182 ~ Pirouettes from the Past, with Dr. Melissa Klapper ~ Chapter One

Today begins a new and exciting segment on Balancing Pointe Podcast as Professor Melissa Klapper brings us a mini history lesson on the History of Ballet class in America.

Melissa will join Balancing Pointe once a month with the featured segment "Pirouettes from the Past" providing us with valuable historical information based upon her knowledge and historical sources she is using as she researches her upcoming book about the history of ballet class in America

Dr. Melissa R. Klapper is Professor of History and former Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ. She teaches American and women's history, with a focus on the late 19th and early 20th century and additional research interests in the history of childhood, the history of education, and American Jewish history. Dr. Klapper is the author ofJewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860-1920 (NYU Press, 2005); Small Strangers: The Experiences of Immigrant Children in the United States, 1880-1925 (Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2007); and Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women's Activism, 1890-1940 (NYU Press,2013). Her scholarship has been awarded grants and fellowships from an array of sources, including the American Jewish Archives, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women at Harvard University, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

If you have questions for Melissa you can reach her at [email protected].