Through interviews with 41 Jewish women who came of age in Brownsville, New York in the 1940s and 1950s, Ford (Empire State College) explores the choices "the girls" made within the cultural constraints of that postwar period. Themes include the neglect of women in previous histories of this former immigrant haven, the cult of domesticity, and new dilemmas facing their daughters.
Carole Bell Ford is Professor, Mentor/Coordinator at Empire State College.