in regard to food, shelter and clothing, such as the most fortunate of them had never known. Yet in spite of these accessions, the population of the country realized a slightly smaller proportion of gain than when the foreign arrivals were almost insignificant.
For a time the retardation of the normal rate of increase among the native population was concealed from view by the extraordinary immigration. In the decade 1850-1860 it was seen that almost a seventh of the population of the country consisted of persons born abroad. From 1840 to 1860 there came more than four million immigrants, of whom probably three and a half million, with probably as many children born in America, were living at the latter date.
The ten years from 1860 to 1870 witnessed the operation of the first great factor which reduced the rate of national increase, namely the Civil War. The superintendent of the Ninth Census, 1870, presented a computation of the effects of this cause—first, through direct losses, by wounds or disease, either in actual service of the army or navy, or in a brief term following discharge; secondly, through the retardation of the rate of increase in the coloured element, due to the privations, exposures and excesses attendant upon emancipation; thirdly, through the check given to immigration by the existence of war, the fear of conscription, and the apprehension abroad of results prejudicial to the national welfare. The aggregate effect of all these causes was estimated as a loss, to the population of 1870 of 1,765,000. Finally, the temporary reduction of the birth-rate, consequent upon the withdrawal of perhaps one-fourth of the national militia (males of 18 to 44 years) during two-fifths of the decade, may be estimated at perhaps 750,000.
The Tenth Census put it beyond doubt that economic and social forces had been at work, reducing the rate of multiplication. Yet no war had intervened; the industries of the land had flourished; the advance in accumulated wealth had been beyond all precedent; and immigration had increased.
It is an interesting question what has been the contribution of the foreign elements of the country’s population in the growth of the aggregate. This question is closely connected with a still more important one: namely, what effect, if any, has foreign immigration had upon the birth-rate of the native stock. In 1850 the foreign born whites (2,244,602 in number) were about two-thirds of the coloured element and one-eighth of the native-white element; in 1870 the foreign-born whites (5,567,229) and the native whites of foreign parentage (5,324,786) each exceeded the coloured. In 1900 the two foreign elements constituted one-third of the total population. The absolute numbers of the four elements were: native whites of native parents, 40,949,362; natives of foreign parents, 15,646,017; foreign-born whites, 10,213,817; coloured, 8,833,994.
Separating from the total population of the country in 1900 the non-Caucasians (9,185,379), all white persons having both parents foreign (20,803,800), and one-half (2,541,365) of the number of persons having only one parent foreign, the remaining 43,555,250 “native” inhabitants comprised the descendants of the Americans of 1790, plus those of the few inhabitants of annexed territories, plus those in the third and higher generations of the foreigners who entered the country after 1790 (or for practical purposes, after 1800). The second element may be disregarded. For the exact determination of the last element the census affords no precise data, but affords material for various approximations, based either upon the elimination of the probable progeny of immigrants since 1790; on the known increase of the whites of the South, where the foreign element has always been relatively insignificant; on the percentage of natives having native grandfathers in Massachusetts in 1905; or upon the assumed continuance through the 19th century of the rate of native growth (one-third decennially) known to have prevailed down at least to 1820. The last is the roughest approximation and would indicate a native mass of 50,000,000 in 1900, or a foreign contribution of approximately half. The results of computations by the first two methods yield estimates of the contribution of foreign stock to the “native” element of 1900 varying among themselves by only 1.8%. The average by the three methods gives 8,539,626 as such contribution, making 31,884,791 the total number of whites of foreign origin in 1900; and this leaves 35,015,624 as the progeny of the original stock of 1790.[1] Adding to the true native whites of 1900 (35,015,624) the native negroes (8,813,6(58), the increase of the native stock, white and black, since 1790 would thus be about 1091%, and of the whites of 1790 (3,172,006) alone about 1104%. It is evident that had the fecundity of the American stock of 1790 been equal only to that of Belgium (the most fertile population of western Europe in the 19th century) then the additions of foreign elements to the American people would have been by 1900 in heavy preponderance over the original, mainly British, elements. A study of the family names appearing on the census rolls of two prosperous and typical American counties, one distinctively urban and the other rural, in 1790 and 1900, has confirmed the popular impression that the British element is growing little, and that the fastest reproducers to-day are the foreign elements that have become large in the immigration current in very recent decades. In applying to the total population of 1790 the rate of growth shown since 1790 by the white people of the South, this rate, for the purpose of the above computations, is taken in its entirety only up to 1870, and thereafter—in view of the notorious lesser birth-rate since that year in the North and West—only one half of the rate is used. If, however, application be made of the rate in its entirety from 1790 to 1900, the result would be a theoretical pure native stock in 1900 equal to the then actually existing native and foreign stock combined.
