Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910 / Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914

by Samuel Joseph

CHAPTER I[ToC]

Family Movement

Vital aspects of an immigrant people are revealed in its sex and age distribution. Generally speaking, whether an immigration is composed of individuals or of families is shown in the relative proportion of males and females, and of adults and children, of which it is composed.

That the Jewish movement is essentially a family movement is shown by the great proportion of females and children found in it.[94] From 1899 to 1910, out of a total immigration of 1,074,442 Jews, 607,822, or 56.6 per cent were males, and 466,620, or 43.4 per cent, were females. These proportions have varied but slightly throughout the period. The greatest departures were in the years 1904 and 1905. The increase of the immigration of males in these years is explained by the unusual conditions existing in Russia at this time—economic unrest, revolution—which had the effect of sending over the men as an avantgarde to prepare the way for their families. Young men fleeing to escape conscription also swelled the numbers. In 1906, however, the number of males decreased by 2,000, but that of females increased by more than 25,000. In this tremendous increase of females is registered the effect of the pogroms of 1905-6, in which years the movement became a veritable flight.

The general tendency has been towards an increase in the proportion of females. For the thirteen years preceding, from 1886 to 1898,[95] out of a total immigration at the port of New York of 251,623 Jewish adults, 147,053, or 58.4 per cent, were males, and 104,570, or 41.6 per cent, were females. The proportion of males is here somewhat higher than that for the period from 1899 to 1910. The difference is, however, relatively small. The tendency, previously noted, towards the increase in the proportion of females is found here. The greater relative diminution of the males in the later years—in 1894 reaching the point where there were more females—is even striking.

Turning to a consideration of the ages of the Jewish immigrants, we learn that, between 1899 and 1910, 267,656, or practically one-fourth of all the Jewish immigrants, were children under fourteen years.[96] The large part that is taken in the Jewish immigration by the children is apparent.

Here, again, 1904 and 1905 represent periods of great increase in the immigration of those between fourteen and forty-four years. As was the case with the females, the proportion of children in the immigration is at its greatest in the year 1906, by far the largest part of the increase for this year being children, thus giving a significant indication of the extent and literalness of the flight from Russia in this year of pogroms.[97] In the thirteen years preceding, from 1886 to 1898, of the 380,278 Jewish immigrants that entered the port of New York for this period, 128,655, or 33.8 per cent, were children under sixteen years of age.[98] A steady increase in the latter years is noted in the proportion of children, which harmonizes with a similar tendency noted of the females for the same period.

That these facts reveal a family movement of considerable size, there is no question. They become truly significant when comparison is made with the proportions of the females and the children in the general immigration and with those of the peoples of which it is composed.

A comparison of the proportion of males and females in the total and the Jewish immigration from 1899 to 1910 shows that for the entire period the percentage of females in the Jewish was much higher than in the total immigration, 43.4 per cent of the Jewish immigration being females as compared with 30.5 per cent of the total.[99] The percentage of females in the Jewish immigration was higher for every year from 1899 to 1910.

While the percentage of males in the total immigration was above 70 per cent in five years, the percentage of males in the Jewish immigration was less than 60 per cent in all but two years, 1904 and 1905, when it rose to 61.2 per cent and 63.2 per cent. The latter, which represents the highest point in the percentage of males in the Jewish immigration, was smaller than the percentage of males in the total immigration for every year but 1899. In other words the maximum percentage of males in the Jewish and the minimum percentage in the total immigration practically coincide.