{"id":679,"date":"2023-10-01T20:03:39","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T19:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2023-10-02T18:53:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T17:53:09","slug":"booklife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/?p=679","title":{"rendered":"Booklife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/booklife.com\/project\/searching-for-charles-the-untold-legacy-of-an-immigrant-s-american-adventure-83154?fbclid=IwAR0vRd6mIVRdYGJV7ONSJAq07VNLgLqLWRjhgGFCbHfKtEAF03_-NH1N_e0\">Searching for Charles: The Untold Legacy of an Immigrant&#8217;s American Adventure by Stephen Watts | BookLife<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>April 19, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI suppose you think I have forgotten you as it is now 9 months since I left you, but this is a large country to ramble thro.\u201d So begins the first letter home from Charles Watts, who left London for the United States in December of 1835, at age 23. After a seven-week crossing and a New York City winter, Watts\u2019s rambling took him up to Buffalo, into Canada, and at last into Ohio and then Michigan. In the letter, the first of 22 surviving dispatches sent from and to Watts between 1836 and 1868, Watts describes \u201cThe Falls of Niagara\u201d\u2014&#8221;the water was greatly agitated and the foam flew over me like Thick Rain\u201d\u2014and assures his brother Edward that there\u2019s land to be had in the New World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A remarkable immersion in history as it was lived,&nbsp;<em>Searching for Charles<\/em>&nbsp;offers transcriptions of Charles\u2019 letters back home as he and countless other immigrants built new lives\u2014and a nation. Author Stephen Watts, a descendant, writes touchingly of his and his father\u2019s fascination in the letters and the project of family history, though these rich and fascinating letters are of wider interest. The fruits of that research extend beyond the letters themselves, as author Watts offers illuminating context covering family, local, national, and international news. The letters cover Charles\u2019s opinions on hangings in England (\u201cThis remnant of feudalism must soon give way to the face of Public Opinion\u201d) and famine in Ireland, as well as local concerns like the developments of canals, the rising costs during the buildup to the Civil War, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Charles is a dedicated letter writer, one who vows that he \u201cwill take time to fill the sheet if it takes me a month,\u201d and his missives capture the textures of life. Backmatter includes a detailed account of the process of research, plus a thorough index and family tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Takeaway:<\/strong>&nbsp;Rich, lively letters of American life from a 19th century immigrant from London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Comparable Titles:<\/strong>&nbsp;David A. Gerber\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Authors of Their Lives<\/em>, J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur\u2019s<em>&nbsp;Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Production grades<\/strong><br>Cover:&nbsp;<strong>A<\/strong><br>Design and typography:&nbsp;<strong>A<\/strong><br>Editing:&nbsp;<strong>A<\/strong><br>Marketing copy:&nbsp;<strong>A<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Searching for Charles: The Untold Legacy of an Immigrant&#8217;s American Adventure by Stephen Watts | BookLife April 19, 2023 \u201cI suppose you think I have forgotten you as it is now 9 months since I left you, but this is a large country to ramble thro.\u201d So begins the first &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","latest_post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchingforcharles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}