author
Edward Alfred Steiner
1866–1956
An immigrant, minister, and teacher, he wrote with unusual warmth and urgency about the lives of newcomers in America. His books drew on his own journey from Central Europe to the United States and helped make immigration a human story for a wide audience.
4 Audiobooks
The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow
by Edward Alfred Steiner
On the Trail of the Immigrant
by Edward Alfred Steiner
Against the Current: Simple Chapters from a Complex Life
by Edward Alfred Steiner
Introducing the American Spirit
by Edward Alfred Steiner
About the author
Born on November 1, 1866, in what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Edward Alfred Steiner later came to the United States after political trouble connected to his sympathy for Slovaks. He studied at Oberlin and went on to become a Congregational minister, combining religious work with a deep interest in social questions, especially immigration.
Steiner became widely known as a writer and speaker on the experience of immigrants in the United States. Works such as The Immigrant Tide and his autobiography From Alien to Citizen reflect both personal experience and close observation, and they helped readers see newcomers not as statistics but as people trying to build lives in a new country.
He also taught at Grinnell College, where he held the E. D. Rand chair in Applied Christianity. Remembered as part of the Social Gospel tradition, he brought together faith, public life, and reform-minded concern for ordinary people, leaving behind a body of work that still offers insight into American immigration and belonging.