Cut from Whole Cloth – An Immigrant Experience - Hardcover

Franke, Richard J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226260305 ISBN 13: 9780226260303

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2005

Synopsis

University of Chicago Press. Chicago 2004. 521 pp

About this title

Review:

"Much of the book has a novelistic flavor." -- Erika Bourguignon "Antioch Review" (06/01/2006)

"Much of the book has a novelistic flavor."

"Much of the book has a novelistic flavor."--Erika Bourguignon"Antioch Review" (06/01/2006)

Synopsis:

Accomplished businessman, Richard J. Franke offers in "Cut from Whole Cloth" an intimate account of the American immigrant experience, recounting the moving story of his grandparents' struggle to build a new life in turn-of-the-century America. Franke draws on extensive primary sources to create an engrossing narrative of his Catholic grandfather and Lutheran grandmother as they flee religious intolerance and economic adversity in Germany and immigrate to America in 1884. They settle in Springfield, Illinois, where they start a family and business and live out the American dream - with its attendant perils and promises - as their business evolves from a tailor's shop to a modern, thriving dry cleaner. Their story is one of strife, frustration, and success. Franke chronicles how they struggle to raise a family in a foreign culture with radically different values, as the old world morals that fuel their prosperity give rise to ancient family tensions that haunt each new generation. By turns charming, wrenching, and poetic, "Cut from Whole Cloth" is an intensely personal yet timeless tale that will appeal to nearly every descendant of immigrants.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0226260305
• ISBN 13: 9780226260303
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 521