• "No Better Education":Helen Solomon at Wellesley College, 1901–1902
• Cynthia Francis Gensheimer (bio) and Kathryn Hellerstein (bio)

In 1901, Hannah Greenebaum Solomon and her husband sent Helen Solomon—their only daughter—from their home in Chicago, Illinois to spend her junior year at Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts.¹ The voluminous correspondence between this Midwestern Jewish daughter and her mother during the 1901–1902 academic year sheds a great deal of light on the ambivalent experiences of the Jewish students—fewer than one hundred every year—who attended the Seven Sisters, a predominantly Protestant group of women's colleges on the East Coast, at the beginning of the twentieth century.² Although Wellesley's Protestant foundations made it difficult for Helen to practice at college the form of Judaism she learned from her mother—a syncretic belief system drawn from radical Reform Judaism, universalism, and Progressivism—she overcame the limitations of this environment with diplomacy and humor to experience what she called "a perfectly beautiful year."³

Helen was the daughter of an extraordinary woman. A master coalition builder and agent for dramatic social change, Hannah Solomon was a [End Page 397] celebrated figure even in her own lifetime. She led Jewish women in their transition from the noblesse oblige of the Gilded Age to the preventive philanthropy of the Progressive Era: from ladies' societies to women's clubs. She famously organized the Jewish Women's Congress of 1893 after standing up to the men who refused to put women on the Jewish program of the World Parliament of Religions.⁴ She and her sister were the first Jews to be admitted to the Chicago Woman's Club. As founder and president of the National Congress of Jewish Women (NCJW), she went on to represent Jewish women nationally and internationally, in Jewish and non-Jewish contexts.⁵ A congregant of perhaps the country's most radical Reform rabbi, Emil G. Hirsch, Hannah observed almost no Jewish ritual and saw Judaism not as a race or ethnicity but as a religion. Yet, in many other respects, she was a traditionalist. Adele Hast writes, "She [Hannah G. Solomon] called herself a 'confirmed woman's rightser'… but her perceptions of such rights were a mix of traditional and progressive approaches. For Solomon, the most desired role for a woman was as wife and mother."⁶ This duality was likely essential to Hannah's success.⁷ It was only as a traditional Jewish wife and mother that Hannah was able to garner political support for the radical advancement of Jewish women's rights for which she advocated. And indeed, it was probably Hannah's embrace of radical Reform Judaism that helped her daughter to succeed as a Jew in an elite Protestant institution.

As the daughter of a radical Reform Jewish celebrity, Helen was not exactly a typical Reform Jewish woman collegian. Yet in her letters home, she articulated many of the typical dilemmas faced by upper-class young Jewish women at elite private colleges at the turn of the twentieth century. How much should a Jewish student participate during Christian worship? How could she attend Jewish services? How openly could she [End Page 398] respond in encounters with antisemitism? What was the proper role for women in society, and what was the purpose of a girl's education? A closer examination of Helen and Hannah Solomon's correspondence during this "perfectly beautiful year" offers us insight into the complicated position of upper-class Jewish women at the turn of the twentieth century, and into the conflicted demands of higher education during this era. Jewish parents encouraged their daughters to become a part of a Protestant elite world of culture and education, while at the same time urging them to preserve elements of Jewish identity in a Christian world that was indifferent or openly hostile to them. Upper-class Jewish women were encouraged to develop the skills that would make them effective organizers and even public figures, while still assuming that they would pursue a domestic future of marriage and motherhood. While scholars have written about the conflicts of Jewish girls and women during these Progressive years, and they have charted the ambivalent...

• “没有更好的教育”：韦尔斯利学院的海伦·所罗门（Helen Solomon），1901-1902年
• 辛西娅·弗朗西斯·根斯海默（Cynthia Francis Gensheimer）（生物）和凯瑟琳·赫勒斯坦（Kathryn Hellerstein）（生物）

1901年，汉娜·格林·鲍姆·所罗门（Hannah Greenebaum Solomon）和她的丈夫从他们在伊利诺伊州芝加哥的家中派出了他们的独生女儿海伦·所罗门（Helen Solomon）在马萨诸塞州波士顿附近的韦尔斯利学院（Wellesley College）上大三。¹这个中西部犹太人女儿和母亲在1901年至1902年学年之间的大量往来，极大地揭示了犹太学生的矛盾经历-每年少于100人-他们参加了主要是新教徒的七姐妹会（Seven Sisters）二十世纪初，东海岸的女子大学团体。^2个尽管韦尔斯利的新教基金会使海伦难以从母亲那里学到犹太教的形式，这是她从母亲那里学到的-一种融合于激进的改革犹太教，普世主义和进步主义的合一信仰体系，但她通过外交和幽默克服了这种环境的局限性，体验她所说的“完美美丽的一年”。³

海伦是一位非凡女性的女儿。汉娜·所罗门（Hannah Solomon）是联盟的主要建设者和推​​动社会发生巨大变化的推动者，即使在她一生中，他还是[结束页397]著名的人物。她带领犹太妇女从镀金时代的贵族义务过渡到进步时代的预防慈善事业：从女子社团到女子俱乐部。在反对那些拒绝将妇女加入世界宗教议会的犹太人计划的男人面前，她以著名的方式组织了1893年的犹太妇女代表大会。⁴她和她的姐姐是最早被芝加哥妇女俱乐部接纳的犹太人。作为全国犹太妇女大会（NCJW）的创始人和主席，她继续在犹太人和非犹太人的背景下在国内和国际上代表犹太妇女。⁵汉娜（Hannah）可能是该国最激进的改革派拉比（Emil G. Hirsch）的一员，几乎没有看到犹太人的仪式，并且认为犹太教不是种族或民族，而是宗教。然而，在许多其他方面，她是一位传统主义者。阿黛尔·哈斯特（Adele Hast）写道：“她[汉娜·所罗门（Hannah G. Solomon）]称自己为'确认妇女的权利人'…但是她对这种权利的看法是传统和进步方式的结合。对所罗门而言，女性最想要的角色是当妻子和母亲。” ⁶这种双重性可能对汉娜的成功至关重要。⁷汉娜只有作为传统的犹太妻子和母亲，才能够为她所主张的犹太妇女权利的根本发展争取政治支持。确实，可能是汉娜（Hannah）对激进的改革犹太主义的拥护，帮助她的女儿在一个精英的新教机构中成功地成为犹太人。

作为激进的改革犹太名人的女儿，海伦并非完全是典型的改革犹太女性大学毕业生。然而，在她的家中，她阐明了二十世纪初精英上私立大学中上层年轻犹太妇女所面临的许多典型困境。犹太学生在基督徒敬拜期间应参加多少活动？她怎么能参加犹太礼拜？她可以多么公开[结束第398页]在遇到反犹太主义时做出回应？妇女在社会中的适当角色是什么？女孩接受教育的目的是什么？在这个“完美美丽的一年”中，仔细研究海伦和汉娜·所罗门的书信，可以使我们深入了解二十世纪初上层犹太妇女的复杂地位，以及这个时代高等教育的矛盾需求。犹太父母鼓励女儿成为新教精英的文化和教育精英世界的一部分，同时敦促他们在对他们无动于衷或公开敌视的基督教世界中保留犹太人的身份。鼓励上流社会的犹太妇女发展技能，使她们成为有效的组织者甚至公众人物，同时仍然假设他们将追求婚姻和母亲的家庭未来。虽然学者们写了关于进步时期犹太女孩和妇女之间冲突的文章，但他们却画出了矛盾之处……