In spring of 2024, on my Viking trip to The Netherlands, we did visit Antwerp in Belgium. Our riverboat was moored steps away from the Red Star Line Museum and I could NOT wait to walk through those doors!
The several floors and rooms of the museum were so well done and informative; I realized that the emigrant experience explained there could be considered parallel to many such immigration ports in Europe.
Of course I visited the gift shop and of course I purchased the above 240-page book and happily hauled all three pounds of it home. The opening sentence speaks:
“On 1 December 1934, the ships of the Red Star Line were making their last voyage. Over the previous seventy years, they had transported an estimated 2.5 million passengers, both rich and poor alike. They had enticed emigrants from all over Europe to come to Antwerp and take a boat to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.”
These are the chapters in the book:
- Millions of people, one dream
- Story of a shipping company
- Story of a place (Antwerp)
- A Belgian story
- A European story
- An American story
- A universal story (“migration, the great human story”)
I’d be happy to loan you my book or Amazon and other used book websites offer copies. If you want to better understand European emigration and immigration, this book is your read.