History of Econimics

¶ … Industrial Revolution one sees an increase in immigration to the United States. These pull factors can also account for why one sees a trend in migration west within the United States during this time. Technology made it possible for people to travel further and faster because of not only canals and trains but also improved technologies applied to horse drawn wagons and carriages. It seems that as Americans living on the east coast, already established in their jobs started moving west to take advantage of new work made available by displacement of Native Americans and free land; more Europeans came to eastern American cities. Once these immigrants became established they followed the pattern out west.

There is no conclusive data to determine if labor played a role in pulling emigrants out of Europe. Still this pull factor remains essential to America's development as a nation. From an economic standpoint, one would argue a better life begins with better employment and access to higher wages. Due to America's internal migration, there was opportunity for Europeans to move across the Atlantic. This pull factor can only be found if capacity for expansion was rapid, if technical progress was not labor saving and if migrant response to real wage differentials was highly elastic. These factors can be found in European immigrants but applied differently depending on their native country. In general, Europe had low wage elasticity, which acted as a motivator for workers to come.

Much of the pull to the frontier was opportunity based in form of wealth accumulation. Families who were poor in the urban setting were suddenly wealthy due to land ownership and income from agriculture. Manifest Destiny was an important pull because it instilled the dream in people but also delivered the dream in the forms of a home and income potential. Younger and larger families had the potential to move further away because they saw the opportunities for wealth that can be legacy to the children. Many families wanted to migrate but did not want to risk everything so they migrated short distances for example from the South to the Midwest or families migrated to a new area where another family member had previously settled. For the success rate of the accumulation of wealth to work, timing appeared to be the greatest factor for the migrant. For those who settled on the frontier before 1860, they increased their wealth or earnings over the decade by over one hundred percent. Those who migrated after 1860 only benefited eleven percent. Those families who stayed put in they original location suffered a decrease in wealth by less than one percent.