HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



amalgamation is a complex of conditions resulting in the tendency 

 of men and women of different ethnic groups to intermarry. Ethnic 

 cohesion, as a complex, is a product of similar hereditary and cultural 

 factors, together with consciously or unconsciously idealized physical 

 factors. Further, these factors commonly encrust one with a strong 

 or a weak prejudice against members of other ethnic groups. In the 

 process of developing amalgamation it seems that the unique heredi- 

 tary and historic factors, contributing to ethnic cohesion, are the 

 most persistent, and are the last to break down; but the force of 

 cohesion loosens its hold and the force of amalgamation takes firmer 

 hold in direct proportion as ethnic prejudice weakens between the 

 two ethnic groups, and as the cultural factors become mutually 

 common. 



Taken as a whole the eight ethnic groups in Table D show that 

 there are slightly more half-breed families than pure-bred families, 

 there being 13,616 half-breed and 13,320 pure-bred families. So the 

 amalgamation process is the more influential. It is the most influen- 

 tial among the Scotch, next among the Welsh; then follow in order 

 of decreasing influence of amalgamation the English, Irish, Danish, 

 and German, among the last of whom amalgamation is only slightly 

 more influential than cohesion. Among the Norwegians cohesion is 

 more influential than amalgamation, and among the Swedes cohesion 

 is more than twice as influential as amalgamation. 



This series of ethnic groups, arranged in order of decreasing amal- 

 gamation and increasing cohesion from the Scotch to the Swedes, is 

 the exact duplicate of the series of the same Minneapolis ethnic 

 groups in order of increasing fecundity, except for the Irish and Scotch, 

 as seen in Table A. It seems that the most fecund ethnic groups are 

 those least given to amalgamation, and vice versa. 



We studied 8,614 "American" families in Minneapolis. They are 

 descendants of a great variety of generations of American ancestry — 

 including those of the ninth. These "American" families are the most 

 completely amalgamated of all the families studied. In the most con- 

 vincing manner they tell the consistent story that fecundity decreases 

 as amalgamation increases, as is seen in Table E. 



More than 30 per cent of these American families have no un- 

 married children. More than half of them average only one-half of 

 a child. It is doubtless painful to realize that the "American" stock 

 is not fecund enough today to hold its own numerically. These 8,614 

 families average fewer than two unmarried children each. 



There are other factors, it is true, besides amalgamation, which 

 tend to decrease fecundity. The factor of higher education, fluctuat- 



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