Early American Urbanization

Early American Urbanization

Between 1846 and 1932 emigration numbers increased greatly. There were more than 50 million Europeans that left their continent to pursue better lives in other countries. Some of these countries included the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Brazil or Argentina. All of which offered less expensive land and better wages than what they were used to.

This, however, is not the only cause of European emigration. European agriculture took a hit in the last twenty-five years of the 19th century. Ireland especially began to have extreme difficulties with farming. In 1845 a mysterious fungus struck the potato fields, destroying half of all the crops. The Irish were able to recover from this but in 1847 the fungus struck the potato fields again. They were not able to recover from this blight as they had two years prior and eventually it lead to The Great Hunger. "Bad weather and foreign competition created problems for European farmers that motivated much of the immigration of the period." (The Western Heritage 547-8)

Urbanization brought an increase in population in the cities. "Towns grew particularly rapidly in the eighteenth century. London, which had about 700,000 inhabitants in 1700, reached almost a million by 1800. By then, Paris had over 500,000 inhabitants. Berlin's population tripled during the century, reaching 170,000. Warsaw had almost 120,000 in 1794, and Saint Petersburg, which did not exist until 1703, numbered over 250,000 inhabitants at the end of the century." (The Western Heritage 368)

The growth of the cities' ports was another direct result of urbanization. "The cities that grew most vigorously between 1600 and 1750 were the capitals and ports that profited from the development of the monarchial state and the burgeoning of its bureaucracies, armies, courts, and support personnel. The growth of