Immigration Guides as Source Material for Immigration History: The Example of Brazil

German immigration to the New World became a mass phenomenon in the nineteenth century. Prospective emigrants could gather information on destinations and opportunities from special societies and a variety of publications. A growing number of “immigration guides” were published from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Using Brazil as an example, our project will examine this previously neglected category of source material in order to find out what information immigrants received about countries and their inhabitants, what travel arrangements they were advised to make, and how the guides described life in German colonies.