12. Tuesday, July 9, 12:00 noon (NY): "Governors’ Wives in Nineteenth Century Russian America"
Susanna Rabow-Edling (Uppsala University, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies)
The Russian Empire’s American holding, Alaska, was governed by men who fought to bring trade as well as “civilization” and “enlightenment” to the colony. Many historians tell and retell that story, but there is another side. In 1829, the Russian-American Company (RAC) decreed that women would be central to their “civilizing mission.” Any governor appointed after that date had to be married. This lecture sets the context for that RAC decision and explores the lives of three young governors’ wives: Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm. Each woman left behind writings that reveal both personal and cultural struggles and insights while working to fulfil the mission that brought them to Novo-Archangel’sk (Sitka).