Antin (Mary) is born in Polotsky in today’s Belarus.

With the rest of her family, Mary Antin emigrates to the U.S. to join her father in Chelsea in 1895, then moves to 11 Wheeler Street (near today’s 336 Tremont Street) and other locations in the South End. She later writes, “My parents knew only that they desired us to be like American children . . . never doubting but that the American way was the best way.” She graduates from the Winthrop School, publishes her first book while at Girls Latin School in 1898,* graduates from the High School of Practical Arts. Rather than attend Radcliffe College (then the Harvard Annex), she marries Amadeus Grabeau and moves to New York City in 1901, Columbia and Barnard, and publishes her autobiography in 1912.* She becomes a nationally known speaker in defense of immigration, returns to the Boston area 1918, and dies in Suffern, New York, on May 15, 1949.