1919 — 1st edition. Paperback,lacks original outer wrappers, 8vo, 80 pages. In Finnish. "Tieteellis-kaunokirjallinen julkaisu." (A Scientific-Literary Publication). Includes 10 cartoons and illustrations. The newspaper Sosialisti and its successors, as well as the Ahjo (The Forge) produced at the Work People's College, served as the major forum for ideological discussions. Participants included editors, agitators, organizers and ordinary workers from various locals. Certain American socialist leaders like Eugene V. Debs were often cited and their articles reissued in Finnish-language translations (Auvo Kostiainen, A Dissenting Voice of Finnish Radicals in America: The Formative Years of Sosialisti-Industrialisti in the 1910s in American Studies in Scandinavia, Vol. 23, 1991). Gary A. Kaunonen notes that a host of socialist or labor colleges were springing up in the United States in the early 20th century such as the Peoples College in Fort Scott, Kansas, which was founded in 1915, and the Brookwood Labor College, founded in Katonah, New York, in 1921. A precursor to many of these colleges espousing a proletarian curriculum was the Industrial Workers of the World affiliated Work Peoples College (WPC), founded in 1907 in Smithville, now Duluth, Minnesota. The WPC was a center of proletarian education that based its curriculum specifically on propaganda of the deed ideology, which advocated economic and physical responses to capitalist exploitation in lieu of political mechanisms of change. The school was a bastion of socialist and later specifically anarcho-syndicalist and industrial unionist thought, with many of the professors, such as Leo Laukki, teaching direct action tactics such as the general strike and industrial sabotage.
. The WPC housed its own publishing company on the colleges campus in Smithville. This faculty and student-run press printed numerous relevant titles but also a periodical appropriately titled Ahjo (The Forge), which discussed current issues in industrial unionism and official IWW business, while at the same time being a forum for student generated essays, prose, and poetry. The importance of this periodical cannot be understated as a vehicle for increasing literacy efforts at the WPC. What better way to encourage ascending levels of literacy in both reading and writing than to have a place for students to submit and read the fruits of their proletarian education (From the Escuela Moderna to the Escuela Moderna to the Työväen Opisto: Reading, (W)Riting, and Revolution, the 3 Rs of Expanded Proletarian Literacy in Community Literacy Journal, Vol 5 Issue 2, Spring 2011).SUBJECT(S): Socialism -- Periodicals. Finns -- United States. OCLC: 8618723. OCLC lists 3 holdings for any issues worldwide (MN Hist Soc, UMN, Wisc Hist Soc). Of these, Wisconsin Historical Society holds only one single issue (Vol 4, Nr 2 June 1919); UMN holds a smattering of issues (but does NOT hold this issue); and Minnesota Historical lists v.1-7(1916-1922) but notes Issues missing. So at most there is one holding for this issue in OCLCand quite possible there are no holdings in OCLC for it anywhere. Lacks covers, which were, printed only on outsides, with ads on rear and publishing info on front (no illustration), all relevant included on title page, which is present, inside covers were blank. Quarter-sized tear to final page, just touching cartoon on one side and a few letters on the other, otherwise Good Condition, very scarce and important IWW-oriented publication (FIN-7-20)
