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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
8 The state-of-birth data of the federal census indicates that in 1850 23.2% of the native white population were living in states other than those of their birth. The percentage for 1860 is 24.8. In 1850 51.2% of these migrants had moved to states contiguous to that of their birth; the figure for 1860 is 43.8%. J. A. Hill, “Interstate Migration,” in U. S. Census, 1900, Special Reports, Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables, 281.
The New York State Census of 1855 gives some evidence of intra-state migration. Of the estimated 2,933,000 native born New Yorkers, 1,295,000 or 44% had emigrated from the counties of their birth. Of these 710,000 are estimated to have emigrated from the state. The migration between counties within the states was about 585,000. 26.3% of the New York born population living in New York state were living in counties other than that of their birth. (Data from New York State Census (1855), 168–177.)
9 Professor Turner's concept of the frontier is one of population settlement. Though this frontier is complex and includes that of the Indian trader, the rancher and the farmer, it does not comprehend such factors of economic exploitation as transportation, commerce and industry.
Murray Kane has pointed out that Professor Turner's point of view is essentially that of a geographer and that his interpretation is geographic rather than economic in character. “Some Considerations on the Frontier Concept of Frederick Jackson Turner” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXVII (1940), 381–394Google Scholar.
10 In his testimony before the Congressional Committee of 1878 on Depression in Labor and Business, Carroll D. Wright stated: “There is in every large city a class of men who, if you should give them a farm in the West, stock it, and put it in first-rate running order, on the condition that they should live on it and till the soil, would not go there. Such men prefer what they call society. They will have it. It is certainly impossible to get these men out of a city under any inducement whatever.” The remarks were in reply to Chairman Hewitt's question regarding the desirability of subsidizing western emigration, 45th Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives (Mis. Doc. No. 29), Washington, 1879, pp. 286–287. I am indebted to Professor Samuel Rezneck for calling this source of information to my attention.
11 See Bezatison, Anne, “Some Historical Aspects of Labor Turnover,” in Facts and Factors in Economic History (Cambridge, 1932), 695–99Google Scholar. Unpublished data in the possession of Professor Bezanson indicates that labor in the 1850–1870 period did not easily shift from one occupation to another even under the pressure of unemployment.
12 “I learned at Lowell, that when any misunderstanding occurs between the owners of factories and the operatives it is generally arranged in favor of the latter. This arises from two causes. From the scarcity of capital in the country, the employers are unable to hold out against the workers; and they therefore yield, if any sort of reasonable compromise can be made. Again, from the scarcity of labour, workmen can almost always command their own terms. If one employer cannot agree to the demand, another is prepared to make them an offer, and if that is not suitable, there are numerous outlets for the employment of their labour in other pursuits.” Robertson, James, A Few Months in America (London, 1855), 222Google Scholar.
13 Goodrich and Davison, The Wage Earner in the Western Movement. The affirmative evidence is presented by Shafer, Joseph in “Concerning the Frontier as Safety-Valve, Political Science Quarterly, LII (1937), 407–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Some Facts Bearing on the Safety-Valve Theory,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, XX (1936), 216–232Google Scholar.
14 Young, Edward, Labor in Europe and America (1876), 745–747Google Scholar.
15 “Men and newspapers talk very glibly about emigration and going to the West, as if it were a pleasant trip, or a friendly visit to one's rich relations; little thinking of the suffering and disappoinment, and waste of life attending the migration” …. “Of the able-bodied men who go to the West and take to farming the majority, I fear, are entirely disappointed; although they may have promoted the growth of the country and raised the value of land, and many of them will have accumulated more for their children than they would have done at home.” Mitchell, D. W., Ten Years in the United States (London, 1862), 324Google Scholar.
16 A correspondent of the New England Farmer “Having had a touch of the Western fever,” …. “entered into a careful estimate of the advantages offered in New England and the West”…. “In order to get me a farm at government price, I have got to go a long distance from the larger towns and villages. Here I find land enough truly, good land, there is none better outdoors, and this is all. No roads, no fences, no buildings, no school-houses, no churches, no stores, in fact, ‘no nothing’ but land. Now then, I conclude that before my farm is worth much all these must be within a respectable distance, and I have got to do my part towards having them, and by the time I can enjoy my farm with all these privileges it will have cost me quite a fortune.” New England Farmer, X (1858), 398Google Scholar. Cf. Maine Farmer, June 18, 1857.
“It is conceded that there are many places in the West, where New England habits and modes of life are already reproduced and society is in every respect as refined as it is here. But in these places land is as dear as it is here, and living about as expensive; so that they do not offer the usual inducements to emigration The cheap land and cheap living which beguile so many of our people are only to be found in the new settlements.” Homestead, III (1858), 234Google Scholar.
