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It was the historian Leo Schelbert who gave me the idea for this book. He has been living in metropolitan Chicago for nearly forty years and, after studying at Columbia University in New York, taught American history for 32 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, especially the history of American immigration. He has also featured the global history of Swiss emigration in books and articles. In his view, the Swiss abroad – in 2009 some 676,000 people – represent Switzerland’s 27th canton. “As written history in general, also the history of migrations has remained largely men’s history,” he asserts. “Documentary sources of women emigrants are little known, although women achieved just as much as men either by themselves or as mothers and partners.” Precisely for that reason Swiss American women were to be given a voice.
Leo Schelbert was taken by the book spruchreif – Zeitzeuginnen aus dem Kanton Schwyz erzählen (ready to be told – Witnesses of Their Times from Canton Schwyz Tell Their Story) that I had initiated and attended to in 2004. He inspired me four years ago to undertake a similar project of encounters with women who had moved to the United States in the 20th century.