Opening New Doors: The Jewish Women's Experience in the Early American West, 1848–1930

Abstract

Abstract Opening New Doors examines the lives of Jewish women in the early American West to provide a deeper understanding of their diverse roles. Given the still‐forming social landscape, beginning with the 1848 Gold Rush, Jews were able to integrate more fully into local communities than they had in the East. Jewish women in the West took advantage of the unsettled nature of the region to “open new doors” for themselves in ways often not yet possible elsewhere in the country. As the stories of the Jewish women in this study demonstrate, they played an integral role in settling America's western frontier as well as promoting Jewish continuity as they built new lives in a region that offered them a host of expanded possibilities.