by Marinda Smith

Primary Advisor: Jean Humez

Secondary Advisor: Judith Smith

Abstract:

Using primary sources from the Pauline Newman papers at the Schlesinger Library, as well as relevant secondary sources, this project narrates the history of Newman's political and personal evolution. It situates Newman within Jewish immigrant history, New York garment worker labor organizing history, and the Progressive era's emphasis on urban social reform. Using some of Newman's letters to Rose Schneiderman, Smith includes a discussion of Newman's strategy as a single working woman of creating an alternative to a conventional family, by building friendship networks with middle-class women reformers, as well as a lifelong "Boston marriage" with another woman.