periods for those years have been approximated in the graphic representation. respectively 15-month, 9-month, 15-month and 6-month periods, while 12-month Figures denoting immigration for the years 1832, 1843, 1850, 1857, represent 1911141 3031041 1866 24. THE INDUSTRIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RECENT IMMIGRATION1 RECENT EXPANSION OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY Recent immigration is responsible for many social and political problems. Its chief significance, however, is industrial, and of the industrial phases of the subject none is of greater importance than the effect of recent immigration from southern and eastern Europe upon native Americans as well as upon wage-earners belonging to the races of past immigration from northern and western Europe and Great Britain. The changes are of almost equal importance to industrial organization, and industrial methods and processes resulting from the entrance of such large numbers of southern and eastern European and Asiatic immigrants into the industrial life of the country during the past thirty years. The effect of recent immigration upon the working and living conditions of wage-earners in industrial localities is also of great interest and importance. The period covered by the past thirty years has been marked in the United States by an extraordinary industrial development, including manufacturing, mining, and all branches of industrial enterprise. This expansion has obviously been most pronounced in the manufacturing States east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers. There has been, however, a considerable development in the territory between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains and in the South, although not so extensive as in the Middle West and the Middle and New England States. The remarkable growth in manufactures in the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic seaboard during the twenty-five years 1880-1905, may be readily seen from the table below, which shows the amount of capital invested and the value of output of all manufacturing establishments during this period according to census years: 1 Adapted from the United States Immigration Commission. Abstract of Report on Immigrants in Manufacturing and Mining, 1911, pp. 217-247, 256-267. TOTAL CAPITAL AND VALUE OF PRODUCTS OF MANUFACTURES IN THE STATES EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 1880-1905, BY CENSUS PERIODS 1 INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF WAGE-EARNERS The most significant fact regarding recent immigration disclosed by the industrial study is the unprecedented increase in the operating forces of the mines and manufacturing establishments accompanying the rapid extension of industrial activities. The number of employees of mines and manufacturing establishments in the territory east of the Rocky Mountains was more than doubled during the thirty years 1880-1909. The extent of this increase during the first twenty-five years of that period is shown in the table below, which sets forth, according to the federal census returns, the average number of wage-earners engaged in mining and manufacturing in the years specified : YEAR NUMBER 1900 1890 1880 7,037,731 5,618,306 3,743,374 The great increase in laboring forces becomes more apparent when the agricultural States of the area under discussion are eliminated and those engaged principally in manufacturing and mining are considered. In order that the real significance of the situation may be seen, the growth in the number of wage-earners 1 These computations are made solely for manufactures in the States chosen, as it is impossible to form parallel comparisons for the mines and quarries, owing to the various statistical forms used in their tabulation in the several censuses. [in manufacturing and mining] in the principal manufacturing and mining States east of the Rocky Mountains is shown for the period 1880-1910 in the table which immediately follows: From these figures it will be noted that there has been a steady increase in the number of employees in the manufactures, mines, and quarries of each of the States specified. The total number of employees rises from 2,816,877 in 1880 to 5,191,684 in 1900, an increase of 84.3 per cent. Between 1880 and 1890 there was an increase of 47.4 per cent in the total number and the slightly decreased growth in the next decade can probably be attributed to the general introduction of labor-saving machinery during that period. In the case of the individual States, it will be noted that but three, Alabama, Indiana, and West Virginia, show their greater increase in numbers in the ten years from 1890 to 1900. Several western States show a great increase from 1 Compiled from 13th Census, Vol. IV, Occupation Statistics, p. 44.- ED. |