Merchantress, Noblewoman, Tycoon. Businesswomen in the 19th-Century Russia

This book will change the mind of those who believe that in the nineteenth-century Russia women were engaged solely in housekeeping and childrearing, while the business world was totally ruled by men. Historian Galina Ulyanova on the basis of a long-term research shows that merchant daughters and representatives of all economically active classes were well-versed in matters of finance and dealmaking. The social status of businesswomen ranged from lower middle-class women and soldier’s wives who ran small craft businesses and retail shops to magnates and eminent merchants like the noblewoman Nadezhda Stenbock-Fermor, owner of steel-rolling mills, and Maria Morozova, owner of Russia's largest textile factories. What was the attitude of these women to wealth? What business development strategies did they choose? Were the businesswomen able to combine toughness in business with gentleness and care in the family? The author answers these questions, providing dozens of fantastic stories of women's success, which overturn our views about the place of women in pre-revolutionary society.

Galina Ulyanova is a Doctor of History, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author of seven books on the history of merchantry and philanthropy.