Bronn near Bayreuth in the year 1887 - Margarethe's father has died, and she is now an orphan. Her brother emigrated years ago. The lonely young woman decides to go to America as well. To a land so promising, where poverty and hunger seem unknown, where anything is possible. And so, in the spring of 1888, she finds herself as a passenger on the ship that is pounding through the waves, taking her into a world full of adventure and danger, into a new life. This moving emigrant novel is based on true events. It is an exciting journey into the 19th century and into a wild land, where much was still a great adventure, and the courage of those who left their old homeland to conquer a new world seemed boundless.