{{Short description|American author and immigration rights activist}} {{Infobox writer | name = Mary Antin | image = Mary Antin 1915.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Antin in 1915 | birth_name = Mary Antin | birth_date = June 13, 1881 | birth_place = Polotsk, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire | death_date = {{death date and age|1949|05|15|1881|06|13}} | death_place = Suffern, New York | resting_place = | language = | nationality = | ethnicity = | alma_mater = {{Plainlist| *Teachers College, Columbia University (1901–1902) *Barnard College (1902–1904)}}<ref name=jwa/> | period = | genre = Memoir | movement = | notableworks = ''The Promised Land'' | spouse = Amadeus William Grabau (m. Oct. 5, 1901) | children = Josephine Esther<ref name=Dictionary_of_American_Biography/> | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = }} [[Image:Mary Antin- promised Land 1912.gif|thumb|200px|1912 Book The Promised Land (autobiography)]] thumb|200px|Mary Antin (Mashke) and sister Fetchke, as young children '''Mary Antin''' (born '''Maryashe Antin'''; June 13, 1881 – May 15, 1949) was an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography ''The Promised Land'', an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanization.
==Life== Mary Antin was the second of six children born to Israel and Esther Weltman Antin, a Jewish family living in Polotsk, in the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus). Israel Antin emigrated to Boston in 1891, and three years later he sent for Mary and her mother and siblings.<ref>{{cite web|first=Pamela S.|last=Nadell |access-date=2014-01-17|url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/antin-mary|title=Mary Antin profile|work=Jewish Women's Archive}}</ref>
She married Amadeus William Grabau, a geologist, in 1901, and moved to New York City where she attended Teachers College of Columbia University and Barnard College. Antin is best known for her 1912 autobiography ''The Promised Land'', which describes her public school education and assimilation into American culture, as well as life for Jews in Czarist Russia. After its publication, Antin lectured on her immigrant experience to many audiences across the country.
During World War I, while she campaigned for the Allied cause, her husband's pro-German activities precipitated their separation and her physical breakdown. Amadeus was forced to leave his post at Columbia University to work in China, where he became "the father of Chinese geology." She was never physically strong enough to visit him there.
During World War II, Amadeus was interned by the Japanese and died shortly after his release in 1946. Mary Antin died of cancer on May 15, 1949.<ref name=jwa>{{cite web|first=Pamela S.|last=Nadell|access-date=2014-01-17 |url=http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/antin-mary|title=Mary Antin|work=Jewish Women's Archive}}</ref><ref name=Dictionary_of_American_Biography> {{cite book|chapter=Amadeus William Grabau|title=Dictionary of American Biography|location=New York|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|year=1974|id=Gale Document Number: GALE BT2310012533|via=Fairfax County Public Library|chapter-url=http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=BIC1&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CBT2310012533&source=Bookmark&u=fairfax_main&jsid=2c964215ca19b5f138ab42a38d7eeccc|title-link=Dictionary of American Biography}} Biography in Context. {{subscription required}}</ref>
==Legacy== She is commemorated on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.<ref>{{cite web|title=Mary Antin|url=http://bwht.org/mary-antin/|website=Boston Women's Heritage Trail}}</ref>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== {{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=45136055}} *{{cite book|title=From Plotzk to Boston: An Immigrant's Story|url=https://www.createspace.com/4541862|year=2013|isbn=9781494275808|author=Antin, Mary|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202222401/https://www.createspace.com/4541862|archive-date=2013-12-02}} <!-- * Mary Antin, Werner Sollors, ed. ''The Promised Land''. (1914; New York: Penguin Books, 1997 ISBN 0140189858). --> *{{cite book |lccn=12010316 |last=Antin |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Antin |title=The promised land, by Mary Antin; with illustrations from photographs |url=https://archive.org/details/promisedland01antigoog |location=Boston and Cambridge, Mass. |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Co.Riverside Press |year=1912}} *{{cite book |lccn=2012011363 |last=Antin |first=Mary |title=The promised land |author-link=Mary Antin |others=introduction and notes by Werner Sollors |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2012 |orig-year=previously published 1997 |isbn=9780143106777}} <!-- * Mary Antin. ''They Who Knock at Our Gates; a Complete Gospel of Immigration''. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1914. --> *{{cite book |lccn=14009103 |first=Antin |last=Mary |title=They who knock at our gates; a complete gospel of immigration |location=Boston and New York |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |year=1914}} *{{cite book |title=A Romance in Natural History: The Lives and Works of Amadeus Grabau and Mary Antin |first=Allan |last=Mazur |lccn=2004096697 |location=Syracuse, New York |publisher=Garret |year=2004}} <!-- * Evelyn Salz, ed. ''Selected Letters of Mary Antin'' (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000 ISBN 0815606079). --> *{{cite book |lccn=99038702 |isbn=978-0815606079 |last=Antin |first=Mary |title=Selected letters of Mary Antin <!-- |editor1-link=Evelyn Salz --> |editor1-first=Evelyn |editor1-last=Salz |edition=1st |location=Syracuse, NY |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=2000}}
==External links== * {{commons category-inline}} * {{wikiquote-inline}} * [http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Antin_Mary.html Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Women's History<!-- bot-generated title -->] at search.eb.com * [http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/3723537 ''Vom Ghetto ins Land der Verheissung''], 1913 (digitized version) * Pamela S. Nadell, [http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/antin-mary Mary Antin], Jewish Women Encyclopedia * {{Gutenberg author |id=9433| name=Mary Antin}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Mary Antin}} * {{Librivox author |id=4704}} * [http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/antin-mary The Jewish Women's Archive] entry on Mary Antin * Monica Rüthers, Between Threat and Hope. Migration to the New World. Mary Antin’s Account, in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History, June 27, 2017. {{doi|10.23691/jgo:article-53.en.v1}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Antin, Mary}} Category:1881 births Category:1949 deaths Category:People from Polotsk Category:People from Polotsky Uyezd Category:20th-century Belarusian Jews Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Category:American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Category:New York (state) Progressives (1912) Category:20th-century American memoirists Category:American women memoirists Category:Jewish American memoirists Category:20th-century American Jews Category:Jewish American women writers Category:People from South End, Boston Category:Teachers College, Columbia University alumni Category:Barnard College alumni Category:Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Category:20th-century American women writers