Kaisa Kauranen

Special areas:

• 19th century social history
• the attainment of literacy of Finnish people in the 19th century
• manuscripts of ordinary people

Kaisa Kauranen is writing her doctoral dissertation in the research project being led by Professor Lea Laitinen and funded by the Academy of Finland on the ‘Common People’, Writing and the Process of Literary Attainment in 19th Century Finland (2008–2011). The project is a joint project with the Finnish Literature Society. For her doctoral dissertation, Kauranen is studying the writings of self-taught landless dealing with topical themes of the time, such as the position of crofters and issues relating to popular education. The main research subject is crofter Kustaa Brask (1829–1906) whose manuscripts, consisting of nearly 6000 pages, are being preserved in the collections of the Finnish Literature Society. On the grassroots level, people were able to speak of topical questions, but writing, the new means of communicating, was a challenge for those who had not attended school. It was often impossible for the writers to find publishers to their texts

As a part of the research project Kauranen edited an anthology consisting of eleven "peasant diaries" or parts of them (Työtä ja rakkautta – kansanmiesten päiväkirjoja 1834–1937, SKS 2009). In a unique way, these diaries shed shed light on the every day life of the common people in the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century.

Kauranen’s master’s and licentiate dissertations dealt with the famine in northern Finland in the 1830s from the perspective of the local residents, members of the administration and the Bergbom trading house in Oulu. Kauranen has worked on the Committee for Administrative History and participated in the research project Health promotion in Finland 1900–2000, which was funded by the Academy of Finland. Over the last few years, Kauranen has been an active member in the work of the network on the common people and the attainment of literacy. She has made a survey on the SKS collections and compiled archive catalogues of the manuscripts of ordinary people in the Literary and Folklore Archives of the SKS.

Key publications:

• Did Writing Lead to Social Mobility? Case Studies of Ordinary Writers in Nineteenth-century Finland. - Lyons, Martyn (ed.), Ordinary Writings, Personal Narratives: Writing Practices in 19th and early 20th-century Europe. Bern: Peter Lang, s. 51–68.
• Kansanihmisten itse kirjoitettu elämä. – Suomalaisen arjen historia 3. Helsinki: Weilin + Göös, 2007, s. 64-81.
• Kansanihmisten käsikirjoitukset Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran arkistoissa. ELORE 13–2/2006.
• Rahvas, kauppahuone, esivalta. Katovuodet pohjoisessa Suomessa 1830-luvulla. Historiallisia Tutkimuksia 204. Suomen Historiallinen Seura. Helsinki 1999.
• Työtä ja rakkautta - kansanmiesten päiväkirjoja 1834-1937, SKS, Helsinki 2009.
• Valistusta ja hoitoa – Terveyssisarten kotikäynnit maaseudulla 1930-luvulta 1960-luvulle. Teoksessa Hippokrates. Suomen lääketieteen historian seuran vuosikirja 2005. Suomen lääketieteen historian seura, Helsinki 2006, s. 30–55.