42 Henry Gannett — Movements of our Population. . 



the hands of Americans ahiiost as fully as half a century ago. 

 Our industrial enterprises of all sorts are under the management 

 of Americans and the hewing of wood and the drawing of water 

 have been assumed by the immigrant. The fact that the native 

 is still the ruling element probably accounts for the fact that the 

 foreign element, in spite of its great numerical importance, has 

 thus far exerted but a trifling influence upon our political, in- 

 dustrial and social life. 



The Element of foreign Extraction. 



The effects of immigration on our population are not con- 

 fined by any means to the foreign born. Although to some 

 extent Americanized, the children of the Irish, Germans and 

 Scandinavians retain many of their parents' characteristics ; 

 measurably they are Irish, Germans and Scandinavians still. 

 It is interesting, therefore, to note to what extent our population 

 is composed, not only of the foreign born but of the children of 

 the foreign born, and this information was obtained both in 1870 

 and 1890. Moreover, in 1870 practically all the foreign blood in 

 the country must have been accounted for by the enumeration 

 of the foreign born and their children, since immigration had 

 comniencecl on a large scale only twenty-two years earlier, and 

 it is not possible that there was any considerable number of 

 children of the second generation in the country. The element 

 of foreign extraction in the United States in 1870 numbered by 

 this enumeration 10,892,000, and comprised about one-third of 

 the entire white population of the country. In 1890 those 

 born of foreign parents, including the foreign born, numbered 

 20,626,000, and constituted 37 per cent of the entire white popu- 

 lation of tlie country. To this large number are yet to be added 

 probably four or five millions in the second generation to com- 

 plete the tale of foreign blood. 



The distribution of the foreign born and their children is illus- 

 trated in plate 17, the highest proportion being in New England 

 and the northwestern states. Indeed, in the northern states east 

 of the plains 45 per cent, or nearly one-half of the inhabitants, 

 are foreign born or the children of foreigners. In Massachusetts 

 there are 56 per cent ; in Rhode Island, 58 ; in Connecticut, 50 ; 

 in New York, 56, and in New Jersey, 48 per cent; but the 

 heaviest proportion is found in the northwestern states. In Wis- 

 consin and Minnesota three-fourths of the people are foreign 



