The Tuusula Workers’ Home Museum

The Tuusula Workers’ Home Museum is situated on a hill, opposite the old church from 1734. Behind the church opens a view to Lake Tuusula. A wooded park surrounds the museum area and guards the history of Tuusula craftsmen.

The newly born Tuusula local organisation of SAK, the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, was the starting point for the museum. In 1971 at Hyrylän Torppa the association decided that one of its duties is to establish a museum to honour the life of the craftsmen.

After the meeting in 1971 the idea of the museum was left to slowly brew. There were a few words changed during smoking breaks, and a continuous search for a piece of real estate. The eyes of many stopped on the hill opposite the church.

The park had got its name from the founder of Tuusula municipality, Niilo Stålhane. A conflict aroused with the Tuusula merchants when the social democratic group of councillors wanted to rename the park after Frederic Mallenius, the carpenter whose house had stood on the hill. Mallenius’ garden was namely the place where the first Tuusula Workers’ Association was grounded the 27th of May 1900. Finally, the compromise, suggested by a veteran politician nicknamed the Pump Willie (Pumppu Ville), was that the municipality revealed a monument in the garden, a big stone with a plaque respecting this historical event.

A contract to hire the place from the local parish was signed 1979. The rent was one Finnish mark per year which was spread as a friendly joke for many years. When the parish later congratulated the 10 years old museum with a thousand marks it was joked to be a rent for a thousand years. Later the ownership of the estate and the building shifted to Tuusula municipality which now is the landlord of the museum and supports the museum’s operation.

The grounding of the museum took place in the clubroom of the Co-operative Bank the 6th of May 1979, almost exactly 45 years ago. An association of associations was established: The main labour movements which were the study organisations, the trade union, and athletic club were invited to unite their recourses and participate in the museum management.  It was also secured that there was good co-operation between both left-wing parties in the organisations so that the museum wouldn’t end up as a political battlefield.  Rules for the museum activity were approved and a profound economic plan made. Actors in the government were chosen on the grounds of their interest in museum work, not according to equal representation between organisations. The first principle in the museum housekeeping has been that those working in the management must act creatively. The economy has been maintained with grants, donations, fundraising, and by selling tar, woodchips or shakes (päre) and postcards.

First now started the real set up of the museum. Right after the church was built 1934 a cottage for the sexton of the church was erected on the today’s museum hill. It is told that it included a church hut with the first stone sacristy in Tuusula. It also served as accommodation or a warming shelter for people coming to church service from far away. The were also perches (orsi) in the ceiling where dead corpses could melt before autopsy. A higher part was built later. The old part served in the 1940s and 1950s as temporary accommodation for migrants from Karelia. It was found useless and torn down in the end of 1950s. The new two stored part is now the main museum building. The building work started the 8th of March 1980 in a house with a leaking roof and a collapsing ceiling. Everything was black and gloomy. And only a couple of marks in the museum’s cashbox. But the local newspaper told a few days later that the workers’ home is being born, spring has awakened volunteer workers. And that the log walls behind the removed cardboards have been papered with old newspapers.  

It was agreed already earlier that the museum house would be furnished as if the craftsmen living in it were the carpenter and the cobbler. This way the museum wanted to honour two remarkable professions for the Tuusula labour movement. Carpenter Frederic Mallenius’ yard was the place where the worker’s association was established, and Cobbler Eetu Salin delivered a speech in the event and had worked a lot for the founding of the association. Carpenters had generally been socially active. They had also had an impact on workers’ living culture as they had been working in the constructions of the artist community round the Lake Tuusula and brought with them new ideas to be applied in the houses and everyday life of working people. Cobblers on the other hand played a big part in the cultural activity of Tuusula laborers.

The building permissions for the museum were admitted in May 1980. The museum organisation had searched for connections in other similar museums in Finland and finally got to contact with Jukka Eenilä, a head of department in the Finnish Heritage Agency. With his strong support and advice, the organisation gained knowhow and learned how to get state funding. He also helped to get the building permissions by providing a basic building plan for every room in the house. The progress of the work depended on the donated accessories, and the availability of certain professionals, like electricians and masons. The renovation wanted to be done following the original style as well as possible.

The time of the opening happened during the period when Finnish museum organisation was going through renewal. Helsinki City Museum became the Provincial Museum in Uusimaa and a new museum worker was hired. She was a researcher who became truly dedicated to developing the museum. The decor of the house was now rapidly completing. The old objects were cleaned and restored. A lot of work was still going on the day before the opening. Everything was ready in time. In the District festival (kotiseutupäivät), after the church services the 9th of August 1981 the Tuusula Worker’s Home Museum was opened for public.