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

by Rose Laub Coser, Laura S. Anker, Andrew Perrin

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313308208
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/30/1999
Series:	Contributions in Women's Studies , #173
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)
Lexile:	1180L (what's this?)

About the Author

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 jourbanals including Gender & Society, Dissent, and The American Jourbanal 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.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Leaving for America
The Unknown Future
Family Structure: Some Theoretical Concepts
Fertility and Social Structure
Home Life
Coming to America?: Work as a Motive for Migration
Women and Work in the "Golden Medina"
Work, Unions, and Identity: "To Make for Herself a Person"
Appendix: List of Interviewees

Editorial Reviews

Based on interviews with 100 Italian and Jewish women who immigrated to New York in the 1920s, this study examines the differences and similarities between the experiences of these two groups. Coser (sociology, State U. of NY), Anker (American Studies, State U. of NY), and Perrin (PhD candidate, sociology, UC Berkeley) stress issues surrounding family life and work, particularly these women's political activity with workers' rights and unions. Italian women and their families tended to become insular and tried to maintain a more thoroughly Italian culture, whereas the Jewish families assimilated more with American culture; however, in work life, both Italian and Jewish women were active participants in unions and workers' rights movements. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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