industrial advantages which the white race enjoy wherever the
climate conditions are equally favourable, may be gravely doubted.
Cities.The growth of city populations during the ninety years embraced by the ten successive censuses of the United States has been little less remarkable than the increase of population throughout the country as a whole. The following table (XII.) gives the aggregate for cities of 8000 inhabitants and upwards from 1790 to 1880:—
| Population of United States. |
Population of Cities. |
Urban Population in each 100 of the Total. | |
| 1790 | 3,929,214 | 131,472 | 3.3 |
| 1800 | 5,308,483 | 210,873 | 3.9 |
| 1810 | 7,239,881 | 356,920 | 4.9 |
| 1820 | 9,633,822 | 475,135 | 4.9 |
| 1830 | 12,866,020 | 864,509 | 6.7 |
| 1840 | 17,069,453 | 1,453,994 | 8.5 |
| 1850 | 23,191,876 | 2,897,586 | 12.5 |
| 1860 | 31,443,321 | 5,072,256 | 16.1 |
| 1870 | 38,558,371 | 8,071,875 | 20.9 |
| 1880 | 50,155,783 | 11,318,547 | 22.5 |
In 1880 there were 286 cities with over 8000 inhabitants, and the following twenty exceeded 100,000:—New York, N.Y., 1,206,299; Philadelphia, Pa., 847,170; Brooklyn, N.Y., 566,663; Chicago, Ill., 503,185; Boston, Mass., 362,839; St Louis, Mo., 350,518; Baltimore, Md., 332,313; Cincinnati, O., 255,139; San Francisco, Cal., 233,959; New Orleans, La., 216,090; Cleveland, O., 160,146; Pittsburgh, Pa., 156,389; Buffalo, N.Y., 155,134; Washington, D.C., 147,293; Newark, N.J., 136,508; Louisville, Ky., 123,758; Jersey City, N.J., 120,722; Detroit, Mich., 116,340; Milwaukee, Wis., 115,587; Providence, R.I., 104,857.
The urban population of the United States is predominantly sustained by manufactures and mechanical industry rather than by commerce. Taking for the purposes of this analysis the fifty largest cities, we have an aggregate of 3,083,172 workers, of whom 32 per cent. are engaged in personal and professional services, 24 per cent. in trade and transportation, 43 per cent. in manufactures and mechanical industry, the remaining 1 per cent. being employed in agriculture, as nurserymen, florists, market gardeners, &c. Of the total body of workers reported 77 per cent. are males, 23 females. Again, 3½ per cent. are under 16 years of age, 3 per cent. are over 60, 93½ per cent are between 16 and 60.
The proportion of workers to population varies greatly in American cities, according to the industries pursued, according to the constituents of the population, according to age and sex, and according to certain social causes affecting the employment of women and young children.
Occupations of the people.The American census took no account of the occupations of the people till 1850, when the occupations of the free male inhabitants over 15 years of age were ascertained. In 1860 the statistics were made to include the gainful occupations of free women as well, but the exclusion of the entire slave population from the account, together with defects of classification due to the inherent difficulties of the work, make it impossible to institute satisfactory comparisons with statistics subsequently obtained. At the ninth and tenth censuses (1870 and 1880) special efforts directed to this end, aided by the great progress made of recent years in industrial organization and by the abolition of slavery, resulted in statistical accounts which afford a fair view of the occupations of the people at those dates.
The census of 1870 gave the number of people pursuing gainful occupations as 12,505,923, being 32.43 per cent. of the total population, 44.3 per cent. of the total population above ten years of age. In 1880 the corresponding number was 17,392,099, being 34.68 per cent. of the entire population, 47.31 per cent. of the population above ten years of age. This increase means a larger engagement of women and children in labour outside the family. The division of the grand total of 1880 among the four principal groups of occupations, with the further distinction of sex, appears in the following table (XIII.):—
| Classes. | Persons Occupied. |
Males. | Females. |
| Agriculture | 7,670,493 | 7,075,983 | 594,510 |
| Personal and professional services | 4,074,238 | 2,712,943 | 1,361,295 |
| Trade and transportation | 1,810,256 | 1,750,892 | 59,364 |
| Manufacturing, mechanical, and mining | 3,837,112 | 3,205,124 | 631,988 |
| All occupations | 17,392,099 | 14,744 942 | 2,647,157 |
Of these, 825,187 males and 293,169 females were from 10 to 15 years of age, 12,986,111 males and 2,283,115 females from 16 to 59, and 933,644 males and 70,873 females 60 and upwards.
