Bread Givers - Setting

Setting

The text takes place in the 1910s and early 1920s. By the 1920s, 2.2 million Eastern European Jews had immigrated to New York City, creating a culture clash between the Americanized Jews and the Eastern European Jews. The Eastern European Jews were typically perceived as more conservative and traditional than the Americanized Jews. The 1910s and early 1920s were marked by problems of immigration and poverty, unsafe working conditions, sweatshops and the beginning of the women's movement. For Jewish Americans, the 1910s and early 1920s signaled the beginning of the Jewish women's movement, the beginning stages of movement into the middle class and a flight toward secular Judaism.

The story takes place in three distinct settings: the tenements on New York's Lower East Side, the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Sara's college. The tenements on New York's Lower East Side supplied an instant Jewish-American community for the tenants. They housed the working-class Jews and the floor a family lived on often told of their financial status, with the top floor of these walk-up buildings representing the lowest status. People from the same culture tended to dominate sections of tenements, creating an island of sorts in the midst of New York City in which they were surrounded by their familiar culture. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, the family is somewhat more exposed to the American culture as they interact with white customers. The move is particularly tough for Sara and her mother as the community of women in the New York City tenements is absent in Elizabeth. Sara becomes entirely isolated from her culture when she leaves for college.