| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920. By Melissa R. Klapper. (New York: New York University Press, 2005. x, 310 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8147-4780-9.)

To write a history of American Jewish girlhood is no easy task. The subject cuts across diverse areas: gender, the history of youth, American studies, and Jewish history. It requires attention to class, race, religion, and ethnicity, since American Jews came from varied backgrounds in the years of extensive immigration from 1860 to 1920 and achieved widely divergent levels of economic prosperity. The historian also confronts the task of organizing disparate sources, from diaries to prescriptive literature to institutional records. Melissa R. Klapper has succeeded handsomely in surmounting the hurdles of her topic to create a coherent narrative of cultural change. She brings to her subject sensitivity to the stress of adolescence, mastery of her materials, and genuine affection for the experience of growing up female, Jewish, and American. Her time frame allows her to examine third- and fourth-generation Jewish girls as well as recent immigrants and second-generation youth. She discusses growing up not only in large northeastern and midwestern cities but also in small western and southern towns.

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