Barbara Ehrenreich

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Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941, in Butte, Montana) is a social critic and essayist. Her book Nickel and Dimed (2001) described her attempt to live on low-wage jobs and became a national bestseller in the United States, selling over 1 million copies; her companion book, Bait and Switch, was released in September 2005 and discusses her attempt to find a white-collar job. She is a prolific journalist who peppers her writing with a sardonic sense of humor.

Born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Isely, her father was a copper miner who went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University and become an executive at the Gillette Corporation. In 1963, she graduated with a BA in chemical physics from Reed College and in 1968 she received a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. She decided not to pursue a career in science after graduating, citing her interest in social change [1], and instead became involved in politics as an activist. She met her first husband, John Ehrenreich, doing anti-war activism in New York City. In 1970, she gave birth to a daughter, Rosa, and later had a son, Ben. She divorced Ehrenreich and in 1983 married Gary Stevenson, who was then working as a warehouse employee.

From 1991 to 1997, she was a regular columnist for Time magazine. Currently, Ehrenreich is a regular columnist with The Progressive.

Ehrenreich has also written for the New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms, The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications. In 1998 and 2000, she taught essay writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004, she wrote a guest column for one month for the New York Times while regular columnist Thomas Friedman was on leave writing a book.

She is an atheist and the vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.

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Books

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Non-fiction

The Uptake, Storage, and Intracellular Hydrolysis of Carbohydrates by Macrophages (with Zanvil Cohn) (1969)
Long March, Short Spring the Student Uprising at Home and Abroad (1969)
The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics (1971)
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (with Deirdre English) (1972)
Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (with Deirdre English) (1973)
For Her Own Good: 100 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women (with Deirdre English) (1978)
Women in the Global Factory (1983)
Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex (with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs) (1986)
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1987)
The Mean Season (with Fred Block, Richard A. Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven) (1987)
Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1989)
The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990)
Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1991)
The Snarling Citizen: Essays (1995)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America (2001)
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (ed., with Arlie Hochschild) (2003) ISBN 0805075097
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005)