Here is a record of one of history's great migrations, the Atlantic Migration to the New World, especially from 1770 to 1890, when eleven million people came from the British Isles to North America. The slow crossing by sailing ship was unpleasant even in the best accommodation, but for the poor conditions were wretched in the extreme. Famine, unemployment, poverty drove many from the Old World, and their desperate circumstances made them vulnerable to exploitation at both ends of the journey. In the New World, the immigrant had to adjust to strange conditions as he ventured into the interior of the continent to enter upon the hardships of pioneering.

Mr. Guillet has located records never before consulted, found contemporary descriptions not previously used, and presented excerpts from diaries, narratives, letters, and emigrant guidebooks formerly accessible only in museum and archives collections. The illustrations are all from contemporary sources and provide in themselves an authentic and comprehensive picture of the times.