In 1900 more than half of every 100 whites in New England and the Middle states (from New York to Maryland) were of foreign parentage (i.e. had one or both parents foreign), and in both sections the proportion is increasing with great rapidity. The Southern states, on the other hand, have shown a diminishing relative foreign element since 1870, and had in 1900 only 79 of foreign parentage. in 1000 whites. Relatively to their share of the country’s aggregate population the North Atlantic states, and those upon the Great Lakes—the manufacturing and urbanized states of the Union—hold much the heaviest share of immigrant population.
The shares of different nationalities in the aggregate mass of foreigners have varied greatly. The family names on the registers of the first census show that more than 90% of the white population was then of British stock, and more than 80 was English. The Germans were already near 6%. The entry of the Irish began on a great scale after 1840, and in 1850 they formed nearly half of all the foreign-born. In that year 85.6% of this total was made up by natives of Great Britain and Germany. The latter took first place in 1880. In 1900 these two countries represented of the total only 52.7%; add the Dutch, the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Swiss to the latter and the share was 65.1%. A great majority of all of these elements except the British are settled in the states added to the original Union—the Scandinavians being the most typically agricultural element; while almost all the other nationalities are in excess, most of them heavily so, in the original states of 1790, where they land, and where they are absorbed into the lower grades of the industrial organization. Since 1880 Italians, Russians, Poles, Austrians, Bohemians and Hungarians have enormously increased in the immigrant population. Germans, Irish, British, Canadians, Scandinavians, Slavs and Italians were the leading elements in 1900.
In 1790 the negroes were 19.3% of the country’s inhabitants; in 1900 only 11.6%. While the growth of the country’s aggregate population from 1790 to 1900 was 1833.9%, that of the whites was 2005.9%, and of the negroes only 1066.7%.
Certain generalizations respecting the “South” and the “North,” the “East” and the “West” are essential to an understanding of parts of the history of the past, and of social conditions in the present. For the basis of such comparisons the country is divided by the census into five groups of states: (1) the North Atlantic division—down to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; (2) the South Atlantic, division—from Delaware to Florida (including West Virginia); (3) the North Central division—including the states within a triangle tipped by Ohio, Kansas and North Dakota; (4) the South Central division—covering a triangle tipped by Kentucky, Alabama and Texas; and (5) the Western division—including the Rocky Mountains and Pacific states. The first and third lead to-day in manufacturing interests; the third in agricultural; the fifth in mining.
Groups 1 and 3 (with the western boundary somewhat indefinite) are colloquially known as the “North” and 2 and 4 as the “South.” The two sections started out with population growths in the decade 1790-1800 very nearly equal (36.5 and 33.7%); but in every succeeding decade before the Civil War the growth of the North was greater, and that of the South less, than its increment in the initial decade. In the two twenty-year periods after 1860 the increases of the North were 61.9 and 48.7%; of the South, 48.4 and 48.5%. In 1790 the two sections were of almost equal population; in 1890, 1900 and 1910 the population of the North was practically double that of the South. In the decade 1890-1900 the increase of the South exceeded slightly that of the North for the same period owing to the rapid development in recent years of the Southern states west of the Mississippi, which only the Western group has exceeded since 1870.[2] In general the increase of the two sections
