Marjatta Rahikainen, ‘Shaping middle-class and upper-class girls: Women as teachers of daughters of good families in the Baltic Sea world, c. 1780–1850’

This chapter focuses on women who made their living as governesses, teachers and directresses of small private schools and large boarding schools and as headmistresses of early grammar schools (lower secondary schools) for girls. The empirical cases discussed are derived from the part of Northern Europe that stretches from the Danish Sound to St Petersburg and Stockholm. It is first suggested that the professionalization of women teachers commenced before it took institutional forms; second, the development appears differently depending on whether the focus is on the discourse about girls’ education or on women teachers’ own endeavours.