Postal History in Finland

• Postal traffic grew rapidly. Deliveries were late and items disappeared.
• The Postal Act 1881. Local mail, new sub-post offices, was opened for handling letters that only passed through one post office. The post office network was not yet very dense; however, post offices were open every day.
• The uniform rate was determined by the length of journey alone in 1875. Postage was paid by the sender, no longer by the recipient.
• The first post office on board set up in the steamboat Express for the route between Hanko and Stockholm in 1876.
• 7,996,000 items delivered 3.78/person in 1882 (286,000 official letters, 4,630,000 newspapers, 3,080,000 stamped deliveries).
• 38 post offices and 129 sub-post offices in 1885.

Finland

• Metal works owner Johan Nissinen installed Finland's first telephone line between his salesroom and office in Helsinki in December 1877.
• Helsingin puhelinlaitos (Helsinki telephone company), currently Elisa Oyj, started in 1882.
• The first electric light in the Nordic countries switched on at Finlayson's textile factory in Tampere when 150 bulbs were lit in the weaving mill in 1882.
• Population 2.1 million in 1882.
• Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki completed in 1887.

Global Events

• Composer Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premiered in Moscow in 1877.
• Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb in 1878.
• Production of the light bulb started in the 1880s.
• Production of the petrol engine started in the 1880s.
• The Statue of Liberty completed on Bedloe's Island (Liberty Island) in New York in 1886.
• Pharmacist John Pemberton started marketing Coca-Cola in 1886, it was introduced in Europe in 1928.