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The Bond of the Scattered Family:
In the 1880s and 1890s, immigrants poured into U.S. cities, thousands of miles from families and friends. Letters became their only link with their past lives. In 1889 alone, over 87 million letters and cards were exchanged between Europe and America, 22 times the correspondence that flowed annually between the two continents before the Civil War. Letters connected these immigrants first to their homelands and later to children and grandchildren as these new American generations moved on to other parts of this nation.
What did recent immigrants and the families back home think of life in the new country? Their letters back and forth were read eagerly and shared with other relatives and friends, sustaining family ties across continents and oceans. |