Pioneer Jews: A New Life in
the Far West By
Harriet & Fred Rochlin
By
Harriet
Rochlin
Early in 1980, Fred & I were in Boston,
he to attend an architectural conference, I, to visit Robie Macauley, then an
esteemed editor at Houghton Mifflin. In the late 1970s, I attended his
week-long seminar on fiction. He deemed my first novel saleable, and my
published articles on Jewish pioneering in the West intriguing.
Upon arrival, Robie handed me a small
publisher’s proposal for a book on the Jews of Arizona, to be written by my
husband, an Arizonan. A year later, Houghton Mifflin embarked on the production
of a region-wide social history on Jewish pioneering in the West. My husband
and I were named co-authors, I, in charge of the text, he, of the photographs. 
Create a full-length social history in two years for a prestigious publisher? Atremble, I hired two assistants to scour Los Angeles archives for Jewish pioneers. Two months later, I added six skilled researchers in other Western states. Robie, my editor, evaluated every word I wrote.
In
1984, the publishers introduced Pioneer
Jews with a handsome hard cover edition of 15,000 words, priced at $17.95. As positive responses from reviewers mounted,
sales grew. Interest confirmed, Houghton Mifflin released 11 more editions in
trade paper, totaling 47,492 copies. Then in December, 2010, they returned the
rights to the authors.
In
May, 2012, I learned that the Authors Guild was accepting its members’ out-of-print
books for republication. I’d been a member since 1984 when Houghton Mifflin
released PJs. So I emailed Muse Ossé,
Authors Guild, BackinPrint.com, to
apprise him of my interest in republication.
I received two pages of requirements. PJs met them all. On July, 23, 2012, I submitted a 10-page
application along with four official documents verifying me as the sole owner
of the manuscript.
Also
included in the 2014 Authors Guild edition were new items I’d written. (1) A
newly completed list of 64 updated photo courtesy lines. (2) Evidence that the
near-nude photograph of a woman on page 172 was not, as I had long-reported,
Josephine Marcus Earp. (3) Two new pages of excellent reviews.
Pioneer Jews is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, iUniverse.com
Born and raised in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Harriet Rochlin attended schools with a wide ethnic and racial mix--Jews, Mexicans, Japanese, also some Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Italians, as well as a smattering of American Blacks and Anglos. In 1965, as the ethnic history movement grew, someone asked Harriet what she knew about Jews in the early West. "Nothing," was her response. In the next 30 years, she published 18 articles on the subject, delivered 152 speeches and co-produced the landmark illustrated social history, Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West.
Born and raised in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, Harriet Rochlin attended schools with a wide ethnic and racial mix--Jews, Mexicans, Japanese, also some Russians, Greeks, Armenians, Italians, as well as a smattering of American Blacks and Anglos. In 1965, as the ethnic history movement grew, someone asked Harriet what she knew about Jews in the early West. "Nothing," was her response. In the next 30 years, she published 18 articles on the subject, delivered 152 speeches and co-produced the landmark illustrated social history, Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West.
