Lillian Wald

“Feld explores why, within the context of American memory, the assignment of identities persists and particularly why, contrary to Wald’s deeply held belief in transcending such labels, it was primarily Wald’s Jewish identity that has been memorialized thus far.” — Library Journal

“Presents Wald as a remarkable person with admirable ideas.” — Women’s Review of Books

“Engrossing.” — Jewish Book World

“This biography succeeds in placing Wald in 'the space between' the women’s and Jewish communities of her era.” — American Historical Review

“A fine-grained and sensitive interpretation of an important settlement woman. . . . Feld . . . has served her subject well.” — The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

“Feld has introduced interrelationships between work, sex and ethnicity in the American Progressive Era, opening the door for further critical work.” — Women’s History Magazine

“A welcome addition to Progressive Era studies. . . . Present[ed] . . . in a manner well informed by current scholarship on ethnic and cultural history.” — American Studies

“I read every word of this book with great interest. Feld does an excellent job of placing the long-overlooked Lillian Wald into the larger context of Progressive reform.” — Kathryn Kish Sklar, State University of New York at Binghamton

“Lillian Wald and the New York settlement movement have been overshadowed by Jane Addams and the movement in Chicago in part because — until now — there has been no sophisticated biography of Wald. Marjorie Feld makes an important contribution to women’s history, the history of the Progressive era, and American Jewish history by giving Wald the attention she has long deserved.” — Hasia Diner, New York University