The Girls: Jewish Women of Brownsville, Brooklyn, 1940-1995

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SUNY Press, Jan 1, 2000 - Social Science - 217 pages
This book tells the stories of the Jewish women who came of age in Brownsville, Brooklyn, in the 1940s and 1950s. Through in-depth interviews with more than forty women, Carole Bell Ford explores the choices these women made and the boundaries within which they made them, offering fresh insights into the culture and values of Jewish women in the postwar period. Not content to remain in the past, The Girls is also a story of women who live in the present, who lead fulfilling lives even as they struggle to adjust to changes in American society that conflict with their own values and that have profoundly affected the lives of their children and grandchildren.
 

Contents

They Still Call Themselvesthe Girls Profiles of Two Brownsville Women
1
Missing FiftyOne Percent of the Stories
11
Brownsville The Nurturing Neighborhood
27
Jewish Women Mothers
47
Coming of Age in the Forties Chokes
63
The Cult of Domesticity Coming of Age in the Fifties
81
Unfinished Business Becoming Your Own Person
103
Conclusions Looking Back
131
Daughters New Dilemmas
159
Appendix
171
Notes
177
Glossary
199
Sources
203
Index
209
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

Carole Bell Ford is Professor, Mentor/Coordinator at Empire State College.

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