Alexander, Michael 1970-

views updated

ALEXANDER, Michael 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born 1970. Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1992; Yale University, Ph.D., 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, University of Oklahoma, West Lindsey, Room 304A, Norman, OK 73019. E-mail—michael-alexander@ou.edu.

CAREER:

University of Oklahoma, Norman, assistant professor of history and Judaic studies.

WRITINGS:

Jazz Age Jews, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2001.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Research into a cultural history of Jews and money.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Jazz Age Jews, Michael Alexander provides a study of three men who were born in the 1880s and grew up in Jewish ghettos before becoming middle class and marrying gentile women. All achieved fame during the period referred to as the Jazz Age, although for different reasons. Alexander questions the claim that Arnold Rothstein fixed baseball's 1919 World Series, an event known as the Black Sox scandal, and examines Felix Frankfurter's defense of Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. A Publishers Weekly contributor said Alexander's arguments about these cases "are dazzling." Alexander also writes of Al Jolson's appearance in The Jazz Singer, the first talking film, and how Jolson was instrumental in bringing jazz to Hollywood.

Additionally, Jazz Age Jews examines the feeling of marginality experienced by Jews and the era's link to anti-Semitism, as demonstrated by the negative portrait of a Jewish gangster in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Alexander notes that auto tycoon Henry Ford's writings had racist themes, and that A. Lawrence Lowell attempted to institute quotas for Jewish admission to Harvard University. The author looks at the ways in which immigrant Jews melded into society, prospered, and became leaders in causes for social justice. The Publishers Weekly writer concluded by calling Jazz Age Jews "elucidating and insightful, an important contribution to both Jewish and cultural studies."