cover image Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses

Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses

Martha Shirk. Basic Books, $26 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-8133-3910-8

In Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses, journalist Martha Shirk and Ms. Foundation program director Anna S. Wadia celebrate women who went from low-income employees to small business owners. Their stories are inspiring: America Ducasse immigrated from the Dominican Republic and eventually launched a home-based day-care business in Massachusetts, while Lucille Barnett Washington started working as a clerk at an auto parts store in Detroit in 1961 and today runs an auto parts and repair business. Each of the women received assistance from nonprofit organizations supported by the Ms. Foundation for Women. Photos. (Sept.)