Men and Women Adrift: The YMCA and the YWCA in the City.

Nina Mjagkij and Margaret Spratt, eds., Men and Women Adrift: The YMCA and the YWCA in the City (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 300 pp., $19.50 (paper), $55.00 (cloth).

Readers who know sociologist Meyerowitz's (1988) work will recognize this title as a nod to her excellent Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930. Meyerowitz documented the working and living conditions of employed women who lived away from their families (categorized as adrift by a 1910 federal report), many of whom relied on the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) for lodging. Professor Meyerowitz's preface to Mjagkij and Spratt's volume acknowledges the importance of comparing the YWCA and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) as enduring institutions with similar agendas …