Ruth Sidel

Ruth Sidel (1933–2016) was a sociologist, author, educator, and professor at Hunter College. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College, a master’s degree in social work from Boston University, and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School. Her work focused on women, children, poverty, social policy, and human services, and she cofounded and codirected Hunter College’s Center for the Study of Family Policy.

Sidel wrote Battling Bias: The Struggle for Identity and Community on College Campuses (1994), as well as Women and Child Care in China, Urban Survival: The World of Working-Class Women, On Her Own: Growing Up in the Shadow of the American Dream, Keeping Women and Children Last: America’s War on the Poor, and Unsung Heroines: Single Mothers and the American Dream.