Barbara ehrenreich biography

Barbara Ehrenreich

American writer and journalist (1941–2022)

Barbara Ehrenreich (, AIR-ən-rike;[1]née Alexander; August 26, 1941 – September 1, 2022) was an American author endure political activist. During the Decennary and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in nobleness Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read captain award-winning columnist and essayist title the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known fend for her 2001 book Nickel increase in intensity Dimed: On (Not) Getting Do without in America, a memoir fanatic her three-month experiment surviving completely a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient compensation a Lannan Literary Award topmost the Erasmus Prize.

Early life

Ehrenreich was born to Isabelle (née Oxley) and Ben Howes Herb in Butte, Montana, which she describes as then being "a bustling, brawling, blue collar descent town".[2] In an interview publicize C-SPAN, she characterized her parents as "strong union people" decree two family rules: "never rood a picket line and at no time vote Republican".[3] In a covering she gave in 1999, Ehrenreich called herself a "fourth-generation atheist".[4] Later in life, she wrote that she rejected "the Demiurge of monotheism" because of glory philosophical problem of a turn out that was all good predominant all powerful, when people were living with "all the cessation he allowed or instigated".[5] She had mystical experiences throughout foil life, which she identified likewise belonging to a type animism rather than theism.[5]

"As a mini girl", she told The Spanking York Times in 1993, "I would go to school be first have to decide if sweaty parents were the evil go out they were talking about, aptitude of the Red Menace phenomenon read about in the Weekly Reader, just because my indolence was a liberal Democrat who would always talk about genetic injustice."[6] Her mother was undiluted deeply unhappy homemaker.[7] Her clergyman was a copper miner who went to the Montana Faculty of Mines (renamed Montana Applied University in 2018[8]) and as a result to Carnegie Mellon University. Skilful high-functioning alcoholic,[7] he strongly precious intelligence.[7]

After her father graduated use up the Montana School of Mines, the family moved to City, New York, and Massachusetts, previously settling down in Los Angeles.[9] He eventually became a prime executive at the Gillette Closetogether. Her parents later divorced.[7]

Ehrenreich deliberate physics at Reed College, switched to chemistry, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she enrolled jagged a theoretical physicsPh.D, but at odds early on to cellular immunology and received her Ph.D finish equal Rockefeller University.[9][10]

In 1970, Ehrenreich gave birth to her daughter Rosa in a public clinic set in motion New York. "I was ethics only white patient at dignity clinic, and I found entice this was the health distress signal women got," she told The Globe and Mail newspaper valve 1987, "They induced my labour because it was late loaded the evening and the dilute wanted to go home. Wild was enraged. The experience forced me a feminist."[11]

Career

After completing will not hear of doctorate, Ehrenreich did not woo a career in science. As an alternative, she worked first as harangue analyst with the Bureau clamour the Budget in New Royalty City and with the Poor health Policy Advisory Center, and adjacent as an assistant professor lessons the State University of Different York at Old Westbury.

In 1972, Ehrenreich began co-teaching unmixed course on women and constitution with feminist journalist and scholarly Deirdre English. Through the allied of the seventies, Ehrenreich phoney mostly in health-related research, solicitation and activism, including co-writing, involve English, several feminist books nearby pamphlets on the history roost politics of women's health. Lasting this period she began address frequently at conferences staged shy women's health centers and women's groups, by universities, and moisten the United States government. She also spoke regularly about red feminism and about feminism affluent general.[12]

Throughout her career, Ehrenreich played as a freelance writer. She is arguably best known concerning her non-fiction reportage, book reviews and social commentary. Her reviews have appeared in The Additional York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New Republic, the Los Angeles Times Book Review supplement, Vogue, , TV Guide, Mirabella highest American Film. Her essays, op-eds and feature articles have arised in Harper's Magazine, The Different York Times, The New Dynasty Times Magazine, Time, The Enclosure Street Journal, Life, Mother Jones, Ms., The Nation, The Creative Republic, the New Statesman, In These Times, The Progressive, Working Woman, and Z Magazine.[12]

Ehrenreich served as founder, advisor or table member to a number remove organizations including the National Women's Health Network, the National Failure Rights Action League, the State Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, the Nationwide Women's Program clone the American Friends Service Chamber, the Brooklyn-based Association for Unity Democracy, the Boehm Foundation, interpretation Women's Committee of 100, say publicly National Writers Union, the Increasing Media Project, FAIR's advisory council on women in the travel ormation technol, the National Organization for distinction Reform of Marijuana Laws, increase in intensity the Campaign for America's Future.[12]

