Female Labor in the Central Office and in the Saint Petersburg Branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries

Introduction. The article is devoted to a topic that has been insufficiently studied in Russian historiography – female labor in state institutions of Russia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The reader will find out how difficult it was to get into the ranks of the bank employees, what requirements were put forward by the leadership of this institution for candidates for a position at the Central Office and Saint Petersburg branch. Methods and materials. Based on archival materials the author examines the practice of recruiting women for service in the Central Office of the State Bank and its metropolitan branch. The author applies traditional methodological foundations: scientific objectivity, the systematic approach and historicism, as well as the general scientific method of structural and functional analysis. Analysis. The article focuses on the working conditions of women and their wages. It also provides some information about the social origin of women employees in the bank, their educational level. The author dwells on the changes in the practice of recruiting women in the early 20th century, especially during the First World War. It is important to note that the bank leadership’s requirements for women employed have undergone tangible changes over the thirty years since their first recruitment. If at the first stage relatives of bank officials were mainly recruited into the main credit institution of the country, then by the First World War these conditions had substantially softened. The defining requirements were the educational level, personal qualities and discipline of persons who were members of the bank staff. It was these qualities that convinced the bank leadership of the equivalence of female labor in relation to male labor, especially after the mass recruitment of the latter into the army. Results. The processes of staffing the State Bank by women employees, considered in the article, convincingly indicate a gradual revision of the relationship traditionally seen in Imperial Russia to women as subjects of socio-economic life in society. It is important to note that these changes largely occurred not due to the struggle of women for their rights, but as a result of the economic development of the country, in which labor resources of the male part of the empire were more and more exhausted. This factor played a key role in attracting women to public service.