The Great Migration (Second Edition)

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.

Edwin C. Guillet (1898-1975) was educated at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1922) and at McMaster University (B.A. 1926; M.A. 1927). He joined the staff of Lindsay Collegiate in 1923 and the Central Technical School in Toronto in 1926, remaining until 1934. From 1958 to 1962 he served as research historian with the Ontario Department of Public Records and Archives. In 1963 he was appointed consultant on Canadiana to the Library of Trent University. He was the author of Early Life in Upper Canada and many other books, was noted especially for his works on social and local history.