It appears that 7,670,493 persons were in 1880 employed in agriculture, constituting 44.1 per cent. of the whole number, against 47.3 in 1870,—a slight relative decline in this class during the decade. 4,225,945 persons reported themselves as farmers or planters. This agrees well with the number of farms and plantations returned on the agricultural schedule, i.e., 4,008,907. 3,323,876 persons report themselves as farm labourers, while about 120,000 are returned as apiarists, dairymen, florists, gardeners, nurserymen, stock-drovers, turpentine farmers, &c. Agriculture still remains the predominant industry of the United States, employing nearly half the working population, and, since a greater number of persons are dependent upon the average farmer or farm labourer than upon the average factory operative or domestic servant, furnishing subsistence to considerably more than half the people.
The number of persons engaged in mechanical labour and in, manufacturing and mining pursuits in 1880 was 3,837,112,—22 per cent. of the total, against 21.6 per cent. in 1870.
The number of persons engaged in trade and transportation was in 1880 1,810,256, being 10.4 per cent. of the total. Between 1860 and 1870, with an increase in population of 22.8 per cent., the class engaged in trade and transportation gained 44 per cent., a result fairly attributable to the profits of middle-men, and the multiplication of stores, shops, and stands of every description, consequent upon the circulation of an irredeemable and fluctuating currency.
The last grand group of occupations to be mentioned is that characterized by the rendering of personal or professional services. This group in 1880 embraced 4,074,238 men, women, and children, or 23.4 of all connected with gainful avocations, against 21.4 per cent, in 1870. The occupations within this group exhibit a wide range of character. We have at the one end the teacher, the Government official, the artist, the clergyman, the physician; at the other, the barber, the boot-black, the household drudge. The most important class of this group is that known as labourers, without further designation. This class, in the successive census reports, has always been large, doubtless too large for the facts of the case, since it seems probable that no inconsiderable share of these labourers are connected with agriculture or trade or some branch of manufacturing industry with sufficient definiteness to justify their being returned under one or other of those groups. The number reported under this title in 1850 was 909,786; in 1860, 969,301; in 1870, 1,031,666; in 1880, 1,859,223.
The number of domestic servants in 1880 was 1,075,655, against 975,734 in 1870. It might have been expected that the general increase of luxury and refinement during the preceding decade must have caused a large proportional increase in domestic service. Yet we find the number of domestic servants to have increased but 10 per cent., while population has grown 30 per cent. The only fact indicated by the table of occupations which serves at all to account for this failure of domestic service to keep pace with population is that the number of bakers has increased more than 50 per cent. during the decade, while the number of laundrymen and laundresses has grown from 60,906 to 121,942, showing that some part at least of the work formerly done in private houses is now done in shops. Yet we cannot fail to be struck with the fact that, while there was in 1870 1 servant to 7.76 families, 1880 found no more than 1 servant to 9.24 families.
The geographical distribution of domestic service throughout the United States is very irregular, the proportion between families and servants ranging from 2.5 families to 1 servant in the District of Columbia up to 24.8 families to 1 servant in Arkansas. The largest proportion of domestic servants is found in a group in the central Atlantic region,—Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, where slavery formerly prevailed more as a social and political than as an industrial institution. Thus Maryland has 1 servant to 4.9 families, Delaware 1 to 5.3, Virginia 1 to 5.7.
Families and dwellings.In 1870 the number of families returned was 7,579,363, the number of persons to a family being 5.09; the number of dwellings was 7,042,833, with 5.47 persons to a dwelling. In 1880 the total number of families returned was 9,945,916, the number of persons to a family being 5.04; the number of dwellings was 8,955,812, with 5.6 persons to a dwelling. In 1880 the number of persons to a family ranged from 3.94 in Montana to 5.54 in West Virginia; the number of persons to a dwelling ranged from 4.24 in Idaho to 6.68 in Rhode Island. Examination of the tables relating to the 100 largest cities in 1880 shows that the number of persons to a family ranges from 4.23 in Memphis to 5.99 in Denver. In general, the Southern cities rule low in this respect. The range as to the number of persons to a dwelling, among the cities of the United States, is much greater than in the case of persons to a family. Memphis has but 4.68 persons to a dwelling; New York has as many as 16.37. The other instances of a low proportion are Lancaster, Pa., 5.02; Davenport, Iowa, 5.04; Camden, N.J., 5.05; Sacramento, 5.07. The other instances of a high proportion are Hoboken, 11.50; Holyoke, Mass., 10.52; Brooklyn and Cincinnati, 9.11; Manchester, N.H., 9.09; Worcester, 8.79; Fall River, 8.75; Jersey City, 8.59; Lawrence, 8.5; Boston, 8.26; Chicago, 8.24; Troy, 8.16; St Louis, 8.15. The other large cities show the following proportions:—Philadelphia, 5.79; New Orleans, 5.95; Baltimore, 6.54; San Francisco, 6.86. The remarkably low proportion, considering the population, which obtains in Philadelphia is due to the admirable manner in which that city has been built up, largely under the system of ground rents, little known in other cities.
