In Memory of the Aleksandrinke - Alexandrian Women

The “Aleksandrinke”, Slovenian women who owing to the difficult economic circumstances in what was at the time Italian Primorska at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century went to Egypt in search of employment, many of whom remained there, are a special phenomenon among Slovenian emigrants who should not be forgotten. They were between 4800 and 6000 mostly young mothers and girls from the Gorica area who worked in then-flourishing Alexandria and Cairo, mainly as maids, nannies, cooks and nursemaids for the families of wealthy townsfolk, the majority of whom were European. The economic heyday of Alexandria, which paralleled the construction of the Suez Canal in the second half of the 19th century, made it possible for Slovenian women to earn at least twice as much as they would at home in the economically straitened Gorica area, and spread the good reputation of disciplined, hard-working and well-kempt Slovenian maids far and wide. The situation in Cairo, 250 km away, was the same. The town chronicles speak clearly about how valued Primorska women were in Egypt, stating that a full 195 bourgeois families were vying for three Slovenian maids, as there simply weren’t any more available. At the same time, their good reputation led to some of them going back to Egypt several times, many of them to stay.

Complete reading:
http://www.slovenia.si/visit/features/aleksandrinke-slovenian-women-in-egypt/