New York Council for the Humanities: Reading Groups: Adult Reading Groups

The Neighborhood of Our Mothers

This series explores New York City's immigrant tradition through the lives of women. Each session centers on a book selected by Moria Egan, a graduate student at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The opening session focuses on City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 by Christine Stansell, a riveting look at the lives of working class women in early 19th-century New York City.

This session is centered on Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century by Hasia Diner, which explores the experience of the many Irish women who migrated here in the post-famine era.

A discussion of Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars by Elizabeth Ewen, which tells the story of the Jewish and Italian women who came to New York City between 1890 and 1925.

The series concludes with a discussion of the novel Song of the Water Saints by Nelly Rosario, the stirring account of three generations of Dominican women, some of whom migrate to New York City.