From salons in Federal Philadelphia to Frontier homesteads to settlement houses in city slums to 1970s consciousness-raising sessions, American Jewish women have brought a distinctive sense of self and community to bear on the economic, social, and family life around them. Hasia R. Diner and Beryl Lieff Benderly draw upon long-neglected public records, private diaries, memoirs and letters to overturn the widespread notion that Jewish life began at Ellis Island and happened only in New York. They offer a complex portrait of flesh-and-blood characters such as Emma Lazarus, Mrs. Wyatt Earp, Ethel Rosenberg, Betty Friedan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The result is a comprehensive account of how America transformed generations of Jewish women--and how these women transformed America.