This chapter focuses on the early nineteenth-century businesswoman and
manager Marie Hackman (b. Laube, 1776–1865). Marie Hackman lived all her
life in Vyborg, at that time a small town 150 kilometres northeast of
St. Petersburg. During her lifetime Vyborg belonged to the Russian
Empire, and by the time of her death Vyborg had become the second
largest town in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Marie Hackman’s family
connections gave her links to the German merchant class around the
Baltic and in German port towns, but also with the German lower nobility
in St. Petersburg and the Russian Baltic provinces (Koskull 1937,
56–71; Kuisma 2004, 449–450).