'...deserves the attention of scholars and teachers in Women's Studies and in all forms of cultural, literary and historical studies' - Joyce R. Ladenson. The unique literary tradition of nineteenth-century American Jewish women has been largely ignored. In "Writing Their Nations", Diane Lichtenstein considers more than twenty-five of these authors, including Emma Lazarus, Rebekah Hyneman, Penina Moise, and Emma Wolf. Their texts illustrate how Jews, women, and other 'outsiders' have simultaneously struggled to maintain their 'other' identity and to be seen as authentically American. By moulding two stereotypes, the American 'True Woman' and the Jewish 'Mother in Israel', these authors attempted to follow the prescriptions for middle-class American and Jewish womanly behaviour in their lives and in their writing. They thus reassured their Jewish families and their American readers that they were 'good citizens'.