New Homes for Old

Nineteen years in America, and an Italian woman in Herrin had never received an American as a guest. “No American had ever come in that spirit,” she told an investigator.

In this early-twentieth-century study, social economist Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge looks beyond arrival statistics to the families trying to make homes in American towns and cities. Newcomers may find a job and a place to live, yet meet indifference, suspicion, and customs no one has helped them understand. The distance between neighbors can become a barrier as real as the immigrant quarters that divide a city—and women may be left especially alone. Breckinridge asks what genuine welcome, and a fair chance to build a family life, would require. What would change if a community opened its doors in earnest?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.