17 A correspondent of the Maine Farmer (July 9, 1857), pointed out that to go West to live cheaper could be done on the whole “simply by having less of a living, and often the living is lessened much more than the expense.” A contemporary satirist suggested that instead of complaining of hard times and going West to better one's condition: “If we would live in a log or mud house with one room and no floor, sleep on straw, go bare-footed, wear the cheapest and coarsest clothes and deprive ourselves of life, anybody might squat upon two acres of common pasture, and with the same labor, be as rich in seven years as upon any half section of land in Kansas; and if there were hundreds thus squatting they could get a land fever, speculate in lots, and have the prices go up as they do in the West.” Journal of Commerce (N. Y.), June 27, 1857. Much the same opinion was expressed by Horace Bushnell in An address before the Hartford County Agriculture Society, October 2, 1846: “If you will sacrifice everything here above the range of raw physical necessity and consent to become a barbarian as regards all the refinements of life, you will see how it is that the emigrant is able to get a start and why he is supposed to do it so much more easily at the West…. The first generation can hardly be said to live. They let go life, throw it away, for the benefits of the generation to come after them.” Cf. Northern Farmer, IV (1857), 308Google Scholar; New England Farmer, X (1858), 518Google Scholar.
18 “Farming is a vocation requiring knowledge, experience and skill, like any other. No man born and reared in the city can remove to a farm at thirty or forty years of age and immediately become an efficient, thrifty, successful farmer. He will have much to learn, and something to unlearn, and if he should get through his first year of farming without using up $500 of his capital, he may consider that he has done well.” Working Farmer, IX (1857), 52Google Scholar.
19 Cunynghame, A., Glimpse of the Great Western Republic (1851), 7Google Scholar.
20 Danhof, Farm Making Costs, 331–4.
21 Ibid., 324–354.
22 George Henry Evans was expressing this belief as early as 1841–2. See Zahler, Helene Sara, Eastern Workingmen and National Land Policy, 1829–1862 (New York, 1941), 35Google Scholar.
23 45th Congress 3d Session, House of Representatives (Mis. Doc. No. 29). The Chairman of the Committee, Abraham Hewitt was apparently much interested in these proposals. The sums suggested ranged from those which would provide provisions for eight to twelve months up to $500. See pp. 145, 148, 202, 267, 388, 407, 470, 580, 656–664.
The suggestion that western emigration be subsidized was not new and was not confined to depression periods. See Saturday Evening Post, Dec. 23, 1854, Northern Farmer, II (1855), 103–4Google Scholar; Scientific American, XIII (1857), 276Google Scholar.
24 The population living in Iowa but born elsewhere increased from 129,574 in 1850 to 332,458 in 1856, a net gain of 202,884. The number in 1860 was 377,688, a net gain of 45,230. The increase in the population born in Iowa from 1856 to 1860 was more than twice this figure. Hull, John A. T., Census of Iowa for 1880 and the same compared with the findings of each of the Other States and also with all Former Enumerations.… (Des Moines, 1883), 168–9Google Scholar. The collapse of immigration is even more strikingly revealed in data for Minnesota. See Kane, , “Some Considerations on the Frontier Concept of Frederick Jackson Turner,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXVII (1940), 395 note 59Google Scholar.
An examination of passenger traffic statistics of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad shows that no significant decline in local traffic took place during 1858 and 1859. On the other hand through passenger traffic on this line was in 1859 less than half the 1857 figure. Through westward passenger traffic was in 1857 almost a third greater than the eastward traffic but in 1859 the net balance was eastward. (Data from Reports of the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago Rail Road Company to the Stockholders, 1856–1860. Through passenger traffic on the Michigan Central Railroad in 1859 was less than half the 1857 figure and declined still lower in 1860. The company discontinued its steamship service in 1858 and also such of its through trains as its contacts with other companies permitted. (Reports of the Directors of the Michigan Central Railroad Company to the Stockholders, 1855–1860). The effect of the depression was similarly reflected in the passenger traffic across the Mississippi River rail road bridge of the Chicago and Rock Island Rail Road. (Annual Report of the President and Directors to the Stockholders of the Chicago and Rock Island Rail Road Company, 1857–1860.)
25 There exists in this argument an implication that competition for labor is sufficient to raise wages. The truth is, of course, that competition may sometimes force the payment of wages that could be but were not being paid. It is the productivity of labor in agriculture as compared with industry that determines the possible wages and competition within each field which will determine the degree to which the possible wage will equal the actual. If the productivity of labor in agriculture were higher than in industry it is true that agriculture would have attracted labor, reduced the supply of industrial labor, thereby increased the marginal productivity and hence the possible wage. On the other hand if the productivity of industrial labor were the higher and that of agricultural labor the lower, and wages corresponded, it is difficult to see how agricultural employments paying the lower rate of return could force better returns to be paid in industry. The reverse would tend to be true. The rapid growth which American industry has experienced is a far more adequate and pointed explanation of high actual wages than is the presence of a frontier of settlement.
It is of interest to note in this connection that Ed. Mansfield, State statistician for Ohio estimated the value of agricultural labor in Ohio in 1862 as eighty-three cents per day and that Isaac Newton, U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture estimated the value of the product of manufacturing labor as roughly sixteen percent greater. U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, Annual Report (1862), 556–7.