Snapshots from the Children’s Castle

“A love of flowers and children was one of Sophie Mannerheim’s defining features,” writes Tyyni Tuulio in a biography of Mannerheim. Upon her 60th birthday, Mannerheim received a photo album as a gift from the Children’s Castle hospital she had established. Enclosed within the album’s brown leather covers are 26 black-and-white photos of the old Children’s Castle and its patients and staff. This photo album is our object of the month.

A brown photo album with a dedication inscribed on the cover in gilt letters.
Sophie Mannerheim received the album as a gift on her 60th birthday. Photo: Helsinki University Museum.

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Photos depicting the Estonian relations of the Hämäläis-Osakunta student nation

This time, the Object of the Month is an interesting recent donation to the Helsinki University Museum that consists of photos mainly illustrating the activities of the Hämäläis-Osakunta student nation (a student association originally affiliated with the Häme region of Finland) in 1929 and 1930. What makes this donation particularly valuable is that the original owner of the photos, Moira Lindfors (née Tuomikoski, formely Hormi, 1908–1979) has written on their back when and where they were taken, often also noting the names of the people in them.

The grandmother of the Berlin-based donor was Irja Tuomikoski, known as Moira, who completed her matriculation examination in Hämeenlinna and began to study law at the University of Helsinki in autumn 1928. She joined the Hämäläis-Osakunta student nation, a community of close to 1,000 students in the late 1920s. In 1930 the members of Hämäläis-Osakunta comprised up to one-quarter of all members of the Student Union.

The donated photos were discovered when I went to view a large set of photos sent to the Vantaa City Museum. My aim was to identify people in the photos who were associated with Katrineberg Manor in Vantaa, which I was investigating. Browsing the photos, I realised that they included rare depictions of student life.

I found a total of 31 photos which the owner eventually donated to the Helsinki University Museum at my request. Many of the photos were from 1929 and showed, for example, a procession celebrating the birthday of J. V. Snellman, a Finnish baseball tournament between student nations, excursions by Hämäläis-Osakunta, Flora Day celebrations and individual members of the student nation. I became particularly interested in a photo showing male students in dark caps and two female students in white caps, standing in front of a ship. I recognised the darker caps as those worn by Estonian students because I had previously visited the University of Tartu Museum in Estonia.

Student cap of the Tartu-based Eesti Üliöpilaste Selts (Estonian Students Society) male student organisation, made of blue felt fabric, with a black-and-white ribbon around the brim. The cap was donated to the Helsinki University Museum by a Finn who studied at the University of Tartu in the 1930s. Photo: Helsinki University Museum/Mai Joutselainen.

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