Thread­bare, a pre­quel to In the Hands of Women, is a his­tor­i­cal nov­el writ­ten as a trib­ute to Jane Rubin’s great-grand­moth­er, Mathil­da, who died from a ​‘woman’s dis­ease’ in the ear­ly years of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. It explores the late Vic­to­ri­an era through a Jew­ish char­ac­ter liv­ing among the poor and the emerg­ing mid­dle class.

Thread­bare recounts the sto­ry of an inno­cent but tena­cious young girl who choos­es at six­teen, to mar­ry Abe, a lone­ly wid­ow­er, rather than fol­low her farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty north as urban devel­op­ment trans­forms rur­al Harlem. Con­vinced Abe will help her attend high school on the Low­er East Side, she faces a rude awak­en­ing to the filth and dis­ease of the ten­e­ments. Through the fol­low­ing decade, Tillie turns her ener­gy and intel­li­gence to part­ner­ing with Abe as he builds a thriv­ing but­ton busi­ness while she and her neigh­bor Sadie launch a unique gar­ment com­pa­ny. Push­ing back against anti­se­mit­ic and the Vic­to­ri­an misog­y­nis­tic val­ues dom­i­nat­ing the time, they acquire wealth only to have life upend­ed by the chal­lenge of their life.