Babson Professor Marjorie Feld Wins 2009 Saul Viener Book Prize
Babson College history professor Marjorie Feld has been awarded the 2009 Saul Viener Book Prize for Lillian Wald: A Biography, published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2008. The prize is awarded bi-annually by the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS).
Feld’s book is about social welfare activist Lillian Wald (1867-1940), founder of New York City’s Henry Street Settlement and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Challenging the conventional understanding that the Progressive movement had its origins in Anglo-Protestant teachings, Feld examines the significance of Wald's ethnicity to her life's work. In addition, by studying the Jewish community's response to Wald throughout her public career, Feld demonstrates the changing landscape of identity politics in the first half of the twentieth century.
Feld has taught in the History and Society Division at Babson since 2001. Her teaching and research interests are in U.S. social, labor, ethnic, and women’s/gender history. She works with Babson’s Center for Women’s Leadership, including her coordination of Babson’s first Start Smart Workshops, a program that prepares women to negotiate for professional salaries commensurate with men’s. She was the winner of 
the 2009 Women Who Make a Difference Award at Babson.
Her articles have appeared in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the British Women’s History Magazine, and the Jewish Studies journal Shofar. She is a member of the Jewish Women’s Archive Academic Advisory Council. Feld earned a B.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and her Ph.D. in History at Brandeis University.
“Writing Lillian Wald was both challenging and exciting, in part because the book counters longstanding interpretations of both U.S. and Jewish history,” said Feld. “I am thrilled that it has received this recognition from AJHS, which has aided scholars in recording and analyzing these overlapping areas of research for over a century.”
Founded in 1892, the American Jewish Historical Society’s holdings include 20 million documents, 50,000 books, paintings and other objects that bear witness to the contributions of the American Jewish community to life in the Americas from the 16th century to the present. Among the treasures are the first American book published in Hebrew; the handwritten original of Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus, which graces the Statue of Liberty; records of the nation’s leading Jewish communal organizations and important collections in the fields of education, philanthropy, science, sports, business and the arts.
