ABSTRACT
The Macfarlane letters were written from Stewarton, in Ayrshire, Scotland, to Missouri and provide a rare look at how British immigrants were viewed from the land of their birth. The poverty and unemployment in Scotland, with references to people being thrown out of their houses, are good clues for the motives behind the emigration. References to the Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the cholera epidemic are also good indications of the kind of issues that people paid attention to on both sides of the Atlantic. The development of Stewarton, with its modern gas lines and roads, gives some sense of the contrast that was experienced in Missouri.
