The Promised Land
Published on 1. January 2011
176 pages
978-1-4209-0030-9 (ISBN)
Description
Mary Antin was born in 1881 to a Jewish family in Polotsk, in what was then czarist Russia. Had her family not immigrated to the Boston area in 1894, Mary would have grown up uneducated, married an Orthodox Jewish man, raised children and never become assimilated into society. Thanks to the American public school system, Antin became large Americanized, learning the English language and American customs. By eighteen, she had published her first autobiographical volume, which later became her masterpiece, "The Promised Land". It is revered as a coming of age story for not only a young immigrant, but for a young woman. The novel describes Antin's childhood memories of Russia and immigrating, and the emotions she felt as she let go of one identity for another. She praises the public school system and relishes the freedom she feels as an American in a work that has been called the classic Jewish-American immigrant autobiography.
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Content
- Title page
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER I. WITHIN THE PALE
- CHAPTER II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW
- CHAPTER III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES
- CHAPTER IV. DAILY BREAD
- CHAPTER V. I REMEMBER
- CHAPTER VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
- CHAPTER VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH
- CHAPTER VIII. THE EXODUS
- CHAPTER IX. THE PROMISED LAND
- CHAPTER X. INITIATION
- CHAPTER XI. "MY COUNTRY
- CHAPTER XII. MIRACLES
- CHAPTER XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE
- CHAPTER XIV. MANNA
- CHAPTER XV. TARNISHED LAURELS
- CHAPTER XVI. DOVER STREET
- CHAPTER XVII. THE LANDLADY
- CHAPTER XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH
- CHAPTER XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS
- CHAPTER XX. THE HERITAGE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- GLOSSARY
