Margaret K. Nelson

Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers (eBook, ePUB)

Jewish Life in Small-Town Vermont

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Provides a rare study of Jews in small town America

For many years, histories of Jews in the United States focused on Jewish migrants who settled in large cities. Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers offers a rare study of Jews in small town America, illuminating the experiences of Jewish families in towns where they constituted one of, at most, a few Jewish families. In particular, the volume explores the occupational niches of Jews in rural Vermont, from peddling to the ownership of junk yards and dry goods stores that were disparagingly known as "the Jew Store."

The book also looks specifically at the experiences of Jewish women and children in families headed by men in these occupations. These families lived in communities where they were often isolated from relatives and friends, and without a Jewish congregation. Margaret K. Nelson carefully investigates various aspects of this small-town experience, including how generations of immigrants were regarded by others, how they held onto the practice of their religion, and how they were able to socially integrate into their communities.

By narrating the trajectory of Jewish immigrant experiences through men's occupations, the volume places the experiences of Jews in Vermont alongside those of other marginalized groups, particularly the families of Chinese restaurant owners and South Asian motel managers, as they established and sustained their own distinctive economic activities in small towns.

Showcasing the largely unexplored history of Jews in very small towns, Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers provides a novel account of Jewish community and belonging as minorities in rural communities.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bonnier Books UK
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Juli 2026
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781479842353
• Artikelnr.: 75856282

Autorenporträt

Margaret (Peggy) K. Nelson is A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology Emerita, Middlebury College. Her books include, among others, Sociology Meets Memoir (NYUP, 2024), Farm and Wilderness Summer Camps: Progressive Ideals in the 20th Century, with Emily K. Abel (Rutgers University Press, 2023), Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s (NYU Press, 2022), Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times (NYU Press, 2012), and our forthcoming (tentatively titled) Peddlers, Merchants, and Junk Dealers: Jewish Entrepreneurs in Small-Town Vermont.