Jewish Women and the American West

Jews, particularly Jewish women, found unprecedented opportunity in the early American West. Jewish women here took advantage of those opportunities well in advance of women in other areas of the country and took leading positions in social welfare, philanthropy, business, education, the professions, and politics while at the same time ensuring Jewish continuity. Western Jewish women’s involvement at the vanguard of these efforts is striking given their relatively small numbers. They synthesized the Jewish, American, and western values they had developed, and in the process, they helped shape the contours of the future of western towns and cities as well as the American Jewish community.

With Dr. Jeanne Abrams
Dr. Jeanne Abrams received her Ph.D. in American History with a specialization in Archival Management from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been a member of the faculty of the University of Denver since 1983 in the Center for Judaic Studies and University Libraries. In 2006, she was promoted to full Professor.  She has also served as the longtime curator of the Beck Archives of Rocky Mountain Jewish History, part of Special Collections at the University of Denver Libraries, and she is well known locally as well as nationally for her expertise in medical, early American, and American Jewish history.

Women’s Experience Steering Committee: Andrea Hyatt and Lisa Perlmutter (Committee Chairs)
Rachael Amchislavskiy, Carley Brooks, Deb Flomberg-Rollins, Judy Flomberg, Lea Gabbay, Wendy Greenwald, Susan Kramer, Chaya Parkoff, Allegra Reynolds, Trudy Rubinson, Jenny Rosenberg, Laurie Vigil, Sara Wolfe, and Corina Zazulia