The Promised Land
Mary Antin
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Dec. 19, 2016)
"One of the first great works of American Jewish literature." -The New York Times "The life-story of an eager, observant, reflective, aspiring, and always original young woman whose formative years have been divided between the stifling restrictions of the 'Pale' ad the glorious freedom of America. Polotzk, in the government of Vitebsk, was the scene of her infancy and early childhood; Boston and its suburbs that of her maidenhood and young womanhood - with the broad Atlantic separating as by a chasm none too wide the amazingly disparate halves of this growing period....The bitter lot of the Russian Jew is depicted by the author in a way to wring the heart, but the gloom and horror of it all are relieved by irresistible touches of humor, while the charity and largeness of view displayed by this daughter of a hated and ill-used race are beyond praise....The infectious optimism and high courage of the book, as well as the vigor and picturesqueness of its style, with its frequent touches of humor, gleams of mirth, and suggestions of poetry, win the reader at the outset and hold him enthralled to the final page." -The Dial "Few recent American books have made as strong an impression on the reading public as 'The Promised Land,' Mary Antin's book about a little Russian girl immigrant and her life in America. It is a convincingly hopeful contribution to a great problem as well as a vivid and telling personal narrative....There is a deeply moving power in the rapid utterance and intense purpose that inform every page of Mary Antin's self-revelation. To know what American stands for in the vision of an ambitious, sensitive, and hitherto hindered foreigner makes the careless American catch his breath and feel humbled in spirit....It is quite impossible to give any adequate idea of this compelling story - the story of a self-centered girl, who yet escaped the evils of self-consciousness. Knowing, though in part, our shortcomings as benefactors of struggling aliens who hold out beseeching hands to us, we read this disclosure of an ideal America as it lived in the hearts of this emigrant family, and take courage, thanking God for the heritage given us by our fathers, and profoundly hopeful for its preservation and increase in our hands. The autobiography ends when its author feels herself truly an American, having been educated in the Boston public schools and Barnard College....A pen so eloquent and a mind so open to every good influence, mental and spiritual." -The Outlook "It is the plain story of the growth and development of a Russian immigrant girl in America, who finds her place, after much groping and many struggles, and who succeeds so well in growing up to her opportunities and her environment that she is able to tell in virile and beautiful English the tale of her life in 'The Promised Land.' Will interest every new citizen and every American who likes to hear his country spoken of in terms of appreciation as well as of intelligent criticism." -Book Bulletin of the Chicago Public Library "Told with a picturesqueness, a distinction, and poetic touch that make 'The Promised Land' as interesting as the best fiction. For the author has the gift of making literature out of the slightest incident - of touching 'the palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn.' The historian will find in 'The Promised Land' material of great value and undoubted accuracy, not only as to municipal government and social conditions in a community within the Russian Pale, but also as to the development of certain characteristics of the Russian Jew, which are here freely admitted." -The Literary Digest