Mary Antin

An item at American Writers Museum

At 13, Mary Antin left the Jewish settlement in Russia where she had spent her childhood and immigrated with her family to Boston, Massachusetts. She quickly mastered English and while still a teen began publishing poems in local papers.

Antin chronicled her remarkable story in the autobiography The Promised Land (1912), which credits opportunity and education as critical to her successful assimilation. Her optimism and conviction in the possibility of the "American Dream" made the book hugely popular in her time. It remains in print today, a landmark in the genre of immigrant narrative.

AMERICAN VOICES

An exhibit at American Writers Museum

American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.

This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.

American Writers Museum