"These are rich and fertile lands, so cheap that the labouring man
may get his board and ten acres for an honest month's work, and
the rich man find large profits upon his investments."—from
William Kingsbury's 1877 pamphlet promoting Texas

 
    In Perilous Voyages, English and Czech immigrants' tales of 
coming to Texas provide fascinating counterpoints to each other 
and to the glowing claims about the Lone Star State made by 
Kingsbury and others. The first part includes a complete reprint 
of Kingsbury's pamphlet, giving insight into the rhetoric of 
Texas immigration. In the second part, the experiences of the 
immigrants themselves are illuminated through Englishman
William Wright's private diary. The third section narrates the story
of thirty-six men, women, and children who left their Moravian 
homeland in 1873 to pursue dreams of prosperity and the good 
life in Texas.

_________________________________________________________

LAWRENCE H. KONECNY is a manager at the Burlington Northern
and Santa Fe Railway Company's Technical Training Center in
Overland Park, Kansas. CLINTON MACHANN, a professor of
English at Texas A&M University in College Station, is the co-editor
of Czech Voices: Stories from Texas in the Amerikán Národní
Kalendál, published by Texas A&M University Press in 1991.


Number Ninety-seven: Centennial Series of the Association of 
Former Students, Texas A&M University


What people are saying about this book


"Perilous Voyages paints a compelling portrait of how seduction,
hope, and perseverance interacted to bring English and Czech 
immigrants to Central Texas."—The Journal of Southern History, 
August 2005

". . . the general reader should have only one problem when
reading this book—when to put it down."—Woody Smith,
Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center