Oscar Handlin's classic study, Boston's Immigrants - 1790-1880 contains many statistical charts and tables showing immigrant data by ethnicity, locality, occupation, year of arrival, etc. I found the information on those charts to be very interesting - Mr. Handlin was talking about MY German ancestors (and yours as well)!
YEARS | |
1826 - 1830 | |
How many Germans were there in "Greater Boston" in 1855 and 1865? Statistical analyses of the 1855 and 1865 State Censuses for Boston give the following - (persons from Holland were also included in the tally for "Germany")
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The 1860 US Census gives the following the distribution of German-born immigrants: SUFFOLK CO. - 1,290; NORFOLK CO. - 1,159 and MIDDLESEX CO. - 629.
What did these German immigrants do for a living? The 1850 US Census yields the following information about 929 German-born residents of Boston:
Another interesting tidbit of information from Handlin's book - in 1863, there were 184 children born in Boston whose parents were both born in Germany. In 1865, there were 197.
One of the more interesting tables found in Handlin's book shows Boston marriages 1863 - 1865 arranged by birthplace of the groom and birthplace of the bride. However, "Scandinavia" is included with Germany in this table.
GROOM | ||||||||
GERMANY |
BRIDE | GROOM Gr.Britain |
GROOM Unknown | TOTAL | |||||
GERMANY |
By the 1880 Census, Boston's German-born population had risen to 7,396; the total of ALL foreign-born residents was 114,796.
In 1880, what did THESE German immigrants do for a living? The US Census provides an answer.
Immigrant Arrivals at the Port of Boston (from the U.S. Tenth Census) shows the following data for persons whose "origin" was Germany:
ABOUT THE SOURCE OF THIS INFORMATION: I've really enjoyed reading Oscar Handlin's Boston Immigrants - 1790-1880. While the book does NOT give specific information about my ancestors, it did give me a better picture of what Boston was like when my immigrants arrived. I looked at the charts and thought, "HEY! In 1855, there were 3,376 German-born residents of Boston, and TWO of them were my Great-great-grandparents, Mathias DORR and his wife Maria Something-or-other!"
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This page was created 11 March 1999.
copyright © 1999 - Margaret V Reid