Notes on the History of Finnish Sauna Culture in NE Ohio
Towards the end of the 19th century, living conditions in Finland were difficult for many. Jobs were limited - especially in more working-class, less educated areas - and the Russian Army was enforcing compulsory military service. A small group came to the Great Lakes region, in hopes of finding better job opportunities in a similar climate. These early immigrants found an abundance of opportunity working on the railroads that transported coal north from the Pennsylvania mines, and iron ore south from the mines in Minnesota and Michigan. This early cohort sent this news back to Finland, and soon the Finns were the largest ethnic group in many Great Lakes port towns. In northeast Ohio, these towns were Cleveland, Fairport Harbor, Conneaut and Ashtabula.
The Finns brought their cultural traditions along with them, including the ancient tradition of sauna bathing. An Ashtabula city directory, circa 1930, shows 8 public baths (where sauna bathing was a key attraction), at a time when the population of Ashtabula was no more than 20,000.
8 public bathhouses in Ashtabula circa 1930. It was common at this time for businesses to be listed by the owner name, rather than the name of the business.
The following passage, from the book A History of the Finns in Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia: From Lake Erie’s Shores to the Mahoning and Monongahela Valleys by John Kolehmainen, sets the scene, explaining the place saunas had in these communities at the turn of the century.
“Saunas were both a health spa and a source of earthly, if not divine, pleasure. In early years, they were, for the most part, large, commercially-operated enterprises, but with the passage of time private saunas appeared, sometimes transformed from backyard barns which had been declared urban health nuisances. There are many references to sauna-ing in the old newspapers. The wife of a pioneer Ashtabula Harbor minister, Liisi Kivioja, recalled visiting a genuine smoke sauna in Conneaut in the 1890s. ‘Such sweet, so truly Finnish steam vapors we had not experienced anywhere in our American travels. There was no running water or other conveniences. With a self-designed rope pulley, the bucket was lowered down the hillside into the deep water and then hoisted up in front of the sauna.’ In 1899 a Conneaut resident started a commercial sauna on Day Street. ‘The kiuas (stone-filled oven) was heated hot,’ recalled the settlement’s historian. ‘When the smoke and the fumes had disappeared from the sauna, we were ready to take the sweet vapors. It cost 5c’. Holkko’s sauna on Broad Street, Conneaut Harbor, was a landmark from 1901 to 1935. Over the years, of course, the sauna’s popularity zoomed, not only among the Finns but Americans as well. When a Finnish-American group from Cleveland came to Conneaut to present a program April 2, 1955, attendance at the Kilpi Temperance Hall was disappointingly small: ‘It was apparently sauna-day, so that only few had time to come to the hall.’”
In addition to serving as a place for relaxation and rejuvenation, public baths were where many people had access to (warm) running water, serving as the modern day shower/bath. Private saunas served their own unique purposes. From My Father Spoke Finglish at Work: Finnish Americans in Northeast Ohio by Noreen Sippola Fairburn:
“The family cooked in the sauna and slept in the haymow of the barn…”
Related to this, I have heard from Finns in Ashtabula that saunas were occasionally where women would give birth. The heat was apparently the best form of sterilization they had at home at the time.
Saunas - public and private - were simply a part of everyday life, and a basic means of social connection.
From My Father Spoke Finglish at Work:
“I have very fond memories of my childhood there. We had a Finnish sauna and had coffee time. It was heated on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and a houseful of people would come there to use the sauna, and we had coffee and all the good stuff. My mother loved to entertain. We had like six or eight guests every Wednesday and Saturday.”
“We used to swim in a sulfur spring, too, that was located in an abandoned brickyard. The water there was greenish and very deep. It wasn’t somewhere you should go if you didn’t know how to swim, but we liked to go there because the water warmed up sooner than the water in Lake Erie. If we forgot our bathing suits, that didn’t matter, we’d strip naked and dive in anyway. When we went to the public sauna, you could always tell who forgot their bathing suits by their all-over tan. I usually went to the sauna on West Eighth on Wednesday and Friday evenings. I remember the contest to see who could sit on the highest bench and withstand the most heat. Then after a bath, I would pay a quarter for a bottle of kalja.”
“The only tradition we kept up of Finnish was that we went to the Finnish Lutheran Church on Borad Street, and we took a sauna wherever we could find one. My dad never had one for us.”
From A History of the Finns in Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia:
“The coffee table was set for many occasions. After the sauna, the people gathered together at the coffee table and then it was known as “sauna kahvi”.
I started Steelhead House in large part to bring this amazing tradition back to northeast Ohio. Through my own exposure to the practice, I’ve come to appreciate it as this source of “divine pleasure”. A session at a Steelhead House location will cost more than 5¢ 😊, but we promise to make it as accessible as possible, and to do our best to deliver an experience that folks want to make part of their weekly routine.
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