Liberation ideologies abounded at the dawn of the 20th century, but nothing liberated women more than technology. Rabbi Wein depicts women's lives in the shtetl in minute detail, from the hardships of doing laundry without indoor plumbing to the ingenuity required in cooking with a scarcity of ingredients. But with industrialization came other changes, bringing us to the present moment in which women's issues are at the forefront of Halachic debate.