The map of the United States is peppered with Scottish place-names and America's telephone directories are filled with surnames illustrating Scottish ancestry. Increasingly, Americans of Scottish extraction are visiting Scotland in search of their family history. All over Scotland and the United States there are clues to the Scottish-American relationship, the legacy of centuries of trade and communication as well as that of departure and heritage. The experiences of Scottish settlers in the United States varied enormously, as did their attitudes to the lifestyles that they left behind and those that they began anew once they arrived in North America. Scots in the USA discusses why they left Scotland, where they went once they reached the United States, and what they did when they got there.... a valuable readable and illuminating addition to a burgeoning literature... should be required reading on the flight to New York by all those on the Tartan Week trail. - Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald
How the American wilderness shaped Scottish experience, imagination and identity. How is the Scottish imagination shaped by its emigre experience with wilderness and the extreme? Drawing on journals, emigrant guides, memoirs, letters, poetry and fiction, this book examines patterns of survival, defeat, adaptation and response in North America's harshest landscapes. Most Scots who crossed the Atlantic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries encountered the practical, moral and cultural challenges of the wilderness, with its many tensions and contradictions. Jenni Calder explores the effect of these experiences on the Scots imagination. Associated with displacement and disappearance, the 'wilderness' was also a source of adventure and redemption, of exploitation and spiritual regeneration, of freedom and restriction. An arena of greed, cruelty and cannibalism, of courage, generosity and mutual understanding, it brought out the best and the worst of humanity. Did the Scots who emigrated exchange one extreme for another, or did they discover a new idea of identity, freedom and landscape?
Today there are up to 25 million Americans who claim to have Scottish heritage. Many of these people are the descendants of Scots who journeyed to America in the 19th Century, and became true pioneers in the West. These men and women were real cowboys and homesteaders; they were sheriffs and outlaws; they mined gold and built railroads; and they were among the first to conquer the frontier, making lives for themselves in the wild west. Most importantly they became the Scots who helped to shape the United States of America. From the commended to the condemed, the Scots who braved America's frontier territories have made a lasting impact on what is now the world's most powerful country. This is an accurate and fascinating depiction of these people and their stories, giving real insight into the lives of the frontier Scots.
In Canada there are nearly as many descendants of Scots as there are people living in Scotland; almost 5 million Canadians ticked the "Scottish origin" box in the most recent Canadian Census. Many Scottish families have friends or relatives in Canada. Who left Scotland? Why did they leave? What did they do when they got there? What was their impact on the developing nation? Thousands of Scots were forced from their homeland, while others chose to leave, seeking a better life. As individuals, families and communities, they braved the wild Atlantic Ocean, many crossing in cramped under-rationed ships, unprepared for the fierce Canadian winter. And yet Scots went on to lay railroads, found banks and exploit the fur trade, and helped form the political infrastructure of modern day Canada. This book follows the pioneers west from Nova Scotia to the prairie frontier and on to the Pacific coast. It examines the reasons why so many Scots left their land and families. The legacy of centuries of trade and communication still binds the two countries, and Scottish Canadians keep alive the traditions that crossed the Atlantic with their ancestors. REVIEW: ...meticulously researched and fluently written... it neatly charts the rise of a country without succumbing to sentimental myths. SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
This book is a personal journey – an eccentric odyssey – exploring aspects of past and present, people and places. It is an evocation rather than a history.' A city of fascinating unpredictability is how Jenni Calder describes Edinburgh. In an eccentric odyssey that is equally fascinating and unpredictable, she discovers the essence of the city beyond the iconic centre. With a passionate sense of place, she evokes personal experience alongside vivid accounts of Edinburgh given by others. In the Grassmarket, she recalls Sir Walter Scott's dramatisations of riot and public execution. On Blackford Hill, she takes pleasure in the account given by the 'Silent Traveller' Chiang Yee of walking backwards to the summit. Crossing the Dean Bridge brings to mind Naomi Mitchison's imagined descent into the vertiginous Dean Gorge. Jenni Calder's journeys through this most 'walkable' of cities brings a new appreciation of Edinburgh into being.
