1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910956515603321

Autore

Rabow-Edling Susanna

Titolo

Married to the Empire : Three Governors' Wives in Russian America 1829-1864 / / Susanna Rabow-Edling

Pubbl/distr/stampa

2015., : University of Alaska Press

Fairbanks, Alaska

ISBN

9781602232655

1602232652

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (289 p.)

Disciplina

979.8/010922

Soggetti

Russians

Governors' spouses

Russians - Alaska

Governors' spouses - Alaska

History

Biographies

Alaska Sitka

Alaska

Sitka (Alaska) Biography

Alaska History To 1867

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Maps; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I: Elisabeth von Wrangell; Chapter One -- The Journey across Siberia to Russian America; Chapter Two -- The Encounter With the New World; Part II: Margaretha Etholen; Chapter Three -- From Helsinki to Sitka; Chapter Four -- The Inner Life of a Governor's Wife; Part III: Anna Furuhjelm; Chapter Five -- The Perfect Wife in the Wilderness; Chapter Six -- A Woman's Mission and Sphere; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

The Russian Empire had a problem. While they had established successful colonies in their territory of Alaska, life in the settlements was anything but civilized. The settlers of the Russian-America Company were drunk, disorderly, and corrupt. Worst of all, they were



terrible role models for the Natives, whom the empire saw as in desperate need of moral enlightenment. The empire’s solution? Send in women. In 1829, the Company decreed that any governor appointed after that date had to have a wife, in the hopes that these more pious women would serve as glowing examples of domesticity and bring charm to a brutish territory. Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm were three of eight governors' wives who took up this domestic mantle. Married to the Empire tells their stories using their own words and though extraordinary research by Susanna Rabow-Edling. All three were young and newly wed when they left Russia for the furthest outpost of the empire, and all three went through personal and cultural struggles as they worked to adjust to life in the colony. Their trials offer a little-heard female history of Russian Alaska, while illuminating the issues that arose while trying to reconcile expectations of womanhood with the realities of frontier life.