When her husband Amadeus William Grabau began working at Columbia University in New York City, Antin enrolled at Barnard University. Her chronic ill health worsened, and digestive problems kept her from completing her degree. She continued her education more informally through such mentors as Josephine Lazarus.
When her husband Amadeus William Grabau began working at Columbia University in New York City, Antin enrolled at Barnard University. Her chronic ill health worsened, and digestive problems kept her from completing her degree. She continued her education more informally through such mentors as Josephine Lazarus.
(The Promised Land is the 1912 autobiography of Mary Antin...)
The Promised Land is the 1912 autobiography of Mary Antin. It tells the story of her early life in what is now Belarus and her immigration to the United States in 1894.
They Who Knock at Our Gates A Complete Gospel of Immigration
(This book was converted from its physical edition to the ...)
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
(Written from the authors own personal experiences of her ...)
Written from the authors own personal experiences of her journey from Polotsk, Russia to Boston, USA in 1894 at the age of 11. This early works, published in 1899, is a fascinating look at American history and immigration. Mary Antin's vivid description of all she and her dear ones went through, enables us to see almost with our own eyes how the invasion of America appears to the impecunious invader. It is thus "a human document" of considerable value, as well as a promissory note of the future performance. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Mary Antin (born Maryashe Antin) was an American author and immigration rights activist. Her book tries to help readers identify with the new immigrants and encourages Americans to view the new arrivals in positive ways.
Background
Mary was born June 13, 1881, in Polotsk, in the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus). She was the daughter of Israel (in business) and Esther (a business manager; maiden name, Weltman) Antin. She was from a Jewish family, grew up in the wake of Czar Alexander ni’s infamous May Laws, 1882 rulings that led to the expulsion of Jews from southern Russia’s Pale region.
Israel Antin arrived in the United States in 1891. Experiencing additional financial problems, he depended upon the help of a Jewish benevolent society to sponsor the journey of his wife and their four children three years later. They lived in a series of immigrant slums in Boston, Massachusetts, finally settling in the city’s South End.
Education
Antin flourished in school. She learned English quickly and covered the first five grades of school in six months. When a teacher helped publish one of her early essays in Primary Education, Antin was so excited to see her work in print that she decided to become a writer. Through the Hebrew Industrial School, Antin attracted the interest and sponsorship of prominent families. During high school, Antin attended the Boston Latin School for Girls, the public preparatory school for Radcliffe University.
When her husband Amadeus William Grabau began working at Columbia University in New York City, Antin enrolled at Barnard University. Her chronic ill health worsened, and digestive problems kept her from completing her degree. She continued her education more informally through such mentors as Josephine Lazarus.
The Hechts, Jewish philanthropists and social reformers, encouraged her writing, and Antin often visited the home of Lina Hecht. Through the Hechts, Antin met other people who helped her in her literary career. Reform Rabbi Solomon Schindler helped her translate the letters that she had written to her uncle Moses back in Russia. These letters form the basis for Antin’s book From Plotzk to Boston. While Schindler helped her to translate the letters from the original Yiddish, Mrs. Philip Cowan helped publish the book, and novelist Israel Zangwill agreed to write its introduction. The letters were first published in American Hebrew, the New York-based periodical of Philip Cowan. The book was dedicated to Hattie Hecht, one of Antin’s sponsors and friends.
From Plotzk to Boston was published in 1899, just five years after Antin’s arrival in America. Its publication introduced Antin to other prominent and reform-minded Jewish families.
While at Radcliffe University she met liberal minister and literary figure Edward Everett Hale and became involved with Hale House, his South End settlement house.
Josephine Lazarus encouraged Antin to write her autobiography. After Lazarus’s death in 1910, Antin began the autobiography that Lazarus had been urging her to write. The Atlantic Monthly published sections of it in 1911 and 1912. The Promised Land was a tremendous literary success when it was published in 1912. It was reprinted thirty-three times and sold nearly 84,000 copies before Antin’s death in 1949. A reviewer in the Nation admired its important message and “its direct and vivid style,” comparing it to the autobiographies of social reformer and immigrant Jacob Riis, patriot Benjamin Franklin.
Former United States president Theodore Roosevelt recruited Antin to lecture for the Progressive Party, and the author later campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes. Her political speeches were infused with her religious beliefs, and she explained immigration and the “unique spiritual mission of America” at various places, including prisons, Carnegie Hall, and the Tuskegee Institute. While she was giving lectures across the country, traveling for months at a time, her sister Fetchke, now divorced, took care of Antin’s household.
In 1914 Antin’s They Who Knock at Our Gates: A Complete Gospel of Immigration was published. First published as an acclaimed series of articles in American Magazine, this treatise on immigration policy argues for open immigration and reveals the ways in which immigrants were victimized. Antin made six to ten thousand dollars a year on the lecture circuit and received royalties from her books.
She turned from political activism to an interest in health and spirituality when a physical breakdown forced her to retire from the lecture circuit. She spent time at the Riggs Institute in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and through Dr. Riggs met William and Agnes Gould. Antin collected material for a book on William Gould, but produced only a single chapter. Her last publications were “The Soundless Trumpet” (1937), an Atlantic Monthly essay exploring mystical experiences, and “House of One Father” (1941), an essay affirming her Jewish identity and published in Common Ground.
Antin died in 1949 as a result of her ongoing health problems.
Mary Antin is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization. Her work offers a vivid glimpse into the geographical and personal journey made by millions of Jews between 1891 and 1914. An ardent patriot, she lectured across the United States, praising her new home and the merits of open immigration.
(The Promised Land is the 1912 autobiography of Mary Antin...)
1912
Views
By 1918 Antin was an impassioned Zionist, supporting the creation of a new nation for Jews in the Middle East.
She studied Christianity because she believed it could help her discuss Gould’s work.
Antin asserted that America needed its immigrants as much as the immigrants needed America.
Membership
Mary was a member of Hale House.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
Throughout her life, her physical problems were attributed to nervous distress.
Connections
Through the Natural History Club at Hale House, Antin met her future husband, Amadeus William Grabau, a German American graduate student at Harvard University. Antin and Grabau were married in Boston in 1901. When they became parents in 1907, Grabau and Antin named their only child Josephine Esther, after Josephine Lazarus and Esther Weltman Antin, guiding figures in Mary Antin’s life. Due to their professional and ideological differences, Antin and Grabau separated.
