Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander on August 26, 1941, in Butte, Montana, to Benjamin Howes Alexander and Isabelle (Oxley) Alexander. She has one brother, Benjamin Jr., and one sister, Diane. Her parents subsequently divorced and remarried, her mother remarrying Duane Isely. Ehrenreich attended Reed College receiving her B.A. in chemistry in 1963 (declining the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship). In 1966 she married John H. Ehrenreich, whom she had met at a Vietnam War protest while in graduate school. The couple had two children, Rosa and Benjamin, and divorced in 1977. In 1983 Ehrenreich married labor organizer Gary Stevenson, divorcing him in 1993.

In 1968 she completed her Ph.D. in cell biology at Rockefeller University. Although completing her doctorate, Ehrenreich did not pursue a career in the field. She first became a program research analyst with the Bureau of the Budget in New York City (1968-1969) and the following year, a research analyst with the Health Policy Advisory Center (1969-1971), an advocacy organization dedicated to the provision of health care to low-income individuals and families. She also became involved with HealthRight (1969-1970), a women's health project based in New York (she continued as a member of the editorial committee for HealthRight until its final publication in 1979), effectively beginning her career as an activist and writer. It was during this time that Ehrenreich completed her first book, Long March, Short Spring: The Student Uprising at Home and Abroad (1969), co-authored with her husband John, which recounted the 1968 student movements in the United States, West Germany, Italy, France, and England. The couple's second book, The American Health Empire: Power, Profit, and Politics , was published in 1970. They later published the essay The Professional-Managerial Class (1977). From 1971 to 1974, Ehrenreich worked as an assistant professor at the State University of New York - Westbury, while pursuing research, writing, and lecturing. In 1972, Ehrenreich began co-teaching a course on women and health with Deirdre English. Gathering together their research for the course, the pair self-published their first pamphlet, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers , in 1973. Ehrenreich and English were unable to meet with the demand, and publication and distribution were taken over by the Feminist Press. This pamphlet was quickly followed by Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (1973), also published by the Feminist Press. As the women's health movement blossomed, the pair continued amassing research in the field, and in an effort to expand upon the information in their first two pamphlets, began work on For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Experts' Advice to Women , published in 1978. Throughout the 1970s, Ehrenreich remained in demand as a speaker on women's health issues, regularly appearing at women's health conferences sponsored by local women's health centers, women's groups, universities, and the federal government.

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