Hungry Hearts

These ten stories tell of Jewish immigrant women from Eastern Europe in the crowded tenements of New York's Lower East Side, hungry for more than bread: for education, love, beauty and a place in America. A young woman who scrubs the stairs of a tenement falls in love with a sociologist who sees her only as a subject of study; an old mother whose children have become rich is lost in their luxurious apartment; a washerwoman scrubs her kitchen to make it beautiful for a visit; a girl learns that America is not given but must be built.

Anzia Yezierska (about 1880–1970), herself an immigrant, published the collection in 1920; the film producer Samuel Goldwyn bought it and briefly made her famous as the 'sweatshop Cinderella'. Her English carries the rhythms of Yiddish. Compare Mary Antin's The Promised Land and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives.