In Onitsha, an important commercial center in Nigeria, success as a merchant was the usual route for women who aspired to elite status in the period before the 1930s. In 1928, a school for girls was opened by the Holy Rosary Sisters, a Catholic order created especially by the bishop in charge of Onitsha Diocese. The opening of this convent school in Onitsha heralded a major transformation in the lives of Onitsha women, marking the transition between two epochs with regard to how women achieved elite status. From the mid-1930s a new class of elite women began to appear in Onitsha, all products of mission education; this transition from traders to teachers marks a major shift in the lives and roles of elite women. The colonial government contributed to this transformation with policies that undermined women’s ascendancy in the market by placing men in leadership positions there.
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