Ruth was only twenty-two-years old when her family took a tour of Europe in celebration of the young woman’s graduation from Smith College. A native of Pawtucket, Ruth had previously never traveled farther than New York and documented the trip in her diary. The result is a portrayal of Europe—and especially Germany—that modern travelers will never see. The horrors of two successive world wars still in the future, Ruth and her family saw and experienced much that was later destroyed. Join Ruth as she describes, in detail, Germany’s new parliament building, the Reichstag—a building burned to the ground by political radicals barely thirty years after Ruth visits it. Sit with her as she listens to the organ of St. Nicholas Church in Hamburg, accompanied by a choir of young boys who may very well have met their deaths on the killing fields of World War I. A revealing description of culture, people, and places long since gone, My Trip Abroad, 1902–1903 , takes readers to a time when the world had yet to completely lose its innocence—and one young woman soaked in the beauty of a continent. The editor of My Trip Abroad, 1902-1903 , Charles C. Cox III was born into one of the "F.F.V. families"-first families of Virginia-in 1943. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1966 before earning a master's degree in history at Northeastern University. Cox earned his way through both college degrees by giving tours at the Jamestown Festival Park and later at the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Cox has taught history at Northeastern University until 1979, when he and his lifelong companion, Bob Petteruti, went into business in Providence, Rhode Island While living at the University Heights Apartment in Providence, Rhode Island, Cox first met Ruth Kent Newell, who shared stories of her life and family. She passed away just after her one-hundredth birthday in 1980; her niece, Ruth Kent Hatch, gave her diaries to Cox, sure her aunt would have wanted him to have them. He has treasured them ever since.