Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920 / / Melissa R. Klapper.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Klapper, Melissa R.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2005]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 13 black and white illustrations

Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published-or even read-to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls’ adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education.Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society.While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, literary critic and Zionist. Klapper also analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history.Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful "es, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 “Any Other Girls in This Whole World Like Myself”: Jewish Girls and Adolescence in America -- 2 “Unless I Got More Education”: Jewish Girls and the Problem of Education in Turn-of-the-Century America -- 3 “Education in the Broadest Sense”: Alternative Forms of Education for Working-Class Girls -- 4 “A Perfect Jew and a Perfect American”: The Religious Education of Jewish Girls -- 5 “Such a World of Pleasure”: Adolescent Jewish Girls and American Youth Culture -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author