Foreign and Female - Hardcover

As portrayed by Florida-based political consultant Weatherford in this comprehensive survey, immigrant European women were at once vulnerable and resilient. While most of them accompanied male relatives to America, many made the journey alone as unmarried women, or with their children to rejoin husbands after prolonged separations. Although the majority of these women were uneducated, some left eloquent letters and journals drawn upon here by the author. Fatalism, she shows, was a common attitude among the women; annual pregnancies were expected to ensure potential earners and compensate for high infant mortality. Weatherford records the toll that hardship and adjustment to American lifein cities and on farmstook on the health of these women, their marriages and the family structure; and depicts the chaotic conditions caused by wars, westward migration, industrialization and labor unrest, amid which women sought to create an independent life for themselves and their children. As one of them put it, "I learned in America not to be afraid." Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Until recently, the experiences of immigrant women have been little examined and too often generalized. This revised and expanded edition of Foreign And Female thoroughly explores every facet of the immigrant woman's experience in the United States between the years 1840 and 1930. Relying heavily on personal accounts, Doris Weatherford examines the lives of women immigrants with regard to experiences with childbirth; religion in the New World; courtship, marriage and divorce; cleaning, child care and clothing; work and wages; medical and health issues; death and dying; and a whole lot more! Foreign And Female is enhanced by period photographs portraying immigrant women of the time. Foreign And Female is a masterpiece of research, highly readable, and enormously informative. Foreign And Female is highly recommended for women's studies and American history reading lists and library collections. -- Midwest Book Review