The article is devoted to activities of ladies committees of the city of Tomsk in the years of the First World War. It is shown that the periodical press plays an important role in the study of the history of women’s charity organizations in the Siberian provinces of the war period because of the fragmentation and oddness of archival materials on the subject, as well as the presence of a certain specificity in the activities of ladies committees.
The study is based on materials of the newspaper “Sibirskaya zhizn”, which in the war years was the leading organ of the periodical press in the Tomsk province. Identified is the information on 12 ladies clubs and committees. Analysis of the newspaper materials allows us to follow the work of women’s committees amid rising socio-economic difficulties in the Siberian city life during the war, to see how the citizens perceived and evaluated philanth-ropy ladies. It also allows us to follow the interaction between various ladies committees as well as their cooperation with other charitable organizations, with local authorities.
The ladies committees in Tomsk were created by the initiative of the city and the pro-vincial administration, the church, charities that provided financial and organizational support; however, they also supervised the committees work. The organization and supervision of the activities of the ladies committees by officials and power structures demonstrates their loyalty to the authorities.
Ladies committees were created to collect donations, to organize works on sewing clothes for the wounded, and to assist the mobilized refugees’ families. The committees worked wives of officials, merchants, honorable citizens, doctors, professors, teachers, priests, burghers, faithful parishioners. Citizens assessed the work of women’s committees positively, responded to their calls for help, and willingly made donations of money, clothes and food.
Historical research of various forms of women’s public activity in Siberia allows us to see how in the beginning of the XX c. the state and society began to use the civil potential of women. This, in turn, changed public views about their role and purpose, influenced the character of the social and cultural processes in the region.
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