Judith Smith is professor of American Studies and director of the M.A. program in American Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. She received her B.A. in American history at Radcliffe College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University. She has written on the history of the family, ethnicity and race, and popular culture. Her books include Family Connections: A History of Italian and Jewish Immigrant Lives in Providence, Rhode Island, 1900–1940 and Visions of Belonging: Family Stories, Popular Culture and Postwar Democracy, 1940–1960.