This is the real-life story of families that fled Europe in the mid-1800s to set up life in the New World. They were not rich people, but mainly farmers who were looking for new opportunities. If you've read the back of the dust cover of this book you'll hear the voice of August Wirth in 1832, whose ideas fermented and boiled among the common folk such as these fleeing family groups. Their lives were not easy in America; they toiled in new soils, lived in places that were strange to them, and learned a new language. These were the new Americans that molded their new country to fit them.