Mary Antin

Mary Antin
File:Mary Antin 1915.jpg Antin in 1915
Born	Maryashe Antin June 13, 1881 Polotsk, Belarus, Russian Empire
Died	Suffern, New York
Alma mater	Teachers College, Columbia University (1901–1902) Barnard College 1902–1904)
Genre	Memoir
Notable works	The Promised Land
Spouse	Amadeus William Grabau (m. Oct. 5, 1901)
Children	Josephine Esther

Mary Antin (born Maryashe Antin; June 13, 1881 – May 15, 1949) was an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization.

Life

Maryashe Antin was the second of six children born to Israel and Esther Weltman Antin, a Jewish family living in Polotsk, Belarus, at that time part of Russia. Israel Antin emigrated to Boston in 1891, and three years later he sent for Mary and her mother and siblings. The family moved from Chelsea to Ward 8 in Boston's South End, a notorious slum, as the venue of Israel's store changed. She attended Girls' Latin School, now Boston Latin Academy, after finishing primary school. She married Amadeus William Grabau, a geologist, 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 public school education and assimilation into American culture, as well as life for Jews in Czarist Russia. 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.

During World War I, while she campaigned for the Allied cause, her husband's pro-German activities precipitated their separation and her physical breakdown. Amadeus was forced to leave his post at Columbia University to work in China, where he became "the father of Chinese geology." She was never physically strong enough to visit him there. During World War II, Amadeus was interned by the Japanese and died shortly after his release in 1946. Mary died of cancer on May 15, 1949.

She is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

Quotations

All three children carried themselves rather better than the common run of “green” pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father, with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions, like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my father’s best English could not convey. I think she divined that by the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took possession of America. . . .

Images

• Mary Antin- promised Land 1912.gif

  1912 Book The Promised Land (autobiography)

• Mary Antin (Mashke) and sister and Fetchke - Project Gutenberg eText 20885.jpg

  Mary Antin (Mashke) and sister Fetchke, as young children

External links

• Review at the National Yiddish Book Center
• Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Women's History at search.eb.com
• Vom Ghetto ins Land der Verheissung, 1913 (digitized version)
• Pamela S. Nadell, Mary Antin, Jewish Women Encyclopedia
• Works by Mary Antin at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Mary Antin at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• The Jewish Women's Archive entry on Mary Antin