Oh, Beautiful
An American Family in the 20th Century

AN EXTENDED ITALIAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY clings to community life amid tragedy, the Spanish flu, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. A broken Polish immigrant family leaves a legacy of heartbreak, separation, Civilian Conservation Corps redemption, and World War II heroism. From these dissimilar backgrounds emerges a quintessential American family, one whose members embody the conflicting social movements of their times: a staunchly Catholic Polish immigrant U.S. Marine Corps father, an emotionally effusive Italian mother, an Oliver North son, a Hillary Clinton daughter, a mentally ill sister, a jock brother, a lesbian rocker, and a gay male activist. In an age of bitter cultural polarization, Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century celebrates what has kept America together. This true story is an engrossing portrait of an American family and an evocative documentation of nearly 100 years of American history.

ON THE COVER: In April 1941, Jozef Godzisz, a 17-year-old immigrant from Poland, leans against a Civilian Conservation Corps work truck at Camp Evelyn, located in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, near the towns of Wetmore and Munising.

“A satisfying, well-crafted reminder of how one family’s story can encapsulate the cultural history of America as a whole.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A dose of true Americana. A wise read and a solid addition to any American studies or memoir collection.”
—Midwest Book Review

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“Oh, Beautiful will inspire you to recover your own family’s secrets and gems.”
—Stacy Coyle, lecturer, American and environmental studies, University of Denver, Colorado

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“A remarkably sensitive and intuitive history of the ordinary American in the 20th century.”
—Caren Nichter, Louisville Free Public Library, Louisville, Kentucky

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“I love how the book weaves together the experiences of the family members and their struggles with faith, assimilation, community, and each other into a thesis of what it means to be American.”
—Alice Waugh, writer and editor, Boston, Massachusetts

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“Without hesitation, I can hold up Oh, Beautiful as a wonderful example of family history storytelling, and it will sit alongside The Glass Castle and Angela’s Ashes on my list of great reads for family historians.”
—Lynn Palermo, The Armchair Genealogist,
Simcoe, Ontario, Canada

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