Letters, 1898

This collection contains 19 letters written from 1898-1900 and 1912-1913 by author and immigration rights activist Mary Antin to educator and politician Alfred Seelye Roe. The letters begin soon after their meeting at a lecture Roe gave at the Park Street Church in 1898, and continued until 1900, after which their correspondence resumed after a 12-year hiatus. In the early letters, Antin writes about her immigration experience, the treatment her and her family received in her hometown of Polotsk, and her love of and opportunities in America. She also compliments Roe's talk at the church, and invites him to her grammar school graduation. In following letters, Antin recounts her summer vacation in Rhode Island and asks for advice on what high school to attend, writes about her excitement at the birth of her nephew, and discusses her relationship with Boston philanthropists Lina and Jacob Hecht and her meeting and later friendship with writer Israel Zangwill, all of whom aided Antin in publishing From Plotzk to Boston. After its publication, she writes about the sales of the book and asks for his criticisms and opinions on it. In later letters, Antin writes about the birth of her younger sister and her summer spent in Bayville, Maine at a summer school sponsored by the Boston Society of Natural History.

The letters resume in 1912, after Roe writes to Antin congratulating her on the publication of her series in The Atlanic Monthly, which would later become The Promised Land. Antin updated him on her life, including her marriage and the birth of a daughter. In October 1913, Antin writes again to Roe, hoping to set up a meeting with him and his family in Worcester while she is on a lecture tour in the area.