Historical research into female entrepreneurs has become a burgeoning field in recent years. However, there is still a lack of studies of businesswomen based on their personal documents, and such documents seem to be rare. This book, an appraisal of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century East-Icelandic businesswoman Pálína Waage (1864-1935), fills that gap. It investigates the agency of a small-scale female entrepreneur, primarily based on her autobiography, diaries and letters, using the methodology of the history of experience and 'lived experience'.
1: A conscious but hidden female entrepreneur.- 2: Approaching the agency of a female entrepreneur.- 3: At the junction between Iceland and Denmark. Family "capital" and transnational ties as a lived experience.- 4: Journeys in a harsh and holistic world.- 5: A young business agent in the making.- 6: Education and agency in transnational spaces.- 7: Living a migration to North America.- 8: The continent of reality.- 9: A single working woman of the world.- 10: A farming - entrepreneurial - woman.- 11: Establishing a business at a transnational border.- 12: The businesswoman Pálína Waage.- 13: Conclusion.
Sigrídur Matthíasdóttir is an independent scholar based in Iceland.
