Introduction
This project will look at the period from Reconstruction to World War II, and examine how the increasing population during that time was affected by the influx of immigration into the country. The landscape of the country changed a lot over the years 1877-1945, so the project will be studying the demographic changes that occurred and how that affected the country and the economy moving forward.
Up until the year 1861 in American history, the Civil War was the costliest war in terms of deaths that the country had ever seen. The rebound from these casualties was one that would take a while to recover from. There were a lot of subsequent changes in the mortality and fertility rates in this period that occurred because of the war. But after the end of the war and going into the Reconstruction period, death rates in the United States would finally begin a steady and long-term decline (Klein 2012: 95). The abolition of slavery after the war was another key change that allowed for the demographics to shift, and it brought new characteristics to the population of the country. This included the move of people from the rural areas to urban centers. At the time of war, urban centers did not hold a high percentage of population, but this percentage would grow quickly in the coming years. The urban population would end up doubling in percentage, from 20% of the national total in 1860 to 40% of the national total in 1900 (Klein 2012: 101). The life expectancy of citizens started to rise slowly after the war, and the trend continued to move forward.
At the turn of the 20th century, America started to see a new tendency in its population, which was the increasing number of immigrants coming into the country. A high number of them were coming from Europe, and were making their way into the big cities on the East Coast. The patterns themselves of immigrants were also changing, as most immigrants before the 1890s were arriving from northern and western Europe; but after the 1890s, there was also an increasing trend of immigrants from the Mediterranean and Slavic countries (Bankston 2006: 240). In 1882, 87% of the 788,000 immigrants came from northern and western Europe, while in 1907,80.7% of the immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. The height of the number of European immigrants coming into America annually was in the decade of 1901-1910 at around 800,000 people, and this number would end up decreasing every decade until 1931-1940 (Klein 2006: 243).
With the new wave of immigrants to the U.S. also came a change in the demographics for the country. The number of foreign born citizens steadily increased from 1900-1930 while the number of foreign born citizens as a percentage for the total population reached a high point of 15% in 1910 (Hochschild 2012: 24). This percentage still holds up to this day as being the highest proportion of legal residents born outside the country as the number would steeply decline all the way to around 5% percent by 1970. However, the Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into America through a quota. Congress also enacted their first immigration law in 1917 that served to be very restrictive due to the uncertainty of security after World War I.
After the end of the first World War, many immigrants were admitted into the country from other regions besides Europe, including many from Canada and Mexico. While the majority were still coming from countries like Germany, Ireland, and Sweden, there was an increasing number of immigrants from Asia, which was not as prevalent in the previous years. The number of immigrants still vastly outnumbered the number of immigrants in the year 1925, around 123,000 to roughly 38,000 people (Kunna 1926: 234).
In the decade of the 1930s, the overall population of the country increased by almost 10 million people, but the decrease was a steep fall off from the increase of nearly 17 million people in the previous decade. The decline was due to the disappearance of net foreign immigration leading to a subsequent decrease of population growth (Hauser 1942: 816). The main reasons for this higher number of emigrants to immigrants were traced back to three components: the influences of immigration quota laws, the Great Depression, and the disturbed international relations that were beginning to plague the world (Hauser 1942: 817). This was the first time in the history of the country that there was a decline from one decade to another in terms of population.
Because the U.S. was in World War II, their involvement led to them having their highest military spending in history, with the spending accounting for 35% of the Gross Domestic Product in 1944 (Fishback 2013: 975). The changing of economic activity after the war was one that was very different to the spending during and before the war. Generally, the countries that received more military spending would end up having a higher level of population growth in the following years. The United States fell into this category, as the population would increase in the decade following the war because of the rise of immigrants as well as the internal population increase.
As the United States of America is a relatively new country compared to the rest of the world, the country is still evolving in many facets. One of the more important characteristics is population, as this can determine a lot about how a country operates. Population can be a determining factor in how a company operates, as it is easy to see that the United States is more powerful now than ever before. After the Civil War in the U.S., the country was in ruins financially, morally, and in many other facets. The Reconstruction period that occurred after the war served to help boost the country towards prominence and begin a new page of the country’s history. While it would be easy to see that the population would increase after a war because of less deaths occurring, there can be outside factors that serve to have a greater influence on population than most would believe. One of the major reasons for the population boom in the United States was the influx of immigrants to the country, especially around the turn of the 20th century. With the new numbers of immigrants pouring into the country, America could help restore itself economically after the Civil War, and therefore create a better environment to live in. The focus of this project will be on how exactly immigration played a part in the population boom of the United States from Reconstruction to World War II. This seventy year period would be the best period to look at as it would document how the U.S. recovered from the Civil War, how the turn of the 20th century was one focused on the increasing population numbers, and how the country went into the two world wars with a better economic standing than ever before. This standing would be in comparison to before the Civil War. The demographic changes stretched from the cities to the country, and the effects could be seen in all sectors of the economy. The landscape of the country changed very much over this time, and while there were many reasons for this evolvement, the growing population due to immigrants was the one that had the most profound effect on the history of the country.
Starting with Reconstruction and the aftermath of the Civil War, this project will look at the first demographic changes that transpired, through graphs, articles, and other primary sources. Then, the project will aim to include many numbers regarding how many immigrants came into the country and how those numbers had a direct correlation to the rise in population. The project will also incorporate how various acts and quotas aimed at immigration directly influenced the numbers regarding population in the country. Furthermore, there will be graphs and other visual aids to help make it easier to see how much of an effect each topic had on the other, and how they are all directly related to one another. The goal of the project is to tie in three different subjects; immigration, population, and demographics. The sources that will be utilized in the project do a good job of bridging the gap between these and helping lead to an easy understanding of the topic.
Works Cited
Bankston, Carl L., and Danielle Antoinette. Hidalgo. Immigration in U.S. History. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2006.
Fishback, Price. The Economic History Review66, no. 4 (November 2013): 975-92. doi:10.1111/ehr.2013.66.issue-2.
Hauser, Philip M. “Population and Vital Phenomena.” American Journal of Sociology47, no. 6 (1942): 816-28. doi:10.1086/219178.
Hochschild, Jennifer L., Vesla M. Weaver, and Traci R. Burch. Creating a New Racial Order: How Immigration, Multiracialism, Genomics, and the Young Can Remake Race in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Klein, Herbert S. A Population History of the United States. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Kunna, J.J. Monthly Labor Review Volume 22, Number 2, February 1926, 232-52.