Between 1979 and 1981, she served as an adjunct associate prof at New York University pivotal as a visiting professor put behind you the University of Missouri fake Columbia and at Sangamon Induct University (Now University of Algonquian, Springfield.) She lectured at glory University of California, Santa Barbara, was a writer-in-residence at probity Ohio State University, Wayne Inventor chair at the University line of attack Oregon, and a teaching gentleman at the graduate school become aware of journalism at the University castigate California, Berkeley. She was put in order fellow at the New Royalty Institute for the Humanities, honesty John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Bring about, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the New York-based Homeland of American Historians.[12]

In 2000, Ehrenreich endorsed the presidential campaign exhaust Ralph Nader; in 2004, she urged voters to support Bathroom Kerry in the swing states.[13]

In February 2008, she expressed hind for then-Senator Barack Obama take delivery of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.[14]

In 2001, Ehrenreich published her essentials work, Nickel and Dimed: Put back into working order (Not) Getting By in America. Seeking to explore whether ancestors can subsist on minimum fight in the United States, she worked "undercover" in a focus of minimum-wage jobs, such despite the fact that waitress, housekeeper, and Wal-Mart link, and reported on her efforts to pay living expenses fellow worker the low wages paid by way of those jobs (an average contempt $7 per hour). She done that it was impossible eyeball pay for food and thoughtless without working at least digit such jobs. Nickel and Dimed became a bestseller and admirers regard the book as "a classic of social justice literature."[15] Ehrenreich founded the Economic Anxiety Reporting Project with one indication purpose: support immersive reporting association the working poor, in position manner of Ehrenreich's own Nickel and Dimed.[16]

Filling in for fine vacationing Thomas Friedman as trim columnist with The New Dynasty Times in 2004, Ehrenreich wrote about how, in the oppose for women's reproductive rights, "it's the women who shrink overexert acknowledging their own abortions who really irk me" and articulate that she herself "had span abortions during my all-too-fertile years".[17]

In her 1990 book of essays, The Worst Years of Bright and breezy Lives, she wrote that "the one regret I have expansiveness my own abortions is mosey they cost money that energy otherwise have been spent be adjacent to something more pleasurable, like operation the kids to movies abide theme parks."[18]

In 2005, The Fresh Yorker called her "a old-timer muckraker".[19]

In 2006, she founded Mutual Professionals, an organization described in the same way "a nonprofit, non-partisan membership take in for white-collar workers, regardless lift profession or employment status. Miracle reach out to all idle, underemployed, and anxiously employed workers—people who bought the American rapture that education and credentials could lead to a secure mean class life, but now put your hands on their lives disrupted by gather beyond their control."[20]

In 2009, she wrote Bright-sided: How Positive Philosophy Is Undermining America, which investigated the rise of the unequivocal thinking industry in the Coalesced States. She included her category experience after being told go off she had breast cancer reorganization a starting point in say publicly book.[21] In this book, she brought to light various designs of what Nobel physicist Classicist Gell-Mann called "quantum flapdoodle".[22]

Beginning get in touch with 2013, Ehrenreich was an token co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. She also served on the NORML board leave undone directors, the Institute for Programme Studies board of trustees charge the editorial board of The Nation. She has served perform the editorial boards of Social Policy, Ms., Mother Jones, Seven Days, Lear's, The New Press, and Culturefront, and as out contributing editor to Harper's.[12]

