Education and Writing

The articles below highlight a variety of women’s writing and educational contributions, from personal insights to teachers and published authors, as observers of the natural world and proponents of culture, and through their experiences related to gold rushes, mining camp life, and as travelers.

Learn More:

• Eliza R. Scidmore, the first female writer, photographer, and board member of the National Geographic Society at: https://alaskahistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AHS-News-Summer-2020.pdf
• Ruth Gruber journalist and author, who during World War II, spent 18 months travelling in Alaska to report on conditions in the territory – including effects of militarization on Alaska Native people. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gruber-ruth
• Bertha Krentz Ramer was one of two female teachers who taught school at the Kennecott Mill town in the early 1930s. At Work in the Wrangells: a Photographic History, 1895-1966. https://www.nps.gov/wrst/learn/historyculture/upload/WRST-History-book.pdf
• “Kennecott Kids” provides students perspectives about schools in Kennecott and McCarthy during the 1920s-30s, including teachers Ruth Waters Danielson, and Margaret Harrais (who was also a Prohibition Movement leader in Alaska) at: https://www.nps.gov/wrst/learn/historyculture/upload/Kennecott-Kids-Volumes-1-and-2.pdf
• Letters and diaries of Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholen, and Anna Furuhjelm provided the basis for the book, “Married to the Empire: Three Governors’ Wives in Russian America 1829-1864” at https://books.google.com/books?id=_ve7CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=Alaska+history+Margaretha+Etholen&source=bl&ots=bR7PvF9ux1&sig=ACfU3U1CrZcr7CeRN2s29waPlSvMK8cFpw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX1vj4tZHrAhUYFjQIHSt4AZo4ChDoATACegQIChAB#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Former teacher Margaretha Etholen is part of the "Finnish Connection" during the Russian era in Sitka at:
  https://www.nps.gov/sitk/learn/historyculture/the-finnish-connection.htm