Bread Givers

Anzia Yezierska was born in 1880 in Mały Płock, Poland. She is known for her novels and short stories, many of them semi-autobiographical, which examine the struggles of immigrants at the turn of the century. Yezierska immigrated to America with her parents around 1893, settling in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Yezierska’s early life has many parallels with that of Sara Smolinsky, the protagonist of Yezierska’s best-known novel, Bread Givers. Like Sara’s father, Yezierska’s was also a learned scholar of the Torah. And while Yezierska’s parents wanted their sons to achieve higher education, they felt it was their daughters’ responsibility to stay at home and support their male family members in their pursuits. Yezierska, however, had other plans for her life. She began her writing career in 1912, publishing her first short story, “The Free Vacation House,” in The Forum in 1915. She received more critical praise for her story “The Fat of the Land,” which was included in a reputable editor’s collection of best stories of 1919. Yezierska had a brief stint in Hollywood following the popularity of her early short stories—producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights to Yezierska’s short story collection Hungry Hearts, which was adapted as a silent film of the same name in 1922. She was also offered a $100,000 contract to write screenplays. However, Yezierska, having become disillusioned with Hollywood, returned to New York in the mid-1920s. She published her first novel, Salome of the Tenements, in 1923. Bread Givers is her most studied work. Interest in Yezierska’s work declined by the 1930s but resurged with the publication of her fictionalized autobiography, Red Ribbon on a White Horse, published in 1950. She continued to write and publish various works until her death in 1970.

Bread Givers focuses on the experience of European Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. This period in U.S. history is known as the Progressive Era. In response to social and economic ills caused by industrialization, immigration, and urbanization, the era saw widespread social activism and political reform. The early years of the 20th century saw a massive spike in immigration, with 15 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. between 1900 and 1915. By 1910, the majority of New York City’s population (about 70 percent) consisted of either immigrants or the children of immigrants. The period also saw a shift in the countries immigrants came from. Prior to this time, the majority of immigrants came from Northern Europe or English-speaking countries. At the turn of the century, more immigrants hailed from non-English speaking countries in Eastern and Southern Europe. Multiple factors led to this surge in immigration, most notably poor living conditions in Europe and a desire for economic prosperity. Religious persecution of Eastern European Jews was also a major factor following the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, after which Russian Jews were subjected to government-sponsored pogroms and discriminatory laws that limited Jewish residency and imposed other unjust restrictions. 

Many of Yezierska’s works follow the struggles of immigrants in America at the turn of the 20th century. Her first novel, Salome of the Tenements, tells the story of a young Jewish immigrant living in New York who aspires to escape her poverty by marrying a wealthy man. Yezierska based the story on the life of her friend, Rose Pastor Stokes, who married prominent American businessman J. G. Phelps Stokes. Hungry Hearts is a collection of Yezierska’s short stories published in 1920. Like many of her other works, the stories examine the struggles of European Jewish immigrants in America at the turn of the 20th century, told from a female perspective. The experience of immigrants as they struggle to adapt to life in a new land is a wide-spanning subject that has been examined across a vast array of art forms. Yezierska’s work focuses on the experience of European immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. Recent notable works that focus on the experience of immigrants from other parts of the world include Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; The Leavers by Lisa Ko; Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpra Lahiri; On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong; and How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez.