Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T13:52:05.552Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Population of the United States, 1790–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Michael Haines
Edited by
Stanley L. Engerman  and
Robert E. Gallman
Michael Haines
Affiliation:
Colgate University
Stanley L. Engerman
Affiliation:
University of Rochester, New York
Robert E. Gallman
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Get access

Summary

In the late eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin commented on the remarkably high fertility and large family size in what was British North America, which he attributed to the ease of acquiring good farm land. His comments were reiterated by Thomas Robert Malthus in his famous Essay on the Principle of Population:

But the English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the United States of America, made by far the most rapid progress. To the plenty of good land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, they added a greater degree of liberty and equality…. The political institutions that prevailed were favorable to the alienation and division of property. … There were no tithes in any of the States and scarcely any taxes. And on account of the extreme cheapness of good land a capital could not be more advantageously employed than in agriculture, which at the same time that it supplies the greatest quantity of healthy work affords the most valuable produce of society.

The consequence of these favorable circumstances united was a rapidity of increase probably without parallel in history. Throughout all of the northern colonies, the population was found to double in twenty-five years.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of the United States , pp. 143 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, Samuel W., “The Vital Statistics of Massachusetts: A Forty Years’ Summary, 1856–1895,” Massachusetts, State Board of Health, Twenty–Eighth Annual Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, Public Document No. 34 (Boston, 1897), Table 35.Google Scholar
Abbott, S. W., The Past and Present Condition of Public Hygiene and State Medicine in the United States (Boston, 1900).Google Scholar
Adams, John W. and Kasakoff, Alice Bee, “Migration and the Family in Colonial New England: The View from Genealogies,” Journal of Family History, 9 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alter, George, “Theories of Fertility Decline: A Non-Specialist’s Guide to the Current Debate on European Fertility Decline,” in Gillis, John R., Tilly, Louise A., and Levine, David, eds., The European Experience of Declining Fertility, 1850–1970 (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar
Anderson, Margo J., The American Census: A Social History (New Haven, 1988).Google Scholar
Antonovsky, Aaron, “Social Class, Life Expectancy and Overall Mortality,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 45 (1967).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Atack, Jeremy and Bateman, Fred, To their Own Soil: Agriculture in the Antebellum North (Ames, IA, 1987).Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, “Returns to Scale in Antebellum United States Manufacturing,” Explorations in Economic History, 14 (1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateman, Fred and Weiss, Thomas, A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy (Chapel Hill, 1981).Google Scholar
Bateman, Fred and Atack, Jeremy, “Did the United States Industrialize Too Slowly?” paper presented at meetings of the Development of the American Economy Program, National Bureau of Economic Research (March, 1992).
Bean, Lee L., Mineau, Geraldine P., and Anderton, Douglas, Fertility Change on the American Frontier: Adaptation and Innovation (Berkeley, 1990).Google Scholar
Bodnar, John, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington, 1985).Google Scholar
,Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1986 (Washington, DC, 1986).
Cain, Louis P., “An Economic History of Urban Location and Sanitation,” Research in Economic History, 2 (1977).Google ScholarPubMed
Caldwell, John C., Theory of Fertility Decline, (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
Carr, Lois Green, “Emigration and the Standard of Living: The Seventeenth Century Chesapeake,” Journal of Economic History, 52 (1992), Table 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapin, Charles V., Municipal Sanitation in the United States (Providence, RI, 1901).Google Scholar
Coale, and Zelnik, Melvin, New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the United States (Princeton, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coale, Ansley J. and Watkins, Susan Cotts, eds., The Decline of Fertility in Europe (Princeton, 1986).Google Scholar
Coale, Ansley J. and Rives, Norfleet W., “A Statistical Reconstruction of the Black Population of the United States, 1880–1970: Estimates of True Numbers by Age and Sex, Birth Rates, and Total Fertility,” Population Index, 39 (1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coale, Ansley J., ‘The Demographic Transition,” International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, International Population Conference: Liege, 1973 (Liege, 1974), I.Google Scholar
Coale, Ansley J. and Zelnik, Melvin, New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the United States: A Study of Annual White Births from 1855 to 1960 and of Completeness of Enumeration in the Censuses from 1880 to 1960 (Princeton, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condran, and Crimmins, , “A Description and Evaluation of Mortality Data in the Federal Census”; and Social Science History, 15 (1991).Google Scholar
Condran, Gretchen and Crimmins-Gardner, Eileen, “Public Health Measures and Mortality in U.S. Cities in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Human Ecology, 6 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condran, Gretchen A. and Cheney, Rose A., “Mortality Trends in Philadelphia: Age– and Cause–Specific Death Rates, 1870–1930,” Demography, 19 (1982).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Condran, Gretchen A. and Crimmins, Eileen, “Mortality Differentials between Rural and Urban Areas of States in the Northeastern United States, 1890–1900,” Journal of Historical Geography, 6 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condran, Gretchen A. and Crimmins, Eileen, ‘A Description and Evaluation of Mortality Data in the Federal Census: 1850–1900,” Historical Methods, 12 (1979).Google ScholarPubMed
Crimmins, Eileen M., “The Completeness of 1900 Mortality Data Collected by Registration and Enumeration for Rural and Urban Parts of States: Estimates Using the Chandra Sekar-Deming Technique,” Historical Methods, 13 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dubester, Henry J., State Censuses: An Annotated Bibliography of Censuses of Population Taken after the Year 1790 by States and Territories of the United States (Washington, DC, 1948).Google Scholar
Duffy, John, The Healers: A History of American Medicine (Urbana, 1976), chs. 10.Google Scholar
Duffy, John, The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health (Urbana, 1990).Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A., “Influences in European Overseas Emigration before World War I,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 9 (1961).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A., Population, Labor Force, and Long Swings in Economic Growth: The American Experience (New York, 1968).Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A., “Population Issues in American Economic History: A Survey and Critique,” in Gallman, Robert, ed., Recent Developments in the Study of Business and Economic History: Essays in Honor of Herman E. Krooss (Greenwich, 1977).Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A., Alter, George, and Condran, Gretchen, “Farms and Farm Families in Old and New Areas: The Northern States in 1860,” in Hareven, Tamara K. and Vinovskis, Maris A., eds., Family and Population in Nineteenth–Century America (Princeton, 1978).Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard A., “Population Change and Farm Settlement in the Northern United States,” Journal of Economic History, 36 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterlin, , “The American Population,” in Davis, Lance, Easterlin, Richard A., Parker, William N., et al., American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States (New York, 1972), Tables 5.7 and 5.8.Google Scholar
Ewbank, Douglas C. and Preston, Samuel H., “Personal Health Behavior and the Decline of Infant and Child Mortality: the United States, 1900–1930,” in Caldwell, John, et al., What We Know About Health Transition: The Cultural, Social and Behavioral Determinants of Health, Vol. I (Canberra: Health Transition Centre, Australian National University, 1990).Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., “Nutrition and the Decline in Mortality since 1700: Some Additional Preliminary Findings,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 1802 (January, 1986).
Forster, Colin and Tucker, G. S. L.Economic Opportunity and White American Fertility Ratios, 1800–1860 (New Haven, 1972).Google Scholar
Galenson, David W. and Pope, Clayne L., “Economic and Geographic Mobility on the Farming Frontier: Evidence from Appanoose County, Iowa, 1850–1870,” Journal of Economic History, 49 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galishoff, Stuart, “Triumph and Failure: The American Response to the Urban Water Supply Problem, 1860–1923,” in Melosi, Martin V., ed., Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870–1930 (Austin, 1980).Google Scholar
Gemery, Henry A., “European Emigration to North America, 1700–1820: Numbers and Quasi-Numbers,” Perspectives in American History, New Series I (New York, 1984).Google Scholar
Glover, James W., United States Life Tables, 1890, 1901, 1910, and 1901–1910 (Washington, DC, 1921).Google Scholar
Gould, J. D., “European Inter-Continental Emigration, 1815–1914: Patterns and Causes,” Journal of European Economic History, 8 (1979).Google Scholar
Grabill, Wilson H., Kiser, Clyde, and Whelpton, Pascal K., The Fertility of American Women (New York, 1958).Google Scholar
Grabill, W. H., Kiser, C. V., and Whelpton, P. K., The Fertility of American Women (New York, 1958), table 6.Google Scholar
Guest, Avery M., “Notes from the National Panel Study: Linkage and Migration in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Historical Methods, 20 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guest, Avery M., “Social Structure and U.S. Inter–state Fertility Differentials in 1900,” Demography, 18 (1981).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Michael R., “The Use of Model Life Tables to Estimate Mortality for the United States in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Demography, 16 (1979).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Michael R., “Mortality in Nineteenth Century America: Estimates from New York and Pennsylvania Census Data, 1865 and 1900,” Demography, 14 (1977).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Michael R., “Economic History and Historical Demography,” in Field, Alexander J., ed., The Future of Economic History (Boston, 1987).Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R. and Anderson, Barbara A., “New Demographic History of the Late 19th-Century United States,” Explorations in Economic History, 25 (1988).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Michael R., “American Fertility in Transition: New Estimates of Birth Rates in the United States, 1900–1910,” Demography, 26 (1989),.