LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 22, No.4 - Winter 1976 Editors of this issue: J.A. Račkauskas Copyright © 1976 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

Dr. Antanas Kučas, Lithuanians in America. Translated by Joseph Boley. Introduction by Dr. Clarence C. Walton, President of the Catholic University of America. Published by Encyclopedia Lituanica, Boston, 1975. 6.00.

Several years ago, the Encyclopedia Lituanica Press published the predecessor to this book in Lithuanian. Its author, Dr. Antanas Kučas, historian and formerly Professor at the University of Scranton, has written extensively on various topics on Lithuanian history.

The book contains four main chapters: 1. Lithuanians venture to the New World; 2. The organization complex; 3. For the freedom of Lithuania; 4. Cultural, Artistic and Economic Activities. Each chapter has many subchapters of various length.

In the very useful appendix one will find the chronological list of the establishment of the Lithuanian R. C. parishes in the United States, beginning with 1871 (Shamokin, PA) to 1941 (Los Angeles, CA). There is an extensive bibliography of 6 pages (pp. 335-340), and an index of persons mentioned in the book (pp. 341-349).

This is a very useful reference book dealing with this group of Americans who, according to the 1960 census, made up more than 1.2% of the total population of the USA. Really, that percentage ir probably much higher because many Lithuanian - Americans did not indicate their origin in the census of 1960. The census of 1970 did not collect data on the national origin at all.

In this book, the reader will follow the first Lithuanians arriving in this new world, their struggles, their worries and joys. He will realize that this group of people eventually published here in the United States a general 36-volume encyclopedia in Lithuanian (Boston, MA, 1954 -1966) and now are engaged in publishing a 6-volume Encyclopedia Lituanica, five volumes of which have already appeared.

The painstaking critic will, of course, find some imbalance of emphasis, or in "assigning" the number of pages for one thing or another, but nobody will deny the basic importance of this book.

ANTANAS KLIMAS
The University of Rochester