Women's labor in Russian America

• Published in: Women's history review 2022-11, Vol.31 (7), p.1212-1231
• Main Author: Grinëv, Andrei V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alaska Natives; Colonies & territories; Colonization; female labor; Females; Gender; Households; Indigenous peoples; Livestock; Russian America; Russian colonization of Alaska; Russian-American Company; Women
• ISSN: 0961-2025; 1747-583X
• DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2022.2133366

The topic of the use of female labor in the Russian colonies in the New World has not yet been fully studied, since researchers have usually been attracted only by the activities of women who came to Alaska from Russia and Europe. However, the bulk of the female population of Alaska at that time was not made up of them but rather of Unangan (Aleuts), and Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, and other Alaska Natives, and from the very beginning of Russian colonization Indigenous women were used in work by the newcomers, often in a forced way. The scale of the use of female labor increased sharply after the founding of permanent Russian settlements in America (from 1784). Only after naval officers came to power in the colonies (from 1818) did the labor of Indigenous women began to be regularly rewarded, albeit very insignificantly. The natives of the metropolis, of whom there were always very few in the colonies, mainly kept up the households and only occasionally worked as servants, livestock tenders, midwives, and caretakers of schools for girls. Their contribution to the general labor effort was not comparable to the scale of the work of Indigenous women.