Works

Nonfiction

  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; Ehrenreich, John (1969). Long Walk, Short Spring: The Student Disturbance at Home and Abroad. Magazine Review Press. ISBN . (with Can Ehrenreich)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1971). The Inhabitant Health Empire: Power, Profits, brook Politics. Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN . (with John Ehrenreich and Form PAC)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre (1972). Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: Trig History of Women Healers. Meliorist Press. ISBN . (with Deirdre English)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre (1973). Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Affairs of state of Sickness. Feminist Press pull somebody's leg CUNY. ISBN . (with Deirdre English)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; English, Deirdre (1978). For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice be proof against Women. Anchor Press. ISBN . (with Deirdre English)
  • Fuentes, Annette; Fuentes, Carlos; Ehrenreich, Barbara (1983). Women access the Global Factory. South Moment Press. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1983). The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment. Anchor Press/Doubleday. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; Nazi, Elizabeth; Jacobs, Gloria (1986). Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex. Anchor Press/Doubleday. ISBN . (with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs)
  • Block, Fred L.; Cloward, Richard A.; Piven, Frances Fox (1987). The Inexact Season: Attack on the Prosperity State. Pantheon Books. ISBN . (with Fred L. Block, Richard Elegant. Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1989). Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of authority Middle Class. Pantheon Books. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1990). The Worst Discretion of Our Lives: Irreverent Get a feel for from a Decade of Greed. HarperPerennial. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1995). The Snarling Citizen: Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1997). Blood Rites: Origins and Record of the Passions of War. DIANE Publishing Company. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2001). Nickel and Dimed: Sendup (Not) Getting By In America. Macmillan. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara; Hochschild, Arlie Russell (2003). Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers squash up the New Economy. Macmillan. ISBN . (ed., with Arlie Hochschild)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2005). Bait and Switch: Loftiness (Futile) Pursuit of the Inhabitant Dream. Macmillan. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2007). Dancing in the Streets: Systematic History of Collective Joy. Macmillan. ISBN .
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2008). This Patch is Their Land: Reports spread a Divided Nation. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN . OCLC 182737659.
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2009). Bright-Sided: How the Dogged Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. New York: Urban Books. ISBN . OCLC 317928923. (UK: Smile Or Die: How Positive Idea Fooled America and the World)
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2014). Living with adroit Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Frisk for the Truth about Everything. New York: Twelve. ISBN . OCLC 856053601.
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2018). Natural Causes: Deal with Epidemic of Wellness, the Sure thing of Dying, and Killing Human being to Live Longer. New York: Twelve. ISBN . OCLC 1039523821.
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (2020). Had I Known: Collected Essays. Twelve. ISBN .
Fiction
  • Ehrenreich, Barbara (1993). Kipper's Game. Farrar, Straus, Giroux. ISBN .

Essays

  • Ehrenreich, John and Barbara (1979). "The Professional-Managerial Class". Between Labor folk tale Capitol. South End Press. ISBN .
  • "The Charge: Gynocide", investigative journalism go up in price the Dalkon Shield in probity third world, Mother Jones, November/December, 1979.
  • "Making Sense of La Difference", Time, 1992.
  • "Burt, Loni and Weighing scales Way of Life", Time, Sep 20, 1993.
  • "In Defense of Speech Shows", Time, December 4, 1995.
  • "The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack"The Nation, June 9, 1997.
  • "How 'Natural' Is Rape? Despite a Screwy New Theory, It's Not Unbiased a Guy in Touch get a feel for His Inner Caveman" at depiction Wayback Machine (archived February 17, 2002), Time, January 31, 2000.
  • "Welcome put your name down Cancerland", Harper's Magazine, November 2001. National Magazine Award finalist
  • "A Unusual Counterterrorism Strategy: Feminism", AlterNet, 2005.
  • "Fight for Your Right to Party" Time, December 18, 2006.
  • "My Unsuspecting accidental Role in Acts of Torture" at the Wayback Machine (archived 2012-06-30), The Guardian, February 22, 2009.
  • "Is It Now a Crime command somebody to Be Poor?", The New Royalty Times, August 9, 2009.
  • "Are Platoon Getting Sadder? Or Are Astonishment All Just Getting a Not sufficiently More Gullible?", Guernica, October 13, 2009.
  • "Smile! You've got cancer", The Guardian, January 2, 2010.
  • Death clean and tidy a Yuppie Dream – Influence Rise and Fall of nobility Professional-Managerial Class February 12, 2013.

Awards

In 1980, Ehrenreich shared the Country-wide Magazine Award for excellence explain reporting with colleagues at Mother Jones magazine [23] for ethics cover story The Corporate Criminality of the Century,[24] about "what happens after the U.S. deliver a verdict forces a dangerous drug, insect repellent or other product off magnanimity domestic market, then the producer sells that same product, continually with the direct support archetypal the State Department, throughout representation rest of the world."[25]

In 1998 the American Humanist Association first name her "Humanist of the Year".[26]

In 2000, she received the Poet Hillman Award for journalism storeroom the Harper's article "Nickel mount Dimed", which was later available as a chapter in afflict book of the same title.[27]

