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Some Dimensions of the American Commercial Invasion of Europe, 1871–1914: An Introductory Essay*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Matthew Simon  and
David E. Novack
Matthew Simon
Affiliation:
Queens College
David E. Novack
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

Written history abounds with colorful generalizations which can often be regarded as immovable and undying monuments to the truth. Stately, memorable, unself-conscious, their smooth surfaces and clean lines are unmarred by the asymmetry of qualification. Particularly impressive are those memorials which stand majestically on pedestals of aggregate quantitative evidence. Decomposition is then akin to deformation; iconoclasm becomes a species of philistinism. Nonetheless, although history may be considered a type of art, it is not pop art. The melancholy task of critical destruction is part of the historian's mandate.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1964 , pp. 591 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1964

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References

1 These five economic classes consist of crude foodstuffs (Group I), crude raw materials (Group II), manufactured foodstuffs (Group III), semimanufactures (Group IV), and finished manufactures (Group V).

2 The following statistics provide some quantitative basis to the importance of the United States in trans-European exports to the continent. The special imports (imports for consumption) of “industrial Europe” (Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) increased from $3.2 billion in 1872 to almost $4.9 billion in 1895. United States domestic exports to that area rose from $325,000,000 to $592,000,000 total. At no time during this period did the American share exceed 17 per cent. Compare U. S. Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Bureau.of Statistics, Statistical Abstract for Foreign Countries (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1909), pp. 15–42Google Scholar; U. S. Treasury Dept, Bureau of Statistics, Monthly Summary of Finance and Commerce, Oct. 1896, pp. 706–7; and U. S. Commerce Dept., Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1915), pp. 300–27Google Scholar. Of course, intra-European trade was increasing commensurately with long-distance overseas trade. For example, the continent provided. more than 41 per cent of average British imports during the prosperous years 1871–73 and 44 per cent of average British imports during the boom years 1897–99. Although overseas trade experienced a relative decline, the American share of trans-European imports to the United Kingdom rose from 30 per cent to 46 per cent. Schlote, Compare Werner, British Overseas Trade from 1700 to the 1930's (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), pp. 156–57Google Scholar; and Mitchell, B. B. and Dean, Phyllis, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge [Engl.]: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 283–84, 315–25Google Scholar.

3 Simon, Matthew, “The United States Balance of Payments, 1861–1900,” Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 699–705Google Scholar.

4 Historical Statistics, p. 545.

5 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Exports of Farm Products, p. 44; U. S. Treasury Dept, Bureau of Statistics, “The Grain Trade of the United States and the World's Wheat Supply and Trade,” Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, Jan. 1900, p. 2024.

6 Ibid. Compare Robert E. Lipsey, Price and Quantity Trends (cited in Table 1, sources), p. 144, for overall quantity indexes of crude foodstuffs.

7 This cautious statement is based on both the official statistics and Holbrook Working's appraisal. Compare U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics, Wheat Crops of the United States, 1866–1906 (Bull. No. 57; Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1907), p. 35Google Scholar; Working, Holbrook, “Wheat Acreage and Production in the United States since 1866—A Revision of Official Estimates,” in Wheat Studies of the Food Research Institute, II (June 1926), pp. 260–64.Google Scholar

8 A considerable literature exists on this problem. Compare Helen Farnsworth, “Decline and Recovery of Wheat Prices in the ‘Nineties,” ibid., X (June and July 1934), pp. 290–303; Rothstein, Morton, “America in the International Rivalry for the British Wheat Market, 1860–1914,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLVII (Dec. 1960), pp. 401–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rubinow, I. M., Russian Wheat and Flour in European Markets (U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bull. No. 66; Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1908), pp. 28–58Google Scholar.

9 The importation of beef and hams into the United Kingdom was largely dominated by the United States. By 1881, American shipments of hams constituted 98 per cent of British receipts. Compare U. S. Treasury Dept., Bureau of Statistics, “The Provision Trade of the United States and the World's Provision Supply and Trade,” Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, Feb. 1900, pp. 2235–36; Holmes, George K., Meat Supply and Surplus, with Consideration of Consumption and Exports (U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bull. No. 55; Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1907), pp. 4–7Google Scholar.

10 Nourse, Edwin G., American Agriculture and the European Market (New York: McGraw Hill, 1924), p. 276.Google Scholar

11 U. S. Treasury Dept., “The Cotton Trade of the United States and the World's Cotton Supply and Trade,” Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, Feb 1900, pp. 2626–27.

12 See the discussion in Williamson, Jeffrey G., American Growth and the Balance of Payments, 1820–1913 (Chapel Hill, N. C: University of North Carolina Press, 1964), pp. 21–23, 32–33.Google Scholar

13 Imports of finished, manufactures declined by 47 per cent between 1872 and 1878 ana by 35 per cent between 1893 and 1894; semimanufactured-goods purchases decreased by 52 per cent between 1873 and 1898 and by 39 per cent between 1893 and 1894. Compare Historical Statistics, pp. 544–45.

14 Exports of Manufactures from the United States and Their Distribution by Articles and Countries (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1907), p. 8Google Scholar.

15 Johnson, E. R., et al. , History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce of the United States (Washington: Carnegie Institute, 1915), pp. 87–88Google Scholar.

16 Ford, L. C. and Ford, Thomas F., The Foreign Trade of the United States (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1920), p. 25.Google Scholar

17 Farnsworth, Helen C., “Wheat in the Post-Surplus Period, 1900–1929, with Recent Analogies and Contrasts,” Wheat Studies of the Food Research Institute, XVII, No. 7 (Apr. 1941)Google Scholar; Edwin G. Nourse, American Agriculture, ch. i, appendix B; Stern, Robert K., “A Century of Food Exports,” Kyklos, XIII (1960), 50–51Google Scholar.

18 Exports of Manufactures, p. 8.

19 The anomalous fall in the crude-material component in both the European and the world-mix figures is due to residual responses.

20 A lengthy analysis of the responses and reactions to the American export inundation of Europe, by the present authors, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Explorations in Entrepreneurial History.