Immigration and Family Separation in the U.S. at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This essay provides the first quantitative and comparative estimates based on a nationally representative sample of the extent and duration of family separation associated with immigration to the U.S. at the turn of the century. It uses information from the Public Use Sample of the 1910 U.S. Census to examine the separation of husbands and wives, and parents and children, and compares the largest ethnic groups (British, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Poles, Italians, and Jews). Of those couples who were living together at the time of the 1910 census and who had married before immigration, more than half immigrated in the same year. Children were often separated from their fathers but rather rarely from their mothers. Most separations of any kind were brief, usually lasting less than two years. Some of our estimates are in line with the findings of others, while in other cases they raise questions about ethnic myths and ethnic stereotypes.