A Comparative Analysis of European Immigrant Streams to the United States during the Early Mass Migration

Abstract

Virtually all previous empirical studies analyzing the characteristics of European immigrants to the United States during the nineteenth century examine a single country. These studies provide a vast array of information on some or all of the following: the immigrants’ ages, their occupations, whether they traveled singly or within a group, the size of the traveling groups, the number of their children, and the gender breakdown, along with other characteristics. As a result of this empirical work, our knowledge concerning who immigrated to the United States during the nineteenth century is much clearer than it was 30 years ago. Since this body of work is specific to individual countries and based on a variety of data sources, however, it is difficult to compare the characteristics of the immigrants from the various source countries.