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haines, Michael R., Fertility and Occupation: Population Patterns in Industrialization (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R., “Western Fertility in Mid–Transition: A Comparison of the United States and Selected Nations at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Family History, 15 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hareven, Tamara K. and Vinovskis, Maris A., “Marital Fertility, Ethnicity, and Occupation in Urban Families: An Analysis of South Boston and the South End in 1880,” Journal of Social History, 8 (1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatton, Timothy J. and Williamson, Jeffrey G., The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact (New York, 1998).Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert, “Mortality in Rural America, 1870–1920: Estimates and Conjectures,” Explorations in Economic History, 10 (1973).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Higgs, Robert, “Cycles and Trends of Mortality in 18 Large American Cities, 1871–1900,” Explorations in Economic History, 16 (1979).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hutchinson, E. P., Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965 (Philadelphia, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Paul H., “An Estimate of the Expectation of Life in the United States in 1850,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 35 (1957).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, Malwyn Allen, American Immigration, 2nd edition (Chicago, 1992).Google Scholar
Kaelble, Hartmut, Historical Research on Social Mobility: Western Europe and the USA in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York, 1981).Google Scholar
Knodel, John E., The Decline of Fertility in Germany, 1871–1939 (Princeton, 1974).Google Scholar
Komlos, John, “The Height and Weight of West Point Cadets: Dietary Change in Antebellum America.,” Journal of Economic History, 47 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznets, Simon, “Long Swings in the Growth of Population and in Related Economic Variables,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 102 (1958).Google Scholar
Leavitt, Judith W., “Politics and Public Health: Smallpox in Milwaukee, 1894–95,” in Rever, Susan by and Rosner, David, eds., Health Care in America: Essays in Social History (Philadelphia, 1979).Google Scholar
Lebergott, Stanley, “Labor Force and Employment, 1800–1960,” in Brady, Dorothy S., ed., Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States after 1800, National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 30 (New York, 1966).Google Scholar
Leet, Donald R., “The Determinants of Fertility Transition in Antebellum Ohio,” Journal of Economic History, 36 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lockridge, Kenneth, “The Population of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636–1736,” Economic History Review, second series 19 (1966).Google Scholar
Malthus, Thomas Robert, An Essay Concerning the Principle of Population (1798), ch. VI.
Malthus, Thomas Robert, An Essay on the Principle of Population and A Summary View of the Principle of Population, edited with and introduction by Flew, Antony (Baltimore, 1970).Google Scholar
McClelland, Peter D. and Zeckhauser, Richard J., Demographic Dimensions of the New Republic: American Inter-regional Migration, Vital Statistics, and Manumissions, 1800–1860 (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America: 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, 1985), ch. 5.Google Scholar
McInnis, Marvin, “Childbearing and Land Availability: Some Evidence from Individual Household Data,” in Lee, Ronald Demos, ed., Population Patterns in the Past (New York, 1977).Google Scholar
McKeown, Thomas, The Modern Rise of Population (New York, 1976).Google Scholar
Meeker, Edward, “The Improving Health of the United States, 1850–1915,” Explorations in Economic History, 9 (1972).Google ScholarPubMed
Mitchell, Brian R., European Historical Statistics, 1750–1975, second revised edition (New York, 1981), Table B8.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics, 1750–1975, second revised edition (New York, 1981), Table B6.Google Scholar
Neal, Larry, “Cross-pectral Analysis of Long Swings in Atlantic Migration,” Research in Economic History, 1 (1976).Google Scholar
Notestein, Frank W., “The Economics of Population and Food Supplies. I. The Economic Problems of Population Change,” Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Agricultural Economists (London, 1953).Google Scholar
Okun, Bernard, Trends in Birth Rates in the United States since 1870 (Baltimore, 1958).Google Scholar
Omran, Abdel, “The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change,” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 49 (1973).Google Scholar
Osterud, Nancy and Fulton, John, “Family Limitation and Age at Marriage: Fertility Decline in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 1730–1850,” Population Studies, 30 (1976).Google Scholar
Parker, William N. and Gallman, Robert E., “Southern Farms Study, 1860,” Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Guide to Resources and Services, 1992–1993 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992).Google Scholar
Parkerson, Donald H., “Comments on the Underenumeration of the U.S. Census, 1850–1880,” Social Science History, 15 (1991).Google Scholar
Pope, Clayne L., “Adult Mortality in America before 1900: A View from Family Histories,” in Goldin, Claudia and Rockoff, Hugh, eds., Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel (Chicago, 1992).Google Scholar
Preston, Samuel H. and Haines, Michael R., Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth Century America (Princeton, 1991), chs. 1 and 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preston, Samuel H., Keyfitz, Nathan, and Schoen, Robert, Causes of Death: Life Tables for National Populations (New York, 1972).Google Scholar
Preston, Samuel H. and Haines, Michael R., Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth–Century America (Princeton, 1991), table 2.5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ransom, Roger L. and Sutch, Richard, “Two Strategies for a More Secure Old Age: Life–cycle Saving by Late–Nineteenth Century American Workers,” paper presented at the NBER Summer Institute on the Development of the American Economy (July, 1989).
