About the Author of the Book that Inspired the Play ...
NICKEL AND DIMED
JOURNALIST BARBARA EHRENREICH.
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, 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 (now 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.
Non-fiction
- The Uptake, Storage, and Intracellular Hydrolysis of Carbohydrates by
Macrophages (with Zanvil Cohn) (1969)
- Long March, Short Spring the Student Uprising at Home and Abroad
(1969)
- The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics (1971)
- Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (with Deirdre
English) (1972)
- Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (with
Deirdre English) (1973)
- For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women
(with Deirdre English) (1978)
- Women in the Global Factory (1983)
- Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex (with Elizabeth Hess and
Gloria Jacobs) (1986)
- The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(1987)
- The Mean Season (with Fred
L. Block, Richard
A. Cloward, and Frances
Fox Piven) (1987)
- Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1989)
- The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed
(1990)
- Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997)
- The Snarling Citizen: Essays (1995)
- Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America (2001)
- Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy
(ed., with Arlie Hochschild) (2003)
- Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream
(2005)
- Dancing
in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (2007)
Fiction
Essays
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