German Immigration and Servitude in America, 1709-1920

This book provides the most comprehensive history of German migration to North America for the period 1709 to 1920 than has been done before. Employing state-of-the-art methodological and statistical techniques, the book has two objectives. First he explores how the recruitment and shipping markets for immigrants were set up, determining what the voyage was like in terms of the health outcomes for the passengers, and identifying the characteristics of the immigrants in terms of family, age, and occupational compositions and educational attainments. Secondly he details how immigrant servitude worked, by identifying how important it was to passenger financing, how shippers profited from carrying immigrant servants, how the labor auction treated immigrant servants, and when and why this method of financing passage to America came to an end.

Farley Grubb is Professor of Economics at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware.

1. Introduction Part I: German Immigration to America, 1709-1835 A. The Migrion Experience: Magnitudes, Causes, Conveyances and Conditions 2. The Flow of Immigration, 1727-1835 3. The Transatlantic Shipping Market 4. Morbidity and Mortality on the North Atlantic Passage B. Immigrant Characteristics and Human Capital 5. Age, Occupation, and Family Composition 6. Literacy, Longitudinal Patterns and Market Forces 7. The Age Structure of German Immigration Literacy 8. Educational Choice in the Era before Free Public Schooling Part II: German Immigrant Servitude in America, 1745-1835 A. Patterns of Servitude Among the Immigrants 9. The Incidence of Servitude in Transatlantic Migration, 1771-1804 10. Servant auction Records, 1745-1831 - the Proportion of Females among the Servants 11. The Occupational and Geographical Distribution of Immigrant Servant Labor in the Delaware Valley B. The Market for German Immigrant Servants 12. Determining the Method of Entering Servitude and Modeling its Performance 13. Servant Contract Choice and Shipper Profits 14. The Auction of German Immigrant Servants in Philadelphia, 1771-1804 15. Debt Shifting within German Immigrant Families C. The End of German Immigrat Servitude in America, 1784-1835 16. Processing German Servants at the Port of Philadelphia, 1817-1831: the Documents 17. The Disappearance of Organized Immigrant Servant Markets in the Explanations Re-Examined 18. The Collapse of the German Immigrant Servant Market: Timing and Causes Part III: Epilogue: German Immigration to the U.S. 1820-1920 - from Founding Migration to Mass Migration 19. German Immigration to the U.S., 1820-1920: Magnitudes, Patterns, and Relative Shares 20. German Immigrants in the Mass Migration Era