392 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sary to the higher advances in arts and material prosperity, and with 

 the creation of a servient class which was composed principally of 

 aliens, a dominant class inevitably arose, which may be numbered 

 among the earliest contributions of the foreign element to American 

 civilization. 



In 1812, at the commencement of the second British war, the 

 state found itself in a most depressed financial condition; national 

 and individual ruin were freely predicted, an extensive westward 

 movement began, and that great central section of the country lying 

 between the Ohio River and the lakes, the Mississippi and the Appa- 

 lachian Mountain system, then almost a terra incognita, commenced 

 to receive large increments in population from among these pes- 

 simistic Easterners. What the result would have been had these gaps 

 in the population of the New England and Middle States not been 

 filled within a few years by aliens it is hard to discern; possibly the 

 development of this section might have been slightly delayed, 

 although not by any means necessarily so, as a diffusion of the then 

 existing population would otherwise inevitably have followed, doubt- 

 less with beneficial results. But it is unnecessary to here speculate 

 upon something which never happened. 



These earlier immigrants to the country were, as we have already 

 seen, largely of the better class of mechanics and skilled laborers. 

 The farmers constituted about a sixth of the entire alien arrivals, 

 and the remaining five sixths usually found occupation in the towns; 

 in fact, the growth of the urban population is closely identified with 

 the immigration movement. In 1790 the urban population con- 

 stituted but three and a third per cent of all the inhabitants, and 

 there were only six cities with a population in excess of eight 

 thousand; in the decade between 1810 and 1820, when, as already 

 noted, there was a large westward movement and a decrease in immi- 

 gration by reason of the war, the percentage of urban inhabitants 

 remained unchanged, but otherwise it has increased in an almost 

 constant progression until the decade from 1880 to 1890, during 

 which the rate of progression advanced considerably. 



The first definite statistics which we have of the immigration 

 movement begin with the year 1820, when we find the Irish element 

 largely predominating over all other arrivals ; it is regrettable that we 

 can not distinguish the north Irish and the south Irish, as they may 

 be regarded as widely variant factors. It was from, among the latter 

 that the servient class — day laborers, domestic servants, etc. — was 

 drawn, and it was also largely from among them that the delinquent 

 classes were recruited. In 1830 the German aliens began to con- 

 stitute a considerable factor among the arriving immigrants, being 

 in excess of those from Great Britain, but the Irish continued in the 