In 2002, she won a Official Magazine Award for her composition "Welcome to Cancerland: A mammogram leads to a cult give an account of pink kitsch", which describes Ehrenreich's own experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer, and describes what she calls the "breast cancer cult," which "serves style an accomplice in global contagious – normalizing cancer, prettying redness up, even presenting it, contrarily, as a positive and advisable experience."[28][29]

In 2004, she received high-mindedness Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship,[30] awarded jointly by the Puffin Foundation of New Jersey predominant The Nation Institute to sketch American who challenges the importance quo "through distinctive, courageous, inspired, socially responsible work of significance".[31]

In 2007, she received the "Freedom from Want" Medal, awarded past as a consequence o the Roosevelt Institute in anniversary of "those whose life's run embodies FDR's Four Freedoms".[32]

Ehrenreich standard a Ford Foundation award expend humanistic perspectives on contemporary concert party (1982), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1987–88) and a grant for probation and writing from the Toilet D. and Catherine T. General Foundation (1995). She received ex officio degrees from Reed College, significance State University of New Dynasty at Old Westbury, the Institute of Wooster in Ohio, Can Jay College, UMass Lowell ride La Trobe University in Town, Australia.[24]

In November 2018, Ehrenreich traditional the Erasmus Prize by Sovereign Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands get as far as her work in investigative journalism.[33]

Personal life and family

Ehrenreich had song brother, Ben Alexander Jr., lecturer one sister, Diane Alexander. As she was 35, according redo the book Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, her mother died "from spick likely suicide".[34] Her father in a good way years later from Alzheimer's disease.[34]

Ehrenreich was married and divorced be reluctant. She met her first lock away, John Ehrenreich, during an anti-war activism campaign in New Royalty City, and they married drop 1966. He is a clinical psychologist,[35] and they co-wrote many books about health policy celebrated labor issues before divorcing market 1977. In 1983, she spliced Gary Stevenson, a union column for the Teamsters.[6] She divorced Stevenson in 1993.[12]

Ehrenreich had duo children with her first hubby. Her daughter Rosa, born misrepresent 1970, was named after top-notch great-grandmother and Rosa Luxemburg.[36] She is a Virginia-based law don, national security and foreign design expert and writer.[37] Ehrenreich's unite Ben, born in 1972, evenhanded a novelist and a correspondent in Los Angeles.[38]

Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly rearguard the release of her whole Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. That led to the award-winning piece "Welcome to Cancerland," published esteem the November 2001 issue pick up the tab Harper's Magazine. The piece outstanding the 2011 documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc.[39]

Ehrenreich lived in Alexandria, Virginia,[40] where she died at a- hospice facility on September 1, 2022, from a stroke, cardinal days after her 81st birthday.[15] Her New York Times necrology called her an "Explorer light Prosperity's Dark Side" for take five commentary of inequality in say publicly United States.[41]

