Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941) Ehrenreich was born Barbara Alexander to Isabelle Oxley and Ben Alexander. Ben Alexander was a copper miner who went on to study at Carnegie Mellon University and became an executive at the Gillette Corporation. Ehrenreich herself decided to study physics at Reed College, receiving her BA in 1963. Her senior thesis was titled Electrochemical oscillations of the silicon anode. She went on to receive a Ph.D in cell biology from Rockefeller University in 1968. Despite having the appropriate credentials, she decided not to pursue a career in science after graduating, citing her interest in social change http://lnf.uoregon.edu/notable/ehrenreich.html, and instead became involved in politics as an activist. She met her first husband, John Ehrenreich, doing Peace movement in New York City. In 1970, her first child, Rosa Brooks, was born. Her second child, Ben Ehrenreich was born in 1972. She divorced Ehrenreich and in 1983 married Gary Stevenson, who was then working as a warehouse employee and later become a union organizer. She and Stevenson divorced in the early 1990s and she has not remarried. From 1991 to 1997, Ehrenreich was a regular columnist for Time magazine magazine. Currently, Ehrenreich is a regular columnist with The Progressive. Ehrenreich has also written for the New York Times, Mother Jones (magazine), The Atlantic Monthly, Ms. magazine, The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications. In 1998 and 2000, she taught essay writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004, she wrote a guest column for one month for the New York Times while regular columnist Thomas Friedman was on leave writing a book. She received much acclaim for her columns and was invited by the Times to stay on as a full columnist, but declined, saying that she preferred to spend her time on more long-term activities like writing books. Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the release of her book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. In her article "Welcome to Cancerland" in the November 2001 issue of Harper's Magazine, she describes her breast cancer experience and the problems with the breast cancer industry. In 2006, Ehrenreich founded "United Professions." The organization website decribes it as "a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for white collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. We reach out to all unemployed, underemployed and anxiously employed workers — people who bought the American dream that education and credentials could lead to a secure middle class life, but now find their lives disrupted by forces beyond their control."
Books

"Salário de Pobreza: Como (não) sobreviver na América", 2004

                       

Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org/