On the Trail of The Immigrant

About this book

How did the immigrants come to America? Who were they? What Where did they come from? In this book, Edward Steiner tells of the experiences of immigrants from Hungary, Poland, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and many other countries as they leave everything and board a boat to an unknown future. Steiner was born to a well-to-do Jewish-Slovak-Hungarian family in a Carpathian village, and was educated in Vienna and Heidelberg and immigrated to the United States in 1886. His later American experiences are quite incredible, precisely because it seems that he made every effort not to miss any of the steps of the immigration experiences; not only the familiar sweatshop saga of his fellow east European Jews, but also metal works in Pittsburgh; mining with Poles in Pennsylvania; cropping for the Amish; being Jailed for months for having been indirectly involved in a strike; getting trapped on a railway bridge as the train was running against him; being brutally mugged in Chicago; being shoved off a cattle train car in Ohio while on his way to becoming a rabbi in the East Coast; and finally, finding a warm Christian home in a small Mid-Western town with a pastor and his wife. Ultimately, in this environment, and under the continuing inspiration of Tolstoy, he became a Christian and a pastor himself, and ever active for progressive causes. This is an important book in the history of immigration. - Summary by Phil Chenevert