The Business of Transatlantic Migration between Europe and the USA, 1900–1914

Abstract

The relocation of Europeans across the North Atlantic during the first decade and a half of the twentieth century was the culmination of the longest-lived and most widely documented transoceanic migration of modern times. This enormous population transfer was a great human drama, a major international demographic shift, and a massive historical experiment in cultural transformation during a period of unprecedented globalization. This migration was also a complex and powerful travel business containing both risks and rewards for its three fundamental participants: the movers, the moved, and the sovereign authorities on either side of the borders being traversed. Prior studies have not adequately explained this business nor appreciated the extent to which the various strategies for dealing with its associated risks were crucial, largely congruent, and self-reinforcing elements of the overall migration process.

Quaker accountability regimes: the case of the Richardson family networks, 1840–1914

“…The building of Mauretania was an outcome of the convergence of social, market and public governance requirements. Between 1870 and 1914, the then “greatest intercontinental migration in human history, the movement of people between Europe and the United States” (Keeling, 1999, p. 195) saw a quadrupling in the passenger-carrying capacity of transatlantic merchant ships. Two British and two German shipping lines formed a cartel that “transported over half of all migrants throughout the entire 1880–1914 period” (Keeling, 1999, p. 196).…”

“…Between 1870 and 1914, the then “greatest intercontinental migration in human history, the movement of people between Europe and the United States” (Keeling, 1999, p. 195) saw a quadrupling in the passenger-carrying capacity of transatlantic merchant ships. Two British and two German shipping lines formed a cartel that “transported over half of all migrants throughout the entire 1880–1914 period” (Keeling, 1999, p. 196). By the end of the 19th century, Cunard, one of the British shipping lines, found that its North Atlantic ships were outclassed by faster vessels of the other three lines (TWA Mauretania Archive) and, in 1901, it prepared specifications for two ships that would give it a competitive advantage.…”