“I am looking for my husband Nathan Cohen, known as Note Moshe Mendele Shenker’s [sic] from Nashelsk, Russia-Poland, umbrella peddler, 22 years old, the little finger of his right hand is bent. He abandoned me and a 5-month-old baby in great need. Whoever knows of him should have mercy on a young woman and infant and get in touch with Bessie Cohen, 1415 Snagman Street, Chicago.”

—from the “Gallery of Missing Husbands,” in a 1910 issue of the Forward. The “Gallery of Missing Husbands” was a feature that ran for years in the Forward and documented Jewish husbands who had deserted their wives. Quoted in World of Our Fathers by Irving Howe, 30th anniversary edition (New York University Press, 2005), 179.