Maintaining the Family: Community Support for Merchant Sailors’ Families in Finland, 1830–1860

After the Napoleonic Wars, Finnish ship owners increasingly contributed to the global trade by selling their tonnage capacity internationally. In spite of its peripheral position as a Grand Duchy within Imperial Russia (since 1809), Finland played an important part in the high seas trafficking during the late age of sail, largely due to the ready availability of labour. In this chapter, I study how the long-distance trade affected sailors’ families in Pori on Finland’s west coast between 1830 and 1860. I show how boundaries of biological kinship were crossed in housing arrangements the families made for ensure social and economic security and how the community support dealt with families. The chapter bases on qualitative close reading of the local officials’ documents.