Historical research into female entrepreneurs has become a burgeoning field in recent years. However, there is still a lack of studies of businesswomen based on their personal documents, and such documents seem to be rare. This book, an appraisal of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century East-Icelandic businesswoman Pálína Waage (1864-1935), fills that gap. It investigates the agency of a small-scale female entrepreneur, primarily based on her autobiography, diaries and letters, using the methodology of the history of experience and 'lived experience'.