Vestnik of Orenburg State Pedagogical University. Electronic Scientific Journal. 2019. № 1 (29). P. 142—160
07.00.00 HISTORICAL SCIENCES AND ARCHEOLOGY
UDC 94(47)“186/191”+929
Serdyuk Vladimir Aleksandrovich, Candidate of Historical Sciences
Omsk State Transport University
FEMALE LABOR IN THE RAILWAY SERVICE: THE LIFE AND ACTIVITIES OF THE TICKET CLERK O. S. KNUSHEVITSKAYA (1863—1913)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the life activity of the ticket clerk of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod Railway Olga Stepanovna Knushevitskaya, who for a long time was considered the first railroad woman of Russia. Taking into account the achievements of domestic historiography and a wide range of sources, including those first introduced into scientific circulation, the author discovers the reasons and the circumstances of O. S. Knushevitskaya’s employment, and analyzes her further life. The events described are placed in a broad historical context: the construction of a railway network in the Russian Empire in the late 1850s — early 1860s, the influence of French entrepreneurs and engineers on this process, the problem of using female labor in the railway industry as a whole. It is concluded that, in spite of the traditional historiographic opinion Knushevitskaya was not the first woman in the railway service of Russia, although she deserves to be considered the first female ticket clerk.
Key words
Russian Empire, railway, The Main Society of the Russian Railways, female labor, O. S. Knushevitskaya.
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Bibliography link to this article:
Serdyuk V. A. Female labor in the railway service: the life and activities of the ticket clerk O. S. Knushevitskaya (1863—1913). Vestnik of Orenburg State Pedagogical University. Electronic Scientific Journal, 2019, no. 1 (29), pp. 142—160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32516/2303-9922.2019.29.13.