Her first book of short stories had appeared in 1878 and her first play Murtovarkam ('The Burglary') existed in manuscript form. In 1863 she entered the seminary at Jyväskylä, but left her studies and married in 1865 her teacher Johan Ferdinand Canth, nine years her senior. The teaching was not thorough but centered around making the girls as marriable as possible.

Johnson worked in Kuopio as a shop manager, and was able to provide his daughter a good education.Ĭanth did not have much good to say about her time in the local women's gymnasium. In 1853 the family moved to Kuopio, a small but culturally active town 500 kilometers from Helsinki. Her father was a worker at the Finlayson cotton factory, where he rose in the position of a foreman. Minna Canth was born in Tampere, the daughter of Gustaf Wilhelm Johnson and Ulrika Johnson. It is also the day of social equality in Finland. Minna Canth is the first woman to receive her own flag day in Finland, starting on 19 March 2007. As a writer of newspaper and magazine articles she expounded her radical social ideas. She wrote short stories, novellas and plays, the last-mentioned in close collaboration with Kaarlo Bergbom and the Finnish Theatre. Minna Canth was a Finnish writer and social activist. Makela, Canth edited her own journal, Vapaita aatteita ('Free ideas'), oriented towards the international discussion which was then opening up new views of the world the journal was, however, soon buried by the censors and a lack of funds. Minna Canth began her literary career writing for a newspaper edited by her husband, and she later became the first Finnish-speaking female journalist to work independently as an editor. Her success in managing the 'Tampereen Unkakauppa' draper's shop, which had previously belonged to her rather, not only provided a living for her family but also gave her the financial freedom for her literary pursuits and social activism. The next phase in Canth's life - and an unsuitable one for the widow of a college teacher - began in winter 1880, when she moved to Kuopio and became a businesswoman.

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