Editing History of Finland (section)

===Economy===
[[File:Cathedral of Turku 1814.jpg|thumb|left|[[Turku Cathedral]] and its surroundings from 1814]]
[[File:Helsinki 1891, Pohjoisesplanadi 35 - G30112 (hkm.HKMS000005-km0000pgeo).jpg|thumb|A view of [[Esplanadi|Pohjoisesplanadi]] in the center of [[Helsinki]] in 1891]]
Before 1860 overseas merchant firms and the owners of landed estates had accumulated wealth that became available for industrial investments. After 1860 the government liberalized economic laws and began to build a suitable physical infrastructure of ports, railroads and telegraph lines. The domestic market was small but rapid growth took place after 1860 in export industries drawing on forest resources and mobile rural laborers.  Industrialization began during the mid-19th century from forestry to industry, mining and machinery and laid the foundation of Finland's current day prosperity, even though agriculture employed a relatively large part of the population until the post–World War II era.

The beginnings of industrialism took place in Helsinki. Alfred Kihlman (1825–1904) began as a Lutheran priest and director of the elite Helsingfors boys' school, the Swedish Normal Lyceum. He became a financier and member of the diet. There was little precedent in Finland in the 1850s for raising venture capital. Kihlman was well connected and enlisted businessmen and capitalists to invest in new enterprises. In 1869, he organized a limited partnership that supported two years of developmental activities that led to the founding of the [[Nokia]] company in 1871.<ref>{{cite book|first = Martti|last = Häikiö|title =Nokia: the inside story|date = 2002|page = 35 |publisher = Pearson Education|isbn = 9780273659839}}</ref>

After 1890 industrial productivity stagnated because entrepreneurs were unable to keep up with technological innovations made by competitors in Germany, Britain and the United States. However, Russification opened up a large Russian market especially for machinery.