Acknowledgments
I thank the women and men who granted me interviews and who talked so thoughtfully and honestly about their friendships and families. I am extremely grateful to Claude Fischer for his close, critical readings of several drafts of the dissertation that became this book. His counsel was straightforward, incisive, and always helpful. Arlie Hochschild and Robert Blauner also braved rough drafts of dissertation and provided very helpful criticisms. Others who gave me invaluable comments include Ellen Reier, Lew Friedland, Peggy Pascoe, Ann VanDePol, Rivka Polatnick, Linda Collins, Carole Joffe, Laura Pinsky, Barbara Cushing, Elizabeth Colson, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Susan Phillips, and Ruth Milkman. U.C. Press editor Naomi Schneider offered steady encouragement and direction. At progressive stages of editing, Warren Reier, Betsey Seheiner, and Edith Gladstone were talented and generous teachers. Kathy Ringwood typed flawlessly. I thank all these people for their help, some of which I might have used better.
Among the friends who encouraged, supported, and distracted me during the years I worked on this project, I owe special thanks to these whom I have not yet named: Khamisah Aspar, Lynn Cooper, Aaron Cozen, Myrna Cozen, Caleb Cushing, Mfiton and Ruth Friedland, Linda Fuller, Carol Hatch, Su Mei Huang, Sandy Jacoby, Gail Kaufman, Greg McLauchlan, the Marino family, Bev Purrington, Erika Reier, Marcy Whitebook, Alice Wolfson, and sisters in the CDRR. Because I wrote this book far away from most of these people, I depended very much on Lew Friedland for the technical, intellectual, emotional, and practical help that allowed
me to finish this work. To Lew; to my parents, Ruth and Al Oliker; to my sister, Nancy Oliker; and to my beloved friends—especially Ellen Reier, Laura Pinsky, and Linda Collins—thank you for everything that enabled and encouraged me to write this book.
I gratefully acknowledge the dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women that supported a year of my research.