The Golden Signpost

This translation of an extremely popular guide for immigrants appeared in several editions in the 1880s in Cleveland. It was written in German to help recent arrivals in the United States cope with their new and different cultural surroundings. Advice is offered on just about every facet of life, from furnishing a home and what sorts of greenery to purchase, to proper social and occupational ethics and behavior, to activity of a political nature, to marriage and family life. Very little is left without a practical word of advice. The book gives today’s reader fine insights into the values and codes of behavior in late nineteenth-century America within a specific ethnic group whose numbers were at that time being swelled by yet another massive wave of immigration. In his translation, Colin D. Thomson has managed to recapture in English the tone of the original German. The book has an introduction which provides a historical context and a preface that analyzes the content of the work itself.