Mary Antin’s memoir traces her journey from the Pale of Settlement to Boston, and from a Jewish girl bound by the Old World to a self-declared American. It opens with a striking claim: she has been “made over,” and the child she describes is no longer really her.

The first half recalls her childhood in Polotzk, in the Russian Empire, in the 1880s. Antin portrays a world bounded by restrictions on where Jews could live, study, and work; by the fear of pogroms; and by a religious tradition she experienced as both beautiful and confining, especially for a bright girl with no path to serious learning. When her father’s fortunes collapse, he emigrates to Boston, and in 1894 the rest of the family follows.

The second half is a hymn to America. Antin moves through Boston’s immigrant neighborhoods in poverty, but the public school transforms her. She masters English quickly, is championed by devoted teachers, publishes a poem about George Washington in a Boston newspaper while still a child, and comes to see American citizenship, and the Founders especially, as her true inheritance. Libraries, schools, and civic institutions become her new sacred spaces.

Course Details

2 Sections Offered (select one section on the registration form):

Section 1
Sundays | Oct 25, Nov 1, Nov 8, Nov 15, Nov 29
7:30–8:45 PM ET
(6:30–7:45 PM CT  /  4:30–5:45 PM PT)

Section 2
Wednesdays | Oct 28, Nov 4, Nov 11, Nov 18, Dec 2
7:30–8:45 PM ET
(6:30–7:45 PM CT  /  4:30–5:45 PM PT)

Students are responsible for the purchase of their own hard copy of the book.
Buy the book via Amazon here.

To apply, click “Add This Course” above. When you’ve added all your courses, click “Apply Now” below to finish your registration. You’ll choose your dates and section in the next step.