The Ethnic Origins of the American People, 1790

McDonald, Forrest; McDonald, Ellen Shapiro

doi:10.2307/1919495

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…The American Historical Association (AHA) used it in the 1930s to calculate the ethnic makeup of the United States at the time of the American Revolution, and has been used in several studies to identify the American--Hispanic population (see Barker and Hansen 1932;Willie 1960;Buechley 1961;Matute--Bianchi 1986). By the 1980s, that original report from the AHA sparked a heated exchange in the pages of William and Mary Quarterly (McDonald and McDonald 1980;Akenson 1984;Purvis 1984). The original authors were accused of conducting their analysis with inappropriate data and making poor methodological decisions.…”

Section: A) Surname Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London

Crymble

2015

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdiscipli

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Historians seeking to identify the Irish have overwhelmingly relied upon nominal record linkage, thus limiting studies to periods and contexts in which corroborating records exist. Surname analysis provides an alternative: a subset of 283 Irish surnames was able to correctly isolate 40 percent of known Irish individuals across thousands of entries, which is sufficient for sampling the Irish in demographic studies. This conclusion was based on an analysis of 278,949 names from the London area in the 1841 census, and was tested and refined against 42,248 historical records pertaining to the poor in London between 1777 and 1820

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Section: A) Surname Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London

Crymble

2015

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdiscipli

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“…The colonies were long open to migrants, more so than were the colonies of the other settling nations, leading to large infl ows and, because there were no broad restrictions on religious or national origins, the colonies were open to migrants from diverse countries and religions (Baseler 1998;Risch 1937;Proper 1900;Brite 1939). It is estimated that the English and Scots accounted for two-thirds of the 1790 population, and the Irish about 10 percent, the Germans 6 percent, and other Northwestern European about 6 percent (McDonald and McDonald 1980). The thirteen colonies each had their own rules regarding immigration and other matters, and it was only after the Revolution that a central control over migration occurred.…”

Section: Settling the Coloniesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free Labor and Slave Labor

Engerman¹,

Margo²

2010

Founding Choices

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Policies regarding the level and growth rate of the stock of human capital were among the important decisions to be made at the founding of the new nation. At the start, the ratio of land to labor was extremely high; to make effective use of available land, it was necessary to attract more labor. Indeed, land itself would serve as a means of attracting labor. The changing ratio of the labor input to the settlement of what became the United States was infl uenced by legislation as well as by natural forces. The major sources of labor supply were the following: • Rates of natural increase of the population, (the difference between fertility and mortality) for European descendents as well as Native Americans and slave labor.

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“…On the one hand, Donald Akenson argued-with undeniable industry and cleverness-that all attempts to extract national origins information from the surnames in the 1790 census rest upon implicit assumptions that are almost certainly false. 45 Others, notably Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro McDonald 46 and Thomas L. Purvis, 47 argued that, by correcting some of the more obvious errors in the procedures used by the ACLS committee, it was still possible to extract some useful information, especially if we were willing to settle for ballpark estimates rather than exactitude. Purvis's analysis, in particular, suggests that the ACLS report seriously undercounted the Scotch-Irish and that the proportion of household heads who were of Scotch-Irish descent was closer to 10.5 percent.…”

Section: The Stories Historians Tellmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the Irish Became Protestant in America

Carroll¹

2006

Relig. Am. cult.

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It often comes as a surprise to learn that most contemporary Americans who think of themselves as “Irish” are, in fact, Protestant, not Catholic. While commentators generally agree that these Protestant Irish-Americans are descended mainly from the Irish who settled in the United States prior to the Famine, the story of how they became the Protestants they are is—this article argues—more complicated than first appears. To understand that story, however, one must correct for two historiographical biases. The first has to do with the presumed religiosity of the so-called “Scotch-Irish” in the pre-Famine period; the second involves taking “being Irish” into account in the post-Famine period only with dealing with Catholics, not Protestants. Once these biases are corrected, however, it becomes possible to develop an argument that simultaneously does two things: it provides a new perspective on the contribution made by the Irish (generally) to the rise of the Methodists and Baptists in the early nineteenth century, and it helps us to understand why so many American Protestants continue to retain an Irish identity despite the fact that their link to Ireland is now almost two centuries in the past.

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The Ethnic Origins of the American People, 1790

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London

A Comparative Approach to Identifying the Irish in Long Eighteenth-Century London

Free Labor and Slave Labor

How the Irish Became Protestant in America

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