Anzia Yezierska (October 29, 1880 – November 20, 1970) was a Jewish-American novelist born in Mały Płock, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. She emigrated as a child with her parents to the United States and lived in the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Personal life Yezierska was born in the 1880s in Mały Płock to Bernard and Pearl Yezierski. Her family emigrated to America around 1893, following in the footsteps of her eldest brother, who had arrived in the States six years prior. They took up housing in the Lower East Side, Manhattan. Her family assumed the surname, Mayer, while Anzia took Harriet (or Hattie) as her first name. She later reclaimed her original name, Anzia Yezierska, in her late twenties. Her father was a scholar of Torah and sacred texts. Anzia Yezierska's parents encouraged her brothers to pursue higher education but believed she and her sisters had to support the men. In 1910 she fell in love with Arnold Levitas but instead married his friend Jacob Gordon, a New York attorney. After 6 months, the marriage was annulled. Shortly after, she married Arnold Levitas in a religious ceremony to avoid legal complications. Arnold was the father of her only child, Louise, born May 29, 1912. Around 1914 Yezierska left Levitas and moved with her daughter to San Francisco. She worked as a social worker. Overwhelmed with the chores and responsibilities of raising her daughter, she gave up her maternal rights and transferred them to Levitas. In 1916, she and Levitas officially divorced. She then moved back to New York City. Around 1917, she engaged in a romantic relationship with philosopher John Dewey, a professor at Columbia University. Both Dewey and Yezierska wrote about one another, alluding to the relationship. After she had become independent, her sister encouraged her to pursue her interest in writing. She devoted the remainder of her life to it. Yezierska was the aunt of American film critic Cecelia Ager. Ager's daughter became known as journalist Shana Alexander. Anzia Yezierska died November 21, 1970, of a stroke in a nursing home in Ontario, California. Writing career Yezierska wrote about the struggles of Jewish and later Puerto Rican immigrants in New York's Lower East Side. In her fifty-year writing career, she explored the cost of acculturation and assimilation among immigrants. Her stories provide insight into the meaning of liberation