DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY * 



Carroi.1, D. Wright, Director. 



The work of this Department is progressing satisfactorily. It is neces- 

 sarily slow, on account of the difficulty in securing original material from 

 w'hich to form conclusions as to the general economic development of the 

 United States. 



The title of the work as agreed upon by the collaborators, and as approved 

 by the Executive Committee, is "Contributions to American economic his- 

 tory." It is believed that this is a truer and more adequate title than that 

 which has been used, "Economic history of the United States" ; for the pur- 

 pose is not so much to write a literary economic history as to furnish the 

 materials in general chronological and logical order for such a history. This 

 was the intention from the first, but the adoption of a satisfactory title has 

 been recent. 



At present this Department is employing 204 diflerent individuals, includ- 

 ing the collaborators, in the collection of material. It is very evident now 

 that the work can be completed with the appropriations already made; cer- 

 tainly there will not be needed a very large addition to those appropriations. 

 As the work approaches completion I am able to give a more general idea of 

 its nature than has been given in previous reports. 



Division i. — Population and Immigration. 



The work of this division, under the direction of Dr. Walter F. Willcox, of 

 Cornell University, it now appears, will group itself in the end about one 

 fundamental position — the increase of population in the United States and 

 the part that immigration has played in that increase and its influence upon 

 our economic development. As Dr. Willcox regards it, the central theme of 

 modern history is not the growth of liberty or the spread of democratic insti- 

 tutions, but rather the expansion of the white race ; or, to use the more def- 

 inite geographical term, the real expansion of Europe. It is in its relation to 

 this movement that the economic progress of the United States finds its mean- 

 ing. There are nearly as many Europeans now living outside of Europe as 

 there were living in Europe when America was discovered, and two-thirds of 

 them are in the United States. The number of Europeans by blood has quad- 

 rupled in the last century and a half, while the racial stocks which have not 

 been vivified by the touch of Europe have dwindled in numbers and in power. 

 The whole world is thus becoming more and more Europe writ large, but in 



* Address : Clark College, Worcester, Massachusetts. Grant No. 474. $30,000 for 

 investigations relative to an economic history of the United States. (For previous re- 

 ports see Year Books Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6.) 



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