in other ironworks prior to their arrival there. Ruotsinpyhtää Church Archives, communion records 1880-1950. Ruotsinpyhtää Church Archives, communion records 1860-1940.
62.
Bursell, Träskoadel, 72-78, 225; Florén, Genus och producentroll, 33; Anders Florén, "Some Comparative Remarks," in Ironmaking in Sweden and Russia. A Survey of the Social Organisation of Iron Production before 1900, eds. Göran Rydén and Maria Ågren (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1993), 104-05; Rydén, Hammarlag och hushåll, 151-60, 217.
63.
The aforementioned charcoal burner is hard to interpret as an outsider as his family already had multiple contacts with many smith families.
