Museum A-Ö » Wars and wartime » Jakobstad Museum

The Jakobstad City Museum is a historical museum emphasizing seafaring and shipbuilding. Those have been an essential part of Jakobstad’s history. The Malm trading house has been of great significance to the city. In the old ship-owner home have been created beautiful surroundings and interiors with artefacts, art and textiles.

The Jakobstad City Museum was founded in 1904, and it became one of the oldest local museums in Finland, when the city began to attend to it in 1906. The most important one of the buildings is the Malm House, but in the museum are also included the exhibition space of the Tempus hall as well as Runeberg’s Cabin and Westman’s Ma’s Cabin.

The most important collections of the museum are situated in the Malm House constructed by ship-owner and merchant Peter Malm during the years 1836-1838. The Malms were one of the most notable merchant and ship-owner families in Finland from the latter half of the 18th century to the mid-19th century. The first Finnish ship to sail around the world, “Hercules”, was one of Peter Malm’s vessels. The number of ships he owned was 42 at its peak. The city’s shipbuilding and shipping company activity created the base for the modern harbour and industry city of Jakobstad.

On display in the museum are the beautiful furnishing and mementos of the Malm family. Amalie Malm’s wedding dress from the year 1855 is one of the museum’s pearls. In addition there are handworks and dresses belonging to the Malm family as well as other gentry and peasant textiles in the collection. There is also an extensive art collection in the museum. It includes works by for instance Fanny Churberg and Helena Westermarck from the golden age of Finnish art. Nowadays the collection consists of paintings, graphic art, sculptures, honors, photograph art and scale models. Artists Karin Sidorow and Erik Knif from Jakobstad are especially represented, and the collection includes plenty of their paintings.

In the house across the yard have been restored several various spaces with their authentic artefacts: the 1950s are represented by a village shop, a hairdressing saloon and a labourer’s apartment. There is also a peasant house with a 19th century furnishing and a rig chamber. In the rig chamber were stored sails of sail ships, ropes and other equipment.

Around Lucia, Christmas on Södermalm is organized at the museum and during the year the museum participates in many other events. The museum also includes the Tempus exhibition hall, which shows temporary cultural history and art exhibitions