Everyone has heard of Houdini; his name is almost synonymous with magic. That is a point this author makes a number of times in his book. And there have been a couple of popular movies about him, with variable accuracy. This book tries to get at the real story. One important part of Houdini’s story Read More
Tag: Immigration
Encountering Ellis Island, by Ronald H Bayor
This slim book is part of the “How Things Worked” series, and is subtitled “How European Immigrants Entered America”. However, the author describes not only Ellis Island and its predecessor Castle Garden, but also compares Angel Island, the West Coast entry point for many Asian immigrants. When I first started working on my family tree, Read More
A Good American, by Alex George
This is the fictional story of three generations of a family. It details the reasons the grandparents left their home county, their journey to America, and how they ended up in a small town in Missouri. It is told from the point of view of one of their grandsons. The title comes from the determination Read More
The Ghost of Gold Mountain, by Gordon H Chang
This book is about the unnamed Chinese immigrants who helped build the western part of the Transcontinental Railroad. While their achievements were praised at the time, their names and histories have been, for the most part, lost to time. Chang’s book is an attempt to recover some of that history. In the mid-1800’s, the Central Read More