In leaving behind the physical closeness of her relationships with her long-term partner, parents, brother and family she is able to analyse and confront 'the mush of dissatisfaction' that had been expanding to fill her life. By lecturing in Beijing Eleanor is at once observer and observed, teacher and pupil. The novel culminates in Tiananmen Square, June 1989, as she finds herself drawn into the unfolding drama that led to one of the most momentous events of the 20th century.
Today there are up to 25 million Americans who claim to have Scottish heritage. Many of these people are the descendants of Scots who journeyed to America in the 19th Century, and became true pioneers in the West. These men and women were real cowboys and homesteaders; they were sheriffs and outlaws; they mined gold and built railroads; and they were among the first to conquer the frontier, making lives for themselves in the wild west. Most importantly they became the Scots who helped to shape the United States of America. From the commended to the condemed, the Scots who braved America's frontier territories have made a lasting impact on what is now the world's most powerful country. This is an accurate and fascinating depiction of these people and their stories, giving real insight into the lives of the frontier Scots.
Naomi Mitchison was a novelist, socialist, feminist and tireless campaigner for sexual freedom. She lived through the entire twentieth century and wrote more than seventy books. Her political activism took her from the Soviet Union to her adopted Botswana as a champion of liberty and equality. The Burning Glass draws a fascinating portrait of a truly inspiring life.
In the final part of Calder's acclaimed trilogy on the Scots in North America, we learn of the part Scots played in the story of the Wild West. Scots were ideally suited to the harsh and often violent conditions experienced on the American frontier.
Scottish novelist and poet, Naomi Mitchison was born in Edinburgh in 1897, the daughter of philosopher John Scott Haldane. She was an early campaigner for women's birth control and became involved with pacifism and women's rights. At Oxford she was a close friend of Aldous Huxley. she married Labour MP G.R Mitchison in 1916, and during the World War I worked as a VAD nurse in London. Her literary career commenced in the early 1920s with poems and plays, and she has now written more than 72 books - novels as well as travel and history books and autobiography. In 1935, her novel We Have Been Warned which dealt with rape and abortion was censored. In the same year she stood as Labour Candidate and in 1937, moved to Carradale where she still lives. This biography explores her literary and political life and career.
How is the Scottish imagination shaped by its emigre experience with wilderness and the extreme? Drawing on journals, emigrant guides, memoirs, letters, poetry and fiction, this book examines patterns of survival, defeat, adaptation and response in North
The map of the United States is peppered with Scottish place-names and America's telephone directories are filled with surnames illustrating Scottish ancestry. Increasingly, Americans of Scottish extraction are visiting Scotland in search of their family history. All over Scotland and the United States there are clues to the Scottish-American relationship, the legacy of centuries of trade and communication as well as that of departure and heritage. The experiences of Scottish settlers in the United States varied enormously, as did their attitudes to the lifestyles that they left behind and those that they began anew once they arrived in North America. Scots in the USA discusses why they left Scotland, where they went once they reached the United States, and what they did when they got there.... a valuable readable and illuminating addition to a burgeoning literature... should be required reading on the flight to New York by all those on the Tartan Week trail. - Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald
Today there are up to 25 million Americans who claim to have Scottish heritage. Many of these people are the descendants of Scots who journeyed to America in the 19th Century, and became true pioneers in the West. These men and women were real cowboys and homesteaders; they were sheriffs and outlaws; they mined gold and built railroads; and they were among the first to conquer the frontier, making lives for themselves in the wild west. Most importantly they became the Scots who helped to shape the United States of America. From the commended to the condemed, the Scots who braved America's frontier territories have made a lasting impact on what is now the world's most powerful country. This is an accurate and fascinating depiction of these people and their stories, giving real insight into the lives of the frontier Scots.
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