A story about Barbara Ehrenreich
(From Wikipedia)
Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Alexander. Her father was a copper miner who went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University and who eventually became an executive at the Gillette Corporation. Ehrenreich studied physics at Reed College, graduating in 1963. Her senior thesis was entitled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. In 1968, she received a Ph.D in cell biology from Rockefeller University.
Citing her interest in social change ([1]), she opted for political activism, instead of pursuing a scientific career. She met her first husband, John Ehrenreich, during an anti-war activism campaign in New York City.
In 1970, her first child, Rosa (later Rosa Brooks), was born. Her second child, Benjamin, was born in 1972. Barbara divorced John and in 1983 married Gary Stevenson, a warehouse employee who later became a union organizer. She divorced Stevenson in the early 1990s.
From 1991 to 1997, Ehrenreich was a regular columnist for Time magazine. Currently, she contributes regularly to 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, Ehrenreich wrote a month-long guest column for the New York Times while regular columnist Thomas Friedman was on leave and she was invited to stay on as a columnist. She declined, saying that she preferred to spend her time more on long-term activities, such as book-writing.
Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the release of her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. In her article “Welcome to Cancerland,” published in the November 2001 issue of Harper’s Magazine, she describes her breast cancer experience and debates the medical industry’s problems with the issue of breast cancer.
In 2006, Ehrenreich founded United Professionals, an organization whose website, http://www.unitedprofessionals.org, describes it as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for white-collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. We reach out to all unemployed, underemployed, and anxiously employed workers — people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces beyond their control.”
Ehrenreich is currently an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. She also serves on the NORML Board of Directors.
