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Immigration of British Coal Miners in the Civil War Decade*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Amy Zahl Gottlieb
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British coal miners immigrated to the United States in increasing numbers during the Civil War decade. Their movement from the collieries gathered momentum in the early war years and reached its peak in 1869. In 1862, almost all of the immigrants entering the United States who listed their occupation as “miner” were from Britain. As shown in the table, such men accounted for more than 73% of all immigrant miners in each of the following years of the decade for which data are available, with the exception of 1864. In 1870, the 57,214 British immigrant miners listed in the United States Census represented more than 60% of all foreign-born miners (94,719) in the country. The movement from Britain had already slowed when news of the American economic depression that began in 1873 reached the collieries in Britain, where an extraordinary demand for iron in the early 1870's had hiked coal miners' wages far above normal levels. However, when employment in the American coalfields was readily available in the 1860's and early 1870's, the risk involved in spending hard-won savings on the journey, which cost approximately £5 and took ten days by steamer, appeared reasonable. In comparison with other wage earners coal miners in Britain were relatively well-paid. They could, therefore, accumulate the cost of the trans-Atlantic passage during “good-times” at home.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 1978 , pp. 357 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1978

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