Between 1790 and 1820 the population of the United States had more than doubled to 9.6 million. The most remarkable feature of this growth was that it resulted almost entirely from natural increase. The birthrate in the early nineteenth century exceeded fifty per 1,000 population, a rate as high as that of any country in the world today. Fewer than 250,000 immigrants entered the United States between 1790 and 1820. European wars, the ending of the slave trade, and doubts about the viability of the new republic slowed the flow of humanity across the Atlantic to a trickle.
But soon after the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, immigration picked up. In the 1820s, some
150,000 European immigrants arrived; in the 1830s, 600,000; and in the 1840s, 1.7 million. The 1850
Under 2 inhabitants per square mile 2 to 18 inhabitants per square mile 19 to 45 inhabitants per square mile Over 45 inhabitants per square mile
Population Density, 1790 Then, as now, the most densely populated part of the nation was the coastal region from Virginia to Massachusetts.
Population Density, 1820 The thirty years from 1790to 1820 sawa sizable increase in population, especially along the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys.
Census, the first to make the distinction, estimated that of the nation’s population of 23 million, more than 10 percent were foreign-born. In the Northeast the proportion exceeded 15 percent.
Most of this human tide came from Germany and Ireland, but substantial numbers also came from Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries. As with earlier immigrants, most were drawn to America by what are called “pull” factors: the prospect of abundant land, good wages, and economic opportunity generally, or by the promise of political and religious freedom. But many came because of “push” factors: To stay where they were meant to face starvation. This was particularly true of those from Ireland, where a potato blight triggered the flight of tens of thousands. This Irish exodus continued; by the end of the century there were more people of Irish origin in America than in Ireland.
Once ashore in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, most relatively prosperous immigrants pushed directly westward. Others found work in the new factory towns along the route of the Erie Canal, in the lower Delaware Valley southeast of Philadelphia, or along the Merrimack River north of Boston. But most of the Irish immigrants, “the poorest and most wretched population that can be found in the world,” one of their priests called them, lacked the means to go west. Aside from the cost of transportation, starting a farm required far more capital than they could raise. Like it or not, they had to settle in the eastern cities.
Viewed in historical perspective, this massive wave of immigration stimulated the American economy. In the short run, the influx of the 1830s and 1840s depressed living standards and strained the social fabric. For the first time the nation had acquired a culturally distinctive, citybound, and propertyless class. The poor Irish immigrants had to accept whatever wages employers offered them. By doing so they caused resentment among native workers—resentment exacerbated by the unfamiliarity of the Irish with city ways and by their Roman Catholic faith, which the Protestant majority associated with European authoritarianism and corruption.
•••-[Read the Document The Harbinger, "Female Workers at Lowell” at myhistorylab. com
•••-[Read the Document Regarding Life in the Mills at myhistorylab. com
The Gun Foundry in Cold Spring, New York, by John Ferguson Weir conveys how much the machines of the Industrial Revolution dominated workers' lives.
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase Lyman G. Bloomingdale Gift, 1901 (01.7.1) Photograph ©1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, U. S.A. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
World History
