Finding out how women lived and still live in the Graubünden was the aim of a working group of women who got together several years ago to tackle the project Frauenleben in Graubünden (Women’s lives in Graubünden). A lot of material was collected, including 20 extensive interview transcripts, which are now stored at the Staatsarchiv Graubünden. From these 20 transcripts, seven were selected to be translated and edited. In addition, biographies of women born between 1912 and 1927 from different social backgrounds and language regions can now be read.

The struggle for education, a profession and a livelihood runs like a red thread through the biographies, and the restrictions imposed by the limited number of female role models, both social but of course also personal, are striking. It is impressive what these women were able to achieve, and how they have made a great deal of their lives despite all the adversities. Women today can, as Marianne Fischbacher writes, “take their measure”.

The editors have placed the biographies in a social and historical context, which is partly successful, but unfortunately not specific enough to women. Nevertheless, Frauenleben in Graubünden in its present form is an introduction to the subject of women’s history, and a great effort had to be made to find funding for it.