Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T05:24:23.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fertility, Marriage, and Culture: Demographic Processes Among Norwegian Immigrants to the Rural Middle West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Jon Gjerde  and
Anne McCants
Jon Gjerde
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Department of History, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Anne McCants
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, History Faculty, E51-186, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The image of the “backward” immigrant has enjoyed a prominent place in American history, in large part because of the perceived “non-American” fertility behavior of many immigrant groups. The European perspective on these migrants, however, has been to see them as innovators, breaking free from the demographic constraints of the Old World. Drawing upon a large sample of reconstituted Norwegian immigrant families, this article examines the rising and then declining fertility of this group over the second half of the nineteenth century. It concludes that their fertility experience was influenced both by cultural tenacity and economic opportunity.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 860 - 888
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1995

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

REFERENCES

Atack, , Jeremy, , and Bateman, Fred. “To Their Own Soil: Agriculture in the Antebellum North.” In Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Centuty, edited by Lou, Ferleger, 25–51. Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Bean, , Lee, , Mineau, Geraldine, and Anderton, Douglas. Fertility Change on the American Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Coale, , J., Ansley, and Trussell, James. “Model Fertility Schedules: Variations in the Age Structure of Childbearing in Human Populations.” Population Index 40, no. 2 (1974): 185–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coale, , J., Ansley, and Trussell, James. “Technical Note: Finding the Two Parameters That Specify a Model Schedule of Marital Fertility.” Population Index 44, no. 2 (1978): 203–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coale, , J., Ansley, and Cotts Watkins, Susan. The Decline of Fertility in Europe: The Revised Proceedings of a Conference on the Princeton European Fertility Project. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Coale, , J., Ansley, and Zelnik, Melvin. New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conzen, , Neils, Kathleen. “Immigrants in Nineteenth Century Agricultural History.” In Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Century, edited by Lou, Ferleger, 303–42. Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Davis, , Kingsley, . “The Theory of Change and Response in Modern Demographic History.” Population Index 19, no. 4 (1963): 345–66.Google Scholar
Drake, , Michael, . Population and Society in Norway, 1735–1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Easterlin, , Richard, . “Does Human Fertility Adjust to Environment?” American Economic Review 61, no. 2 (1971): 399–407.Google Scholar
Easterlin, , Richard, . “Population Change and Farm Settlement in the Northern United States.” this JOURNAL 36, no. 1 (1976): 45–75.Google Scholar
Easterlin, , Richard, . “Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Results.” Journal of American History 63, no. 3 (1976): 600–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterlin, , Richard, , Alter, George, and A. Condran, Gretchen. “Farms and Farm Families in Old and New Areas: The Northern United States.” In Family and Population in Nineteenth Century America, edited by Hareven, Tamara K. and Vinovskis, Maris A., 22–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Folbre, , Nancy, . “Of Patriarchy Born: The Political Economy of Fertility Decisions.” Feminist Studies 9, no. 2 (1983): 261–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forster, , Cohn, , and Tucker, G. S. L.. Economic Opportunity and White American Fertility Rations, 1800–1860. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Franklin, , Benjamin, . The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Leonard, W. Labaree. Vol. 4. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Gjerde, , Jon, . From Peasants to Farmers: The Migration from Balestrand, Norway, to the Upper Middle West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Gjerde, , Jon, . “Patterns of Migration to and Demographic Adaptation Within Rural Ethnic American Communities.” Annales de Demographie Historique (1989): 277–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gjerde, , Jon, . “Chain Migrations from the West Coast of Norway.” In A Century of European Migrations, 1830–1930, edited by Rudolph, Vecohi and Suzanne, Sinke, 158–81. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Gjerde, Jon, and Anne McCants. Individual Life Chances Within the Rural Norwegian- American Family, 1850–1910. Unpublished Paper.Google Scholar
Guinnane, , Timothy, , Okun, Barbara, and Trussell, James. “What Do We Know About the Timing of Fertility Transitions in Europe?” Demography 31, no. 1 (1994): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gutmann, , P., Myron “Denomination and Fertility Decline: The Catholics and Protestants of Gillespie County, Texas.” Continuity and Change 5, no. 3 (1990): 391–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajnal, , John., “European Marriage Patterns in Perspective.” In Population in History: Essays in Historical Demography, edited by Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C.101–43.London: E. Arnold, 1965.Google Scholar
Hareven, Leonard, K., Tamara, and A. Vinovskis, Mans. “Patterns of Childbearing in Late Nineteenth-century America.” In Family and Population in Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Tamara, K. Hareven and Maris, A. Vinovskis, 85–125. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
King, , Miriam, , and Ruggles, Steven. “American Immigration, Fertility Differentials, and the Ideology of Race Suicide at the Turn of the Century.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20, no. 3 (1990): 347–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knodel, , John., “Starting, Stopping, and Spacing During the Early Stages of Fertility Transition: The Experience of German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Demography 24, no. 2 (1987): 143–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knodel, Maris, John, , and McDonald., Peter “The Impact of Changes in Birth Spacing on Age at Last Birth: A Response to Anderton.” Demography 26, no. 4 (1989): 471–72.Google Scholar
Leet, , R., Don “Human Fertility and Agricultural Opportunities in Ohio Counties: From Frontier to Maturity, 1810–1860.” In Essays in Nineteenth-Century Economic History: The Old Northwest, edited by Richard, K. Vedder and David, K. Klingaman, 138–58. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
McDonald, , F., PeterNuptiality and Completed Fertility: A Study of Starting, Stopping, and Spacing Behavior. Voorburg, Netherlands: International Statistical Institute, 1984.Google Scholar
1900 Federal Manuscript Census. Dubuque County, Iowa, and Crawford and Vernon Counties, Wisconsin. Iowa State Historical Archives, Des Moines, IA, and Wisconsin State Historical Archives, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Norman, , Hans, . Från Bergslagen till Nordamerika: Studier i migrationsmönster, social rörlighet och demografisk struktur med utgångspunkt från Örebro lån 1851–1915. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974.Google Scholar
Pressley, , J., Thomas, and H. Scofield, William. Farm Real Estate Values in the United States by Counties, 1850–1959. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Preston, , H., SamuelCensus of Population, 1910 United States: Public Use Sample. Computer file. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Population Studies Center, 1989, producer. Ann Arbor, MI: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1989, distributor.Google Scholar
Schapiro, , Owen, Morton. “A Land Availability Model of Fertility Changes in the Rural Northern United States, 1760–1870.” this JOURNAL 42, no. 3 (1982): 577–600.Google Scholar
Smith, D. S. Culture and Family Limitation in Early Twentieth-century Iowa: Identity and Association. Unpublished Manuscript, 1992.Google Scholar
Sundstrom, , A., William, and A. David, Paul. “Old-Age Security Motives, Labor Markets, and Farm Family Fertility in Antebellum America.” Explorations in Economic History 25 (1988): 164–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900. Agriculture. Washington, DC: GPO, 1902.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Office. Agriculture of the United States in 1860. Washington, DC: GPO, 1864.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Office. Tenth Census, 1880. Report on the Production of Agriculture as Returned at the Tenth Census. Washington, DC: GPO, 1883.Google Scholar
Wahl, , Bourne, Jenny. “New Results on the Decline in Household Fertility in the United States from 1750 to 1900.” In Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, edited by Stanley, Engerman and Gallman, Google Scholar
Yasuba, , Yasukichi, . Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800–1860. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Øyane, , E., LarsGards- og ættesoge for Luster Kommune. Oslo: Luster Kommune, 1984.Google Scholar