Wives Without Husbands: Marriage, Desertion, and Welfare in New York, 1900 - 1935. Anna R. Igra. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 2007. 175 pp. ISBN 0807857793. $19.95 (paper). Marriage promotion as welfare policy has been tried before - during Progressive era - and with little success. The deadbeat dad of that era was Jewish immigrant father, portrayed by reformers as an irresponsible employed man who wanted to spend money on his own pleasures rather than take care of his family. Anna Igra takes up story of marriage promotion before joint federal and state programs existed, when welfare system was largely faith-based and private. In 1911 wealthy and philanthropic Jewish men in New York City founded a legal aid society to locate deserting men, called National Desertion Bureau (NDB). They went on to create a companion legal institution, domestic relations courts, which handled criminal cases of nonsupport, including complaints brought by NDB. The book describes social background of complainants, nature of antidesertion policies, and their effectiveness. The primary source material is 300 case files from among 17,000 in records of National Desertion Bureau; most of files were in English but some were in Yiddish. The style of research is qualitative, rather than quantitative, and a combination of social and cultural history. The letters and notes from case files are largely used to make overall arguments about women's agency rather than helplessness, men's rebellion against responsibilities of breadwinner role, and coerciveness of National Desertion Bureau and courts. But Igra also examines case files for way that social workers and lawyers constructed category of deserting husband (as a serf-indulgent and irresponsible creature of American consumer culture). The fundamental distinction of welfare policy at this time was between widowed mother and deserted wife. Widows were eligible for state-provided relief (called mother's pensions), but deserted wives could receive aid only if they cooperated with National Desertion Bureau in finding and prosecuting a deserting husband. Reformers at time argued that these distinctions were absolutely necessary to offset allure of consumer culture for men. There was considerable conflict and violence in marriages that resulted in desertion. At least a fifth, and probably more, of deserted wives who applied to National Desertion Bureau claimed that they were battered, but Igra insists that they were not simply helpless victims. The women had been struggling on their own or with help of older children to support themselves and applied for relief- and were routed to National Desertion Bureau - only as last resort. The deserting husbands were Jewish immigrant men engaged in what Igra calls the remaking of gender. …