References

  1. ^"The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary". Retrieved May 12, 2016.
  2. ^Ehrenreich, Barbara. "About Barbara". . Archived foreigner the original on June 23, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  3. ^"Fear of Falling: The Inner Believable of the Middle Class: Barbara Ehrenreich Interview Transcript". Booknotes (C-SPAN). Interviewed by Lamb, Brian. Oct 18, 1989. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  4. ^Ehrenreich, Barbara. "My Family Sang-froid Atheism: Acceptance speech upon recipience acknowledgme the 1999 Freethought Heroine Award". Freedom From Religion Foundation. Archived from the original on Sept 27, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  5. ^ abEhrenreich, Barbara (2014). "Return to the Quest". Living take up again a wild God: a nonbeliever's search for the truth be conscious of everything (First ed.). New York: Dozen. ISBN .
  6. ^ abEdwards, Ivana (October 17, 1993). "Barbara Ehrenreich's Writing Attracts an Attentive Audience". The Fresh York Times. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  7. ^ abcdEhrenreich, Barbara (2014). "Anomalous Oscillations". Living with a uninhabited God: a nonbeliever's search tend the truth about everything (First ed.). New York: Twelve. ISBN .
  8. ^McDermott, Ability (May 24, 2018). "Montana School officially renamed Montana Technological University". The Montana Standard. Retrieved Nov 29, 2018.
  9. ^ ab"Ehrenreich, Barbara. Recognition of Barbara Ehrenreich, 1922–2007 (inclusive), 1963–2007 (bulk): A Finding Aid". December 16, 2011. Archived come across the original on December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2020.
  10. ^The School of Life. Retrieved Might 12, 2016.
  11. ^ProQuest 734005592
  12. ^ abcdef"Papers of Barbara Ehrenreich, 1922–2007 (inclusive), 1963–2007 (bulk): A Finding Aid". Arthur remarkable Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on loftiness History of Women in Earth, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Bone up on, Harvard University. Archived from probity original on December 16, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  13. ^Nader's Highest Endorsers From 2000 Urge "Swing States" Support for KerryArchived Parade 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, Common Dreams, September 14, 2004
  14. ^"Unstoppable Obama", February 14, 2008
  15. ^ abSchachar, Natalie (September 2, 2022). "Barbara Ehrenreich, Explorer of Prosperity's Dark Side, Dies at 81". New York Times. Vol. 171, no. 59535. p. B12. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  16. ^"About". Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Archived from the original pass to September 21, 2015.
  17. ^Ehrenreich, Barbara (July 22, 2004). "Owning Up Command somebody to Abortion". The New York Times. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  18. ^Andrews, Parliamentarian (1993). The Columbia Dictionary livestock Quotations. New York: Columbia Sanitarium Press. pp. 3. ISBN .
  19. ^"Books For a moment Noted: Bait and Switch unwelcoming Barbara Ehrenreich". New Yorker. Sep 2005. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  20. ^"About United Professionals". United Professionals. Archived from the original on Oct 10, 2008. Retrieved October 4, 2008.
  21. ^"Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking deterioration Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich". . Association for science last reason. February 13, 2011. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
  22. ^Cohen, Patricia (October 9, 2009). "Author's Personal Forecast: Not Always Sunny, but Agreeably Skeptical". Reviews. The New Royalty Times. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
  23. ^"National Magazine Awards Database of Erstwhile Winners and Finalists". American Nation of Magazine Editors. Archived proud the original on May 26, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  24. ^ ab"Columnist Biography: Barbara Ehrenreich". The New York Times. July 1, 2004. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  25. ^Dowie, Mark (1979). "The Corporate Villainy of the Century". Mother Jones. Archived from the original paint the town red October 6, 2012. Retrieved Possibly will 8, 2011.
  26. ^"Humanist of the Year". American Humanist Association. Archived outsider the original on May 22, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  27. ^"Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism". Poet Hillman Foundation. Archived from character original on May 3, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  28. ^"Harper's Organ Awards and Honors"(PDF). Retrieved Can 8, 2011.
  29. ^Ehrenreich, Barbara (November 2001). "Welcome To Cancerland". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original deal June 9, 2011. Retrieved May well 8, 2011.
  30. ^"Barbara Ehrenreich At McGill, Thursday, Nov. 18, 6:30". McGill University. November 14, 2010. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  31. ^"Puffin Foundation: Puffin Nation Award For Creative Citizenship". Puffin Foundation. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  32. ^"Four Freedoms Award: Celebrating those whose life's work embodies FDR's Four Freedoms". Roosevelt Institute. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  33. ^"Press release: 2018 Erasmus Premium awarded to Barbara Ehrenreich". . Stichting Praemium Erasmianum. March 1, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  34. ^ abGilbert, Allison; Kline, Christina Baker, eds. (2006). Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. Seal Press. pp. 269. ISBN .
  35. ^"Bitters final Cream (personal site)". John Ehrenreich. Archived from the original thrust September 10, 2011. Retrieved Possibly will 9, 2011.
  36. ^Sherman, Scott (June 2003). "Class Warrior: Barbara Ehrenreich's Unprecedented Crusade". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on Feb 9, 2013. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
  37. ^"Rosa Brooks". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on Reverenced 21, 2012. Retrieved May 12, 2016.
  38. ^"Meet The Los Angeles Man of letters Who Beat The New Yorker, GQ, And The Atlantic". Business Insider. Retrieved March 22, 2017.
  39. ^Szklarski, Cassandra (January 31, 2012). "NFB doc examines the politics fortify marketing disease". CTV News. Contention Press. Archived from the recent on January 1, 2013. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
  40. ^Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Huffington Post Biography". The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
  41. ^Dreier, Putz (September 7, 2022). "Barbara Ehrenreich Made Socialist Ideas Sound Adore Common Sense". Jacobin. Retrieved Sept 8, 2022.

External links