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American Notes Part 1

Three-part overview of USA.

  1. General historical background
  2. Some current issues
  3. Comparison between USA and Europe

General Historical Background

Gilbert Maps:

  1. Origin of Settlement in America
  2. Indian Tribes of North America before 1492
  3. Vikings and America 800-1015
  4. European Exploration 1492-1534
  5. Spanish Exploration and Conquest 1513-1543
  6. Puritan Emigration from England 1612-1646
  7. European Settlements 1526-1642 (English, French, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Spanish)
  8. European Settlements by 1742
  9. North America 1783 (USA, British Canadian, Spanish, Russian)
  10. National Origins and Religious Groups 1790
  11. The Expanding Frontier 1783-1840 (USA, new states, Louisana and other purchases and acquisitions)
  12. European Emigration 1820 - 1920
  13. Immigration 1820 - 1920
  14. Immigrants to the United States, 1963-1983

Introduction

Land without people for people without land?

Malthusian theories, Paul Kennedy's variant, America as escape-valve

1700 - 1763 eightfold increase in two million - 1/3 of population of Eng./Wales

Rich colonial economy. High life expectancy - 71.8 in late 18th c.

Transportation of convicts also endemic.

End 17th century - many non-English - Hugeunots, Swiss, Germans (e.g. Pennsylvania Dutch - including Amish). Susan Fitzgerald Cities on a Hill.

Largest group of non-English were Scotch-Irish. By the 1750s (p. 20, Jones) there was a continuous chain of Scotch-Irish frontier settlements from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Stress frontier role - buffer against Indians. Restless, intolerant. Founded Presbyterianism in America.

New England remained English but rest of colonies became a mixture. Scattering of Scots, Welsh, Irish Catholics, Dutch, Sephardic Jews. Little mixing except in towns. Map of America a mosaic. Refer O Pioneers, My Antonia, Giants in the Earth, Promised Land, Melting Pot, Heaven's Gate.

American preoccupation with internal expansion lasted for all of 19th century until closing of frontier (1891). F.J. Turner.

Post 1815 (ending of Napoleonic War, beginning of Industrial Revolution, Great Age of Sail, followed by Steam). Emigration went from 10K p.a. pre-15 to 50k. p.a. by 1830s, 100k p.a. by 1840s, early 1850s +300k. p.a.

1815-1860 5 million plus. Ireland, Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia.

Ireland - iniqitious landholding system. Prices fell after 1815. Famine in 1840s but numbers were already up. 1847 - 17,000 Irish died at sea. Norwegians and Swedes, latest arrivals, settled disproportionately in midwest. Germans - Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, large numbers in towns, which became German-speaking. Only about 8% of the Irish settled outside cities - lack of churches in frontiers, no knowledge of agriculture. Irish became slum dwellers 200,000 Irish in New York in 1860. Strong anti-Irish feeling - Know-Nothings (Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, then American Party) etc. Immigrants up to half and more of population of many cities. Religion a key problem - Irish and German Catholics meant that by 1860 there were more than 3m. Catholics - 10% of population. 1840s - Catholic opposition to King James Bible in schools. 1834 - burning of Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, MA. Philadelphia 1844 - Catholic churces burned. Know-Nothings collapsed in 1850s, joined Republicans.

1860 - 1910.

Rate of increase declined. Decline in birth-rate. Most of population north of Ohio, east of Mississippi.

Urbanisation - 1 in 6 in 1860, 1 in 3 by 1900. New York third largest city in world - 1m. in 1860 to 3˝ m. in 1900. Chicago in second place 100k - 1.7m. Railhead.

1865-1915 26 million immigrants - five times more than previous fifty years. Up to 1880s, mainly from northern and western Europe. Then (85% by 1915) from southern and eastern Europe. Poverty, pogroms, avoidance of military service. Transition from sail to steam was complete by 1870. By 1901 40-65% of all migrants had their passages paid by friends/relatives. 1910 - 1/3 of American cities foreign-born. New York had twice as many Irish as Dublin, more Germans than Hamburg, more Jews than all of western Europe, more Italians than Naples.

Concentration by district, also by occupation. Poles, Slovaks, Hungarians, - heavy industry. Russian and Polish Jews - rag trade. Italians, construction, textiles, (with Portuguese, French-Canadians). Padrone system of Italian patronage.

Many immigrants were country people and stuck together in urban jungle - in provincial rather than national groups though. Churches, schools, newspapers, mutual-aid societies, theatres.

At most, immigrants almost never accounted for more than a third of the population. In country as a whole, foreign-born rose from 13.2% 1860 - 14.7% 1910. Closing of frontier increased feeling of claustrophobia and perceived threat. New immigrants more different, more dangerous. Fear of anarchists. Popular anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism.

Movement for immigration restriction from then. Supported by trade unions. Immigration Restriction League was founded in 1894. Literacy tests, praise for "Anglo-Saxon" element.

Was also vocal minority in favour of immigrants. 1882 - Chinese Exclusion Acts. Also no convicts, lunatics, paupers etc. later contract labourers, persons with contagious diseases, polygamists, prostitutes, anarchists, persons advocating overthrow of US Government.

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© Migration Studies at the Department of Geography, University College Cork/Roinn an Tíreolais, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Corcaigh
Tel/Guthán 353 21 4902889 email/post leictreonach migration@ucc.ie