Women of Courage: Jewish and Italian Immigrant Women in New York

(Hardback)

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Description

In the wake of World War I, a diverse group of women emigrated from Europe to the United States under austere conditions and adapted in different ways to life in the new country. Based on a major new study that includes in-depth interviews with 100 Italian and Jewish women who immigrated to the New York City area in the early 1900s, this volume explores family and work lives led by these women and the relative importance of cultural factors to the two groups' adjustment to American life. The interviews trace the process of adapting to life in the U.S., paying special attention to the specific experiences of women immigrants and the challenges they faced in surmounting gender and cultural barriers both within their families and in their new communities. This innovative, interdisciplinary study uses feminist approaches to explore immigrant women's lives from childhood to old age. The result is a nuanced view of the similarities and differences between the two groups, whose distinct family structures and cultural backgrounds led to different responses to the same pressures and difficulties.

Reviews

[A] vivid picture of Jewish and Italian women's adjustment to the new way of living in the United States....important for both women's history and women's studies.-MultiCultural Review
[T]he authors have gathered material that will help us unravel women's experiences after mass immigration ended-years that have attracted far too little attention up to now.-International Migration Review
Women of Courage goes far in filling a remaining gap in the literature on immigrant women's lives and experiences....The strength of the book and its primary contribution resides in the 100 richly textured, original life-history interviews....Women of Courage is a welcome addition to the body of literature on both Italian and Jewish immigrant women in America. With its original and detailed information on the experience of work and family in women's own words, the book will be of value to scholars in many discipline's, including gender studies, demography, history, sociology, and American Studies.-American Jewish History
"A vivid picture of Jewish and Italian women's adjustment to the new way of living in the United States....important for both women's history and women's studies."-MultiCultural Review
"The authors have gathered material that will help us unravel women's experiences after mass immigration ended-years that have attracted far too little attention up to now."-International Migration Review
"[A] vivid picture of Jewish and Italian women's adjustment to the new way of living in the United States....important for both women's history and women's studies."-MultiCultural Review
"[T]he authors have gathered material that will help us unravel women's experiences after mass immigration ended-years that have attracted far too little attention up to now."-International Migration Review
"Women of Courage goes far in filling a remaining gap in the literature on immigrant women's lives and experiences....The strength of the book and its primary contribution resides in the 100 richly textured, original life-history interviews....Women of Courage is a welcome addition to the body of literature on both Italian and Jewish immigrant women in America. With its original and detailed information on the experience of work and family in women's own words, the book will be of value to scholars in many discipline's, including gender studies, demography, history, sociology, and American Studies."-American Jewish History

Author Bio

ROSE LAUB COSER was Professor Emerita of Sociology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Boston College. A distinguished sociological pioneer, she wrote eight books and countless articles. She also sat on the editorial boards of numerous journals including Gender & Society, Dissent, and The American Journal of Sociology, and was President of the Eastern Sociological Society and Vice President of the American Sociological Association. LAURA S. ANKER is Professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Old Westbury. Her publications on women and immigration explore the use of life histories as historical sources. She is currently working on a book based on immigrant narratives from the Connecticut Federal Writers Project in the 1930s. ANDREW J. PERRIN is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.