THE CENTURY OF MASSIVE SETTLEMENT

1820-1920

When the United States became independent in 1783 the settled part of the country consisted of a long string of farming communities spread along the east coast, with a 'frontier' undefined but spreading gradually westwards beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The territory of the new Republic of the United States, with about four million people, extended only as far west as the Mississippi; beyond this an area twice as big was part of the Spanish Empire, with quite substantial developments in Texas and California. The area around the Mississippi River had been so little penetrated that the French had built up their city of New Orleans early in the eighteenth century, and at one time planned to link up their Louisiana colonies with French Canada. But in 1762 the French gave up all claims there to Spain. The Spanish took little interest in the area, and in 1803, by the 'Louisiana Purchase', the United States acquired the whole western part of the Mississippi — Missouri basin. Soon Mexico became independent, but was not much concerned with its northern territories, and by 1850 all had, by various stages, become part of the United States (see page 22).

The coming of independence did not lead immediately to a great new wave of people. Probably only about 150,000 people settled in the United States between 1789 and 1820, or 5,000 each year. The people already settled and completely identified with the country formed a big majority, so that the new arrivals felt themselves as a small number arriving in a settled community. There was thus every reason for them to assimilate quickly. In any case, by the fact of going to America they had shown their desire to incorporate themselves in this new community, and for the most part they came from Great Britain, sharing a language and in general sharing ideals and objectives with those who were there before them. In 1790 over four-fifths of the white population were said to be of British origin. Early American society was very British, in the sense that British ideas and ways of living had been taken to a new environment and adapted to it. Even as the new society developed its own characteristics there were many features in it which continued to show the British influence.

About 1820 the flow of new settlers from Europe began to increase dramatically. Between 1820 and 1840 over a million people migrated to the United States, nearly ten times as many as in the previous twenty years, and many were from Ireland and continental Europe.

1820 may have seemed a turning point in the flow of migration, but 1840 could be regarded as another one. The development of steamships made the conditions of travel easier, though by any modern standards they were still terrible. The forty years, 1840 — 80, brought almost ten million migrants to America or a quarter of a million a year early years of the century. Many of the migrants during this period came from Germany, and for the rest of the nineteenth century German migration was no less important than that from Great Britain.

There were also a great numbers Ireland, escaping from the poverty and famine of their own country, whose 'population fell rapidly during this period. The Germans, mainly Protestants, were assimilated easily enough into the English — American society of the time, but the Irish kept themselves rather more separate. They did not need to learn an entirely new language (though some were Irish-speaking), but they were nearly all Catholics, full of resentment at the domination of their own home country by the English, and particularly by the English Protestant landlords. In the famine of the 1840s over a million died, but another million escaped to England or America. And the new Irish-Americans saved money to help their relations to come and join them. Irish immigrants met some hostile prejudice after a time. They were supposed to be unreliable, and they certainly threatened the Protestant domination. There were notices outside factories: 'No Irish need apply.'

For many of the migrants of this time the move involved not only a change of homeland, but a change from farm to factory, from country to town. American industry was developing rapidly from the east coast to Chicago and beyond, and many of the new migrants were absorbed in the factories that were growing up everywhere. Evidently, they were not in a position to negotiate regarding their conditions of employment, and nineteenth-century industrial development in the American cities produced social problems little less evil than those to be found in England and Germany at the same time. But there was still a little more possibility of escape from bad conditions, and the fertility of the land, the abundant supply of minerals and the absence of barriers to trade made it possible for the real wealth of the community to grow so that it soon outstripped that of the old European countries.

By the middle of the century the United States had a larger population than any single European country, and by 1880 it reached fifty million. When we consider that ten million people had arrived as immigrants during the preceding forty years we can see at once that the proportion of newly arrived people to the whole population was much higher by 1880 than it had been in the early stages. The new arrivals up to the middle of the nineteenth century had found themselves a tiny minority in a community which was settled, in the sense that most of its members were descended from several generations of Americans By 1880 there were large communities in which most of the adults had been born in Europe. Many of the new arrivals were following friends and relatives who had come already; many had heard news of possibilities of employment. There were some compact national groups, particularly of Germans, so that some whole communities were composed mainly of people recently arrived from Germany. It might have been possible for large areas to become homes for compact ethnic groups maintaining the German language and German customs, and so building up new little Germanies on the American continent, but in practice this never happened. Groups of Germans did keep their own national identity and they did live together, but they were always assimilated into the general pattern of American culture.

Perhaps the Civil War (1861-65) had some influence in the development of national consciousness. The war settled the question of whether the United States should remain one political unit or split into two. The people newly arrived from Europe had nearly all settled in the North and could easily identify themselves with the northern position. To them the South was like a foreign country, and their share in the victory made it possible for them to have a greater consciousness of being American.

More than three-quarters of a million people crossed as settlers in 1882 and the flow continued, with some big fluctuations. New sources-suddenly developed, as new trickles of people from northern, eastern and southern Europe began to grow. One-tenth of the whole population of Sweden and Norway left for America in only ten years, 1881 — 90. The Swedes were escaping from poverty in a northern European country still dominated by the aristocracy and still economically backward. Yet the very time of the great Swedish migration was also the time of the beginning of Swedish industrial development at home, which was soon to gather momentum so as to bring Sweden to a standard of living unequalled in the United States. Like the Geremans, the Swedes tended on the whole to, move to the Midwest. Their numbers were soon far surpassed by those from Italy, Russia, Hungary and Slav-speaking Eastern Europe, including many Jews escaping from sporadic persecution.

Migration was stimulated and encouraged by the activities of German and other shipping companies and by the offers of cheap transport which they spread around areas of European poverty. Twelve million immigrants came in 1900 — 14, and during the final years before the First World War, three-quarters of the new arrivals came from Eastern Europe and Italy. They were on the whole regarded as inferiors, and they were conscious of having started late in the race for wealth and prestige in the society they had come to join. It was a great advantage at this time to be a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP), and a disadvantage to be" a Catholic or a Jew, or from Italy or Eastern Europe. These new groups had to practise a good deal of self-help and community development on their own for the sake of their own protection. Being different in so many obvious ways from the established Americans, they found it hard to get themselves accepted.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1222