Oilcloth Stories

by Carol Dean Henn, inscribed and signed on titlepage

When immigrants from Central Europe arrived in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they often came to cities like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – cities bursting with the new energies and opportunities of industrialization, and with the challenges of assimilating dozens of cultures into what had been pastoral communities only a few decades before.

For most immigrants, industrial working conditions were harsh and brutal, and living conditions were not much better. But the immigrants – Windish, Hungarians, Slovaks, and others – stayed and made lives for themselves … lives that reached from nineteenth-century famine in Europe and the horrors of World War I to man’s landing on the moon and the dawn of the computer age.

It is in the stories of individual lives that this immigrant journey can be glimpsed – in everyday stories, universally human stories – stories told around a table covered in oilcloth.

Copyright 2015, stated 1st edition

Pages: 224 pages

Publisher: Friesen Press

The book measures approx. 9 by 6 inches. The hardcover is nice with some gentle wear and rubbing. The dustjacket is good with some light wear and rubbing. The spine end is good with light wear. The boards and corners are in good shape. The hinges and binding are tight and strong. The pages are good with some minor wear, book is nice. Shipping weight is 4 pounds