During her tenure Goldstein made a point of recognizing the literature of the various ethnic communities of Boston, and curated a unique collection of Judaica.

She moved to the United States with her family in 1900, settling in the North End of Boston, where she attended the Hancock Grammar School.

[2][3] Around that time she joined the Saturday Evening Girls club, a reading group for young immigrant women in the North End.

[5] The branch served an extremely diverse immigrant population and provided reading material in several languages as well as citizenship coaching and recreational activities.

[5] Her friends included "judges, priests, ministers, rabbis, Nobel Prize winners, scientists, business and professional leaders."

[7] Her correspondents included Mary Antin, Isaac Asimov, Alice Stone Blackwell, Felix Frankfurter, Molly Picon, Ellery Sedgwick, Friderike Zweig, and others.

[5] After a year-long illness, Goldstein died at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Forest Hills, Boston, on December 26, 1961.