Anzia Yezierska and Agnes Smedley: Working-Class Writers, Working-Class Daughters Searching for Home.

Anzia Yezierska and Agnes Smedley grew up in the United States in poverty-stricken, working-class families. Both women became famous authors and participants in social movements of the early decades of the 20th century. Yezierska's "Bread Givers" and Smedley's "Daughter of Earth", published in the 1920s, were fictionalized autobiographies that detailed their growing dissatisfaction with the traditional role of women in society. The books contain several similarities. Both Yezierska's Sara Smolinsky and Smedley's Marie Rogers left home in search of a consciousness that poverty denied them and returned home again only to witness their mothers' deaths. The death scenes depicted a maternal bonding between mothers and daughters that had not existed before because the daughters had been trying to escape the harshness of their mothers' lives. While Yezierska only touched on subjects of marriage, sex, and motherhood, Smedley wrote a polemic against marriage, as she attacked women's financial dependence, frequent childbirths, and loss of self. Both characters rejected their fathers for failure to financially support their mothers and offspring. Each book contains a scene where the daughters meet their fathers again after many years of separation. Smedley's Marie again rejected the man, while Yezierska's Sara took her father home. Both women searched for father substitutes in selecting husbands, and Sara assimilated into society through her marriage, while Marie divorced twice. Smedley left the United States for China. She died in Europe in 1950 under mysterious circumstances following an operation. Yezierska died in California as she still searched for a home. A 5-item bibliography is included. (DJC)