Sanderson, Warren C., “Quantitative Aspects of Marriage, Fertility and Family Limitation in Nineteenth Century America: Another Application of the Coale Specifications,” Demography, 16 (1979).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schapiro, Morton Owen, Filling Up America: An Economic-Demographic Model of Population Growth and Distribution in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Greenwich, CT, 1986).Google Scholar
Shryock, Henry S., Siegel, Jacob S., and associates, The Methods and Materials of Demography (Washington, DC, 1971), Vol. 1.Google Scholar
Sjaastad, Larry, “The Costs and Returns of Human Migration,” Journal of Political Economy, 70 (1962), Supplement.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spengler, J. J., “The Fecundity of Native and Foreign–Born Women in New England,” Brookings Institution Pamphlet Series, II (1930).Google Scholar
Starr, Paul, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York, 1982), chs. 4–5.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard, “Stature and Living Standards in the United States,” in Gallman, Robert E. and Wallis, John Joseph, eds., American Economic Growth and Standards of Living before the Civil War (Chicago, 1992).Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., “A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity,” Journal of Economic History, 46 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., “The Health and Mortality of Women and Children, 1850–1860,” Journal of Economic History, 48 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard, “The Economic Foundations of East-West Migration during the Nineteenth Century,” Explorations in Economic History, 20 (1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard, “Household Migration and Rural Settlement in the United States, 1850–1860,” Explorations in Economic History, 26 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steckel, Richard H., “A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess Mortality of American Slaves,” Social Science History, 10 (1986).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steckel, Richard, “The Fertility of American Slaves,” Research in Economic History, 7 (1982).Google ScholarPubMed
Stilgoe, John R., Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820–1939 (New Haven, 1988).Google Scholar
Sundstrom, William A. and David, Paul A., “Old–Age Security Motives, Labor Markets, and Farm Family Fertility in Antebellum America,” Explorations in Economic History, 25 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taeuber, Conrad and Taeuber, Irene B., The Changing Population of the United States (New York, 1958).Google Scholar
Teitelbaum, Michael S., The British Fertility Decline: Demographic Transition in the Crucible of the Industrial Revolution (Princeton, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temkin-Greener, H. and Swedlund, A. C., “Fertility Transition in the Connecticut Valley: 1740–1850,” Population Studies, 32 (1978).Google ScholarPubMed
Thernstrom, Stephan, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, MA, 1964).Google Scholar
Thompson, Warren S. and Whelpton, P. K., Population Trends in the United States (New York, 1933).Google Scholar
Thompson, W. S. and Whelpton, P. K., Population Trends in the United States (New York, 1933), table 74.Google Scholar
Turner, Frederick Jackson, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” paper read at the meeting of the American Historical Association, Chicago, July 12, 1893.Google Scholar
,U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC, 1975).
Uselding, Paul, “In Dispraise of Muckrakers: United States Occupational Mortality, 1890–1910,” Research in Economic History, 1 (1976).Google Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris A., Fertility in Massachusetts from the Revolution to the Civil War (New York, 1981), ch. 2.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris, ed., Studies in American Historical Demography (New York, 1979).Google Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris A., “Socioeconomic Determinants of Interstate Fertility Differentials in the United States in 1850 and 1860,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 6 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris A., “The Jacobson Life Table of 1850: A Critical Re–examination from a Massachusetts Perspective,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 8 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wahl, Jenny Bourne, “New Results on the Decline in Household Fertility in the United States from 1750 to 1900,” in Engerman, Stanley L. and Gallman, Robert E., eds., Long Term Factors in American Economic Growth, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 51 (Chicago, 1986).Google Scholar
Weber, Adna F., The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Statistics (New York, 1899).Google Scholar
Wells, Robert V., Uncle Sam’s Family: Issues in and Perspectives on American Demographic History (Albany, 1985).Google Scholar
Wells, Robert V., The Population of the British Colonies in America before 1776 (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar
Wells, Robert V., “Family Size and Fertility Control in Eighteenth-Century America: A Study of Quaker Families,” Population Studies, 25 (1971).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whipple, George E., “Fifty Years of Water Purification,” in Ravenel, M. P., ed., A Half Century of Public Health (New York, 1921).Google Scholar
Willigan, J. Dennis and Lynch, Katherine A., Sources and Methods of Historical Demography (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
Yasuba, Yasukichi, Birth Rates of the White Population of the United States, 1800–1860: An Economic Analysis (Baltimore, 1962).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×