The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-06-12
AMONG ALASKAN WOMEN.
Excellent Work Being Done Cor the
Sex i'm Remote America.

Sex i'm Remote America.
tories of the Northwest to Be Opened in
Sitka-It Will Be in Charge of Miss Oh
ga Hilton, Who Begins Her Work Next
Month, After an Eight Years Prepare
tory Course.
New YORK Times.)
"Our women have very bright, intellec-
tual, Initiative natures, easily Influenced
for good or evil, said Miss Olga Hilton
a young Alaskan, recently to reporter
for The New York Times. "This is why
we are anxious to put before them high
ideals, and make them feel that labor,
especially household, is not, as they have
been taught to believe, degrading. We
wish to make it attractive to them, and
show them how to do every thing daintily
and deftly, not only that they may be
able TO care intelligently for their own
homes, but that they may become self
supporting. There is q great demand
for skilled domestic service in the Eng
lish, Russian and American families at
Juneau and Sitka, and in them the girls
would find good homes, where they would
be protected. :"
| Miss Hilton, who is in herself an adj
mirable exponent of the quick intelli-
gence," which she ascribes as O charac-
teristic of the Alaskan girls, is at present
student in Pratt Institute, where she
is taking the 90 urse of Household Econ
omics preparatory to introducing the
study in the Alaskan schools, beginning
at the Training SCHOOL, in Sitka.
Heretofore, in the schools at Fort
Wrangle and Sitka, established by Dr.
Jackson and Mr.. Mcfarland. under the
caro- of the Woman's Board of the Presby-
terrain Church. the girls. have picked up
what they could while taking turns in
helping with the dining room or kitchen
work of the schools, but the means for
instruction have of necessity been very
limited. This summer a new and com :
modious kitchen is to be fitted up under
the direction of Miss Hilton, with sinks,
lockers, cooking stove, tables and good
stock of utensils, and here the girls, di
svided into classes, are to be regularly
trained. This means great departure
for the Alaskan women, who have in
large measure been forced to depend fol
support on compulsory Or voluntary I'M
moral slavery.
| The story of woman's status in Alaska,
and of this training school in Sitka which
has done and is doing so much for
women, is most interesting one.
When Alaska came into the possession
of thesUnited States.by purchase, in 1867,
the flag Of Russia, which had dominated
tho country for 100 years. was hauled
down, and the Stars and Stripes f1oated
in its place.
New Arohangel, the Russian capital
took again its native name of Sitka, the
Russian schools and churches we're most
ly closed, and the Russians and Europeans
who had been in the employ of the great
fur companies returned to Europe, leav-
ing a few United States soldiers in pos
4 session of the former Russian FORTS
Although $4,000 human beings were
thus added to the population of the
United States, no efforts were made by
the Government to look after them or
educate them i'll any way, and it was
not until 1878, over ton years after
Alneioans occupancy, that school was
opened, through the zeal of missionaries.
Russian rule had not improved the
condition of Alaska. While the natives
near the coast had acquired some ideas
of trade and of money, had learned te
wear white mems clothing to certain
extent, to read a little, and had gained
some vague ideas of the rites of the Greek
Church, this had been more than coun.
terbalanoed by those fatal gifts that have
done much to decimate the population
whiskey, immortality, and smallpox. As
in all barbarous or semi -barbarous lands,
the weightiest burdens and greatest deg
relation fell upon woman.
From early childhood women are &C
oustomed to every kind of drudgsry and
oppression. If spared In infancy, (fol
inafnticide and murder are most com.
mon) they are early taught their inferior.
ity. While mere babies they are often
given away or sold.
At ten or twelve years of age the Alas
kan girl is shut up in perfectly DARK
and fireless hut, SO small she cannot
stand upright in it. Here she is kept from
three months to two years, seeing no one
but her own mother, who brings her hel
food, and she is considered so unclean as
to contaminate everything with viii Gil
she comes in contact
If she survives this inhuman probation,
she is finally brought ont, her old clothes
burned, and new ones provided, metal
pin driven through her under lip parall O.
with the mouth, and piece of wood o,
shell is inserted to keep the aperture ex.
tended. If she marries Immediately. tbs
end of hel existence is supposed to have
been attained. In this event she becomes
practically the slave of her husband. anc
may be traded off for anything he MAY
desire. If not married, girls are fre
quently, sold for base purposes, by theil
own mothers, who count few blankets