Mary Antin (June 13, 1881 — May 15, 1949) was an American author and immigration rights activist.

Born to a Jewish family in Polotsk, she immigrated to the Boston area with her mother and siblings in 1894. She married Amadeus William Grabau in 1901, and moved to New York City where she attended Teachers College of Columbia University and Barnard College. Antin is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, which describes her assimilation into American culture. After its publication, Antin lectured on her immigrant experience to many audiences across the country, and became a major supporter for Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressive Party.

Quotes more less

"As we moved along in a little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns.""His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school. In time he learned to read, to follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly; and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.""If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be worshiped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw one step nearer to them.""In the evening of the first day my father conducted us to the public baths.""No, the czar did not want us in the schools.""On a royal birthday every house must fly a flag, or the owner would be dragged to a police station and be fined twenty-five rubles.""One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar's health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue.""Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.""The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school.""The czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family.""The czar was always sending us commands - you shall not do this and you shall not do that - till there was very little left that we might do, except pay tribute and die.""The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.""There was one public school for boys, and one for girls, but Jewish children were admitted in limited numbers - only ten to a hundred; and even the lucky ones had their troubles.""We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful.""You heard on all sides that the brightest Jewish children were turned down if the examining officers did not like the turn of their noses."

Search - List of Books by Mary Antin

Quotes more less

Further Reading more less

Loading...