American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream (Amerikanki v Krasnoy Rossii)

At the beginning of the 20th century, American expats were drawn not only to Paris and its literary cafés but also to revolutionary Moscow. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet project captivated many American intellectuals, particularly independent, educated, and determined women—suffragettes, educators, journalists, artists, and reformers. Many of them traveled to Moscow in hopes of ushering in a new era in which they would not only be independent from men but also become equal builders of a new society. They rescued starving children, worked in rural communes in Siberia, wrote for Moscow or New York newspapers, and performed on Soviet stages. Julia L. Mickenberg's book tells the stories of these women, revealing the complex motives behind their actions and demonstrating the journey most of them took from romantic infatuation to profound disillusionment with the Soviet experiment. Julia L. Mickenberg is a cultural historian, PhD, and professor at the University of Minnesota.