Hidden Histories, Ben Reitman and the "outcast" Women Behind Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Box-Car Bertha

This volume functions as a scholarly reclamation, investigating the life of Ben Reitman and the women who contributed to the 1937 classic, Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Box-Car Bertha. Martha Lynn Reis situates this work within the context of Reitman’s career as a physician and anarchist who documented the lives of social outcasts, while simultaneously peeling back the layers of authorship surrounding the book's central, partially fictionalized persona.

The text serves as a critical examination of how the experiences of transient women during the Great Depression were shaped and framed by Reitman’s editorial lens. Reis explores the historical reality of the women behind the narrative, aiming to restore agency to those whose voices were often subsumed or romanticized in the original publication. The research provides a nuanced look at the intersection of radical politics, gender, and the ethics of documentary literature in the early twentieth century.