“The Whole World Had the Sound of the Barrel Organ”: Representations of Fairs in Finnish Newspapers and Fiction from the 1870s to the 1910s

Abstract

The chapter investigates representations of popular amusements in Finnish newspapers, periodicals, and fiction from the 1870s to the 1910s. Besides the merry-go-rounds, panoramas and exhibitions of exotic animals attracting crowds from the countryside, the entertainers included sellers of broadside ballads. While the latter type of trade was predominantly in the hands of Finnish-speaking men, the barrel organ grinders came from other ethnic backgrounds. The focus of this chapter is on depictions of sellers of songs and on the ways in which they were seen by people who bought their commodities. The period has been called “the golden age of broadside ballads”, during which the culture of creating, selling, and consuming (singing, reading) these texts belonged to the unschooled common people, while the educated writers repeatedly attacked these activities.