Maria Nikolaevna Vernadskaya, born Shigaeva, was born on December 27, 1831, into a noble family where traditional values prevailed. She received an excellent education, aided by her father's rich library, the first translator of Walter Scott's novel "The Betrothed" into Russian. From books, Maria learned about many forbidden topics in Russia at that time, including feminism. This movement began to take shape in the empire in the mid-19th century, and Maria Shigaeva was one of its founders.

To escape parental control, at the age of 18, Maria married Professor Ivan Vernadsky. Her husband supported her interests, including her passion for political economy. Seven years later, they began publishing the journal "Economic Observer," where Maria Nikolaevna anonymously published articles on emancipation and women's labor. She noted that some Russian women consider work shameful: "a person can degrade some occupation, but no honest work can degrade a person."

Maria rejected the excuses of mothers who did not want to part from their children and ladies who spent time in idleness: "stop being children, try to stand on your own feet, live by your own mind, work with your own hands, learn, think, labor like men, and you will be just as independent."

She believed that if women could earn independently, fewer of them would rush into marriage. Unfortunately, Maria Nikolaevna lived only 29 years and was buried at the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery in St. Petersburg. After her death in 1862, Ivan Vernadsky published her articles in a separate collection.