An American in the Making by Marcus Eli Ravage on Free Audio Book Download

The sweat-shop was for me the cradle of liberty. . . It was my first university. Attending lectures and the New York theatre at night; by day sewing sleeves into shirts in a ghetto shop, Marcus Eli Ravage (1884-1965) began his transformation from вЂњalienвЂќ to American. His 1917 autobiography is a paean to the transformative power of education. Ravage emigrated from Rumania in 1900, at the age of 16. After working for several years as a вЂњsleeverвЂќ to save money, he enrolls in the University of Missouri (the least expensive school he can find), where culture shock overwhelms him at first. вЂњI was not sure whether it was a pig or a sheep that bleated, whether clover was a plant and plover a bird, or the other way around.вЂќ But he adapts, and eventually embraces вЂњthe bigger and freer worldвЂќ outside the immigrant ghetto. He writes that, because of his university experience, he was no longer вЂњa man without a country.вЂќ He had become an American.