The Home on Gorham Street and the Voices of Its Children [Paperback]

Howard Goldstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 1996

The Home on Gorham Street looks back to an earlier era of care
for orphaned and dependent children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants.
Within this social history and ethnography, the voices of elders once
wards of the home in the 1930s and 1940s tell us in sometimes poetic,
often comic, usually ironic, and always poignant words what it was really
like to grow up in an orphanage.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Howard Goldstein is Professor Emeritus
of Social Work, Case Western Reserve University.

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University Alabama Press (January 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817307818
• ISBN-13: 978-0817307813
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #484,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My father grew up here, August 21, 2000

By 

David Itkin (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Home on Gorham Street and the Voices of Its Children (Paperback)

This book provided me with a wealth of details about my father's upbringing. He grew up at the Home but passed away when I was two. Until reading this book, I knew only a little about the Home and its impact on its residents, just scattered tidbits. For that reason, the book was a big help to me.

Unfortunately, the author never interviewed my mother, a peculiar omission given the degree to which he used my father's life as a case study in the book. The book includes a characterization of my parents' marriage that does not jibe with my mom's recollection, a characterization she found hurtful. I wish the author would have sought to interview her. As I understand it, he was steered away by others he did use as sources, who wanted to spare her the dredging up of sad memories. He made a mistake in following their advice. If after talking to her, he concluded that his version was accurate, that at least would have been intellectually honest; to simply take the word of others about the nature of a marriage without interviewing the remaining living party to that marriage was simply sloppy.

Nonetheless, I am indebted to the author. His book gave me a look at a time and place about which I have always been enormously curious.