Interest in the Hall is still quite high. There are even some revisionis historians who are actively trying to rewrite the known history of the Hall. Why they are doing this is unclear to me and the others in the history community. Some have gone so far as to say that we need to “re-think” whether there was even a cry of Fire at all.    Very strange.

There is a blog dedicated to some of this. See

http://finlaboramhistory.blogspot.com/

History is like economics. You can push it around a little bit but eventually, the truth will come out.  (You can try and ‘regulate’ the economy, but for the most part, economic forces will always overcome the regulation.) Those revisionists in Hancock and Eagle Harbor will eventually be quieted by the overwhelming truth.

Steve

My mother — Eelu’s grand-daughter — has been collecting his poetry all of her life. Some of his poetry can be found in local archives but the largest collection of the poetry BY FAR is the collection my mother has amassed. I am going to get the poems translated (they are all in Finnish), write an intro and biography of Eelu, and get as much of his poetry into print as I can.

He wrote about everything: life in Finland, life in the US, current events, humor, politics, you name it. He was also quite a character, and many people in the Copper Country have heard of him. Until now, though, his poetry was not widely available.

I’ll admit that one of the reasons I want to get this project done is that a book came out recently that mentions Eelu’s poetry. In the book, his name is badly misspelled and the translation of the poem (they published one poem) was not a good one. To do him justice, I’m going to see that the translations get done properly.

Stay tuned. I’ll add more detail as I learn it.

Steve

However, I feel the need to address a couple of things. Some people have pointed out to me that there is a movement among some (a very small number, clearly) writers of history to make the argument that there either was no cry of Fire at the Italian Hall, or that if there was, we could never prove it.

It’s an odd argument to make. There was overwhelming evidence that there WAS a cry of Fire. What we don’t know is WHO cried Fire or WHY.  Kind of like the Kennedy Assassination: Argue all you want about who shot the man; don’t deny that he was shot. Or the Titanic: How many of the survivors actually saw the iceberg the boat hit? Does anyone want to argue there was no iceberg?

I think these revisionist historians (and that’s what they are — the cry of Fire was one of the things that has been consistently correct all these years) simply want to make the issue of what we don’t know (who cried Fire) to encompass the whole story. Why? I don’t know. That’s not history. Trying to figure out why “historians” ignore facts and solid research is a question for psychologists.

Steve

Steve

http://nalhc.wayne.edu/NALHC/Program.html

Steve

On the Italian Hall front, I will be speaking at Finn Fest in Duluth on July 26, and to the Eagle Harbor book club the next day: http://www.eagleharborbookgroup.org/

Stay tuned for more.

Steve

Steve

Steve

Steve