Great Migration

Examples of Great Migration in the following topics:

• The Great Migration and the "Promised Land"

  • The Great Migration was the movement of African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West.
  • The African-American Great Migration created the first large, urban black communities in the North.
  • While the Great Migration helped educated African Americans obtain jobs, the migrants encountered significant forms of discrimination.
  • This later painting, titled "During World War I there was a great migration north by southern Negroes" by the artist Jacob Lawrence, depicts African-American migration north via abstract images.
  • Examine the causes and effects of the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the North.

• Changing Demographics

  • From 1910 to 1970, approximately 6 million African-Americans moved out of the rural Southern U.S. into the Northeast, Midwest, and West in what historians have called the African-American Great Migration.
  • Some historians differentiate between the first Great Migration (1910–1930), numbering about 1.6 million migrants who left mostly rural areas to migrate to northern and midwestern industrial cities, and a Second Great Migration (1940 to 1970), in which 5 million or more people moved, including many to California and various western cities.
  • The Great Migration created the first large urban black communities in the North.
  • This later painting, titled "During World War I there was a great migration north by southern Negroes" by the artist Jacob Lawrence, depicts African-American migration north via abstract images.
  • Analyze the causes and challenges of both the Great Migration of African Americans and the immigration of Mexicans in the United States

• The "Nadir of Race Relations" and the Great Migration

  • In what became known as the Great Migration, more than 1.5 million black people left the South, and, while they faced difficulties, their chances overall were better in the North.
  • In the South, white people worried about the loss of their labor force and so frequently tried to block the black migration.
  • The years during and after World War I saw profound social tensions in the United States, not only because of the effects of the Great Migration and European immigration but also due to demobilization and the competition for jobs with returning veterans.

• Racial Friction

  • Numerous examples of postwar racial friction sparked by Nativism and the Great Migration reached a peak in the 1919 Red Summer.
  • Northern manufacturers recruited throughout the South, sparking an exodus of African-American workers that became known as the Great Migration.
  • Led by Madison Grant's book, The Passing of the Great Race, nativists grew more concerned with the racial purity of the United States.
  • The Passing of the Great Race achieved wide popularity among Americans and influenced immigration policy.
  • Beginning about 1915 through the 1930s, in what became known as the Great Migration, more than 1.5 million blacks left the South and moved to Northern cities seeking better living conditions including more work and an escape from the common vigilante practice of lynching, which were extra-judicial killings of blacks for various reasons.

• Changes in Agricultural Production

  • Agriculture underwent a revolution in the 1920s as heavy equipment enabled rapid expansion but also hurt small farmers and caused a migration to urban areas.
  • Despite this increase in farm size and capital intensity, however, the great majority of agricultural production continued to be undertaken by family-owned enterprises.
  • In fact, many did not remain down on the farm and instead became part of a great migration of youth from farms to nearby towns and smaller cities.
  • Some of this could be attributed to a desire for something more adventurous than rural life after seeing some of the culture capitals of Europe, but the migration was also driven by factors such as farm mechanization.
  • This was a direct cause and effect in terms of farmers migrating to urban areas even before the economic devastation of the Great Depression that came after 1929.

• African American Migration

  • The Exodus of 1879 was the first general migration of blacks following the Civil War.
  • It was the first general migration of blacks following the Civil War.
  • This sudden wave of migration came as a great surprise to many white Americans, who did not realize that black southerners were free in name only.
  • Summarize the patterns of African American migration in the late nineteenth century

• The Mormon Exodus

  • The Mormon exodus of 1846-47 was a large migration of members of the Church of Latter Day Saints from their home in Illinois to Salt Lake Valley, Utah.
  • The well organized wagon train migration began in earnest in April 1847, and the period (including the flight from Missouri in 1838 to Nauvoo) known as the Mormon Exodus is, by convention among social scientists, traditionally assumed to have ended with the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.
  • Wagon train migrations to the far west continued sporadically until the 20th century, but not everyone could afford to uproot and transport a family by railroad, and the transcontinental railroad network only serviced limited main routes.
  • The Mormon exodus began in 1846 when, in the face of these conflicts, Brigham Young (Joseph Smith's successor as President of the Church) decided to abandon Nauvoo and to establish a new home for the church in the Great Basin .
  • For his role in the migration, Brigham Young is sometimes referred to as the "American Moses. "

• Conclusion: Pre-Colonial Development of North America

  • Civilization in America began during the last Ice Age when nomadic Paleo-Indians migrated across Beringia.
  • After multiple waves of migration, complex civilizations arose.
  • The Great Bison Culture of the Great Basin area required ease of mobility to follow bison herds and gather seasonally available food supplies.
  • The Mexica migrated to present-day central Mexico and created a triple alliance with other dominant tribes in the area.
  • Photo of the Great House, a Hohokam settlement, at the Casa Grande National Monument.

• Dust Bowl Migrants

  • This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.
  • Others attempted to migrate to other regions of the country.
  • The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time.
  • Many Americans migrated west looking for work, and most found economic conditions little better than the ones they had left, given the pervasiveness of the Great Depression.
  • In the 1930's, severe drought and dust storms caused agricultural and ecological damage, exacerbating the economic plight of farmers during the Great Depression.

• French-British Rivalry in the Ohio Country

  • In the 1720s, a number of Native American groups began to migrate to the Ohio Country.
  • The Delawares were migrating because of the expansion of European colonial settlement in eastern Pennsylvania.
  • A number of Senecas and other Iroquois also migrated to the Ohio Country, moving away from the French and British imperial rivalries south of Lake Ontario.
  • The 1763 Treaty of Paris following the French defeat gave control of the entire Ohio region to Great Britain.
  • Despite its acquisition by Great Britain, the area remained officially closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763, which arose in part of the British desire to regain peaceful relations with the Shawnee and other tribes in the region.