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I've never seen anyone deny the fact that Pennsylvania/Philly, is a northern state/city. I've also never heard of the "Deep North". I am quite confused.
So, this thread pertains to any of those states and their respective cities, which are all northern and northeastern by definition, and frankly, common knowledge.
Why are there so few English descended people in the Northeast?
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Postman
Aside from New England, of course. Cities like NY, Boston, Philly.etc seem dominated by Italians, Irish, Jews, blacks, Hispanics and others, yet these areas are associated a lot with colonial America. While I know the area received huge migration, most of which was not from the British Isles pretty early on, I wonder why the lack of British settlement in these cities? Did it have anything to do with the fact the US and Great Britain were sort of enemies for awhile? I find it funny that someone named 'Smith' in New York is most likely to be black, and a name like Goldstein or Rodriguez is probably more common.
Here is a map of the outward spread of New Englanders, most of them of English descent, first to New York and then to the northern Midwest. The map is actually missing Long Island and parts of New Jersey so if anything the New England migration is even greater then the map shows.
Also, keep in mind that many people in the South also have English ancestry. These people did not simply disappear from the earth and many Americans today have English ancestors, they just do not know it.
But a lot of immigrants made it to the Interior Northeast as well. It's no so much Bos-Wash as it is places above the Mason-Dixon Line (literally). I made this list for another thread. These are the percentages for Italian ancestry at the MSA level. I haven't looked at every single MSA, but my guess is that there are no metros below the Mason-Dixon that are more than 10% Italian.
The point was not to say interior cities were not attracting immigrants. I was saying that there are plenty of places in the Northeast that are well-represented with English people once you get outside of the NE corridor.
The point was not to say interior cities were not attracting immigrants. I was saying that there are plenty of places in the Northeast that are well-represented with English people once you get outside of the NE corridor.
I understood your point. My response was really directed towards Postman. But if I quoted him without quoting what he was responding to, it would not have been clear what I was talking about. It's not just the coastal areas that have significant concentrations of the groups he mentioned, but also cities deep in the interior like Rochester and Pittsburgh. That's all I was pointing out.
I understood your point. My response was really directed towards Postman. But if I quoted him without quoting what he was responding to, it would not have been clear what I was talking about. It's not just the coastal areas that have significant concentrations of the groups he mentioned, but also cities deep in the interior like Rochester and Pittsburgh. That's all I was pointing out.
Do you think this is true?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Is the OP's premise actually true? Does the Philadelphia metro have a smaller % of English descended people to say, Chicago? And Boston? The NYC metro is different, but I'm wondering if the gap between other big northern cities is rather small.
Looking at the link I posted on historical foreign born %, there doesn't seem to be a large Midwest-Northeast gap.
A number of Midwestern cities ar barely any different from Northeastern ones. One interesting difference is pre-1900 they're roughly similar. But by 1920/1930, on average Northeastern cities have a higher foreign born population. Shows the later wave of European immigrants (post-1890 or so) was a bit more Northeast-focused than before, which fits with what I expected, though I didn't realize the earlier immigration period wasn't as regionally focused. Baltimore, DC and the lower Midwest (Columbus, Indianopolis, and Kansas City) outside of St. Louis were much lower than the rest of the north and west coast but still higher than the south.
I didn't look at the English populations. My only point was that White Catholics were not confined to the coastal cities (because Postman seemed to believe that the Interior would be very different from the coast in this regard). Buffalo, for example, is as Italian as Providence. Maybe providing the sequence of statements and responses will contextualize things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Postman
Cities like NY, Boston, Philly.etc seem dominated by Italians, Irish, Jews, blacks, Hispanics and others, yet these areas are associated a lot with colonial America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pgm123
Basically you mean Bos-Wash (or Bos-Phi) since you excluded quite a big part of the Northeast by dropping New England.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Postman
Yes, I was thinking more Bos-Wash, not so much rural NYS, NE, PA, MD.etc.
I was pointing out that it wasn't just Bos-Wash that has these groups. In Pennsylvania, there are even small towns that have high Italian and Irish percentages.
I didn't look at the English populations. My only point was that White Catholics were not confined to the coastal cities (because Postman seemed to believe that the Interior would be very different from the coast in this regard). Buffalo, for example, is as Italian as Providence. Maybe providing the sequence of statements and responses will contextualize things.
I was pointing out that it wasn't just Bos-Wash that has these groups. In Pennsylvania, there are even small towns that have high Italian and Irish percentages.
I know that, I was asking about something else. The link I posted is a good starting point for guessing the English population if you assume most of the English population was non-foreign born (not quite true).
One additional point, however, Metros like NYC have a high % of non-whites. If you look at white Catholics as a % of the white non-hispanic population some of the coastal metros will be higher than the interior.
First, New England basically emptied out in the early 19th century. In 1800, Massachusetts was 2% forested, but today it's 80% forested. Most of the farmland was abandoned when much better land in the Midwest became available. So the old-stock Yankees moved west in large numbers. New England rebuilt itself as a small industry area, but many of the mill workers came from Quebec or Ireland, and eventually other places as well.
Please. New England never "emptied out". Some farmers moved on for free land stakes and people spread out, but plenty of original settlers and their descendants stayed on. Rhode Islanders, for example, went to Maine, Vermont, New York, Ohio, etc but no one "abandoned their land". Beginning with the industrial revolution, many workers came here from Britain to work in the mills. Where you get your forestation figures (MA only 2% forested!), I have no idea.
Please. New England never "emptied out". Some farmers moved on for free land stakes and people spread out, but plenty of original settlers and their descendants stayed on. Rhode Islanders, for example, went to Maine, Vermont, New York, Ohio, etc but no one "abandoned their land". Beginning with the industrial revolution, many workers came here from Britain to work in the mills. Where you get your forestation figures (MA only 2% forested!), I have no idea.
Yes, 2% is way too low, 25-30% is probably about right. However, plenty abandoned their land. Not sure why you think they didn't It's extremely easy notice traveling around New England. Go around in a wooded area and you'll see stone walls that use to mark farms. Take a look at old photos of the countryside and you'll see much less forest. Rural population in New England peaked in most areas around 1830. For example this town,
Rebounded in recent decades, but it wasn't farmers so the land stayed unfarmed. Btw, Conway was where Marshall Fields, the Chicago department store magnate, grew up. A large number of successful Midwesterns and Westerners in the 19th century were transplants from rural New England.
Please. New England never "emptied out". Some farmers moved on for free land stakes and people spread out, but plenty of original settlers and their descendants stayed on. Rhode Islanders, for example, went to Maine, Vermont, New York, Ohio, etc but no one "abandoned their land". Beginning with the industrial revolution, many workers came here from Britain to work in the mills. Where you get your forestation figures (MA only 2% forested!), I have no idea.
Not sure what the percentage was but at one time a huge amount of the land area in the Northeast was devoted to farming. Keep in mind that while the population was much smaller then today, a far larger percentage of the people were farmers. Everyone wanted their own 50 or 100 acres. And when the farmer had multiple sons, the older son inherited the farm and the younger sons often had to move on to a new place so they could get their own farm. Some could not find better land that they could afford so they even tried farming in the mountains.
Today you will find abandoned farmhouses, cellars and stonewalls deep in forests. I know its hard to imagine but where today we see forests of trees were once fields of corn or cows grazing.
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Why are there so few English descended people in the Northeast?
