Eileen LavineResearcher, 2004–Present

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Eileen Lavine joined the Diary Project as a member of the Editorial Committee and later became a researcher. Her areas of work have included 19th century domestic issues such as matrimonial customs and wet nurses.

Currently Lavine’s projects include tracking the "mendicants" who keep bothering William, the educational system in the late 19th century including the schools William's sons attended, and noting when the family used the "mansion" in Astoria. Lavine found that tracking the men and women who kept asking for money provided a fascinating portrait of William, vastly different from his business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. He was always known as a generous man, and the Diary has frequent references to loans and gifts to individuals, organizations, performers and others down on their luck. Starting in 1878, William describes being bothered by people trying to borrow money: "quite a throng of mendicants," "an immense throng," "a perfect pandemonium of callers, howlers, borrowers and mendicants," "harassed from morning til night by a continual stream of Mendicants," "an unceasing stream of people pester me." It seems that he often handed out money thinking it was a loan, although the beneficiary thought it was a gift.

With a BA from the University of Wisconsin and MS from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Lavine has worked as a journalist, writer, and editor in New York, Paris, and Washington. She was president of a women-owned editorial business for twelve years in Bethesda, and in retirement, has worked in intergenerational programs with immigrant and minority children. She is currently a Senior Editor of Moment Magazine, a bimonthly publication on Jewish politics, culture and religion.