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Guides
The emigrants were well-advised to learn as much as they could about their new homeland before making the journey. Numerous guidebooks and newspaper reports were provided for this purpose. Travel accounts, novels and stories frequently created an overly positive image of the US, enabling people to forget their current difficulties.

The first guidebook for emigrants in Bavaria was published in 1840. Traugott Bromme's "Handbook and Travel Book for Emigrants" went through numerous editions. A newspaper especially for emigrants, the "Allgemeine Auswandererzeitung", was published in Rudolstadt from 1846/47 to 1871.

Letters from friends, acquaintances and relatives who had already emigrated were considered to be especially reliable sources of information, and provided a true-to-life picture of daily living conditions across the Atlantic. They were passed from hand to hand and, despite their subjectivity, most tried to keep people's expectations realistic.

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