Immigration, Mortality, and Population Growth in Boston, 1840-1880 Richard A. Meckel Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter, 1985), 393-417. Stable URL htp:/flinks.jstor-org/sicisici=( 122-1993%28198524%29 15%3A3%3C393%3 AIMAPGIG3E2, ‘0%3B2-D Journal of inerdisciplinary History is currently published by The MIT Press, Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupslwww.jstor.orgijourals'mitpress.html ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Sun Feb 5 10:44:31 2006Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xv:3 (Winter 1985), 393-417, Richard A. Meckel Immigration, Mortality, and Population Growth in Boston, 1840-1880 — Few topics seem to occasion so much disagreement and so little consensus among American his- torians interested in urban demography as the rates, trends, and causes of mortality in American cities during the nineteenth cen- tury. Beyond general agreement that death rates were falling during the last decade or two of the century, the range of opinion is broad. One analysis has mortality declining throughout the century. Another has it remaining stable through 1830 before beginning to fall, Yer another has it rising after mid-century before reversing itself in the 1880s." Much of this conflict of opinion derives from the almost complete lack of reliable national vital rates for American cities prior to the ewenticth century. Federal records are incomplete, and, with a few exceptions, those of individual cities are not much better. Other factors contribute further to the uncertainty and make generalization difficult. For instance, some demographers now suspect that national mortality shifts in nineteenth-century ‘America may have been composite phenomena, consisting of a number of regional shifts differing in timing and cause. Similarly, recent research suggests that urban mortality rates during the last, century may have been highly shaped by relatively unique, local socioeconomic conditions. Richard A. Meck is Assistant Professor inthe American Civilization Program a Brose University oo22-19ss/os0395-25 Son solo (© 1085 by The Massachusetts Intzete of Technology and she editors of The Jounal of Inerdsphinary story 1 Warren S. Thompson and Pascal K. Whelpton, Population Trends inthe United States (New York, 1933), 230. Conrad Tauber and lene B. Tauber, The Changing Population i the United Stats (New York, 1958), 269-271; Robert Higgs, The Transomation of the ‘Anericon Economy, 1865-1915 (New York, 971), 68 Edward Mecker, "The Improving Health ofthe United States, 1836-1013," Explorations ip Ezotomic History, 1X (1072) 383, Gretchen A. Condran and Eileen Crimmins-Gardncr, “Public Health Mesures snd Mor tality U.S. Cites in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Honan Ecalgy, VI (1978), 357-360, 2 Samuel Preston and Euinne van de Wale, "Urban Trend Mortality in the Ninctconth Contry.” Poplation Suis, XXXU (1978), 275-997394 | RICHARD A, MECKEL Hoping to overcome the data problems and better understand the role of local conditions, a few demographers have recently turned their attention to the study of mortality in individual cities. Although thus far limited to the late nineteenth and early twen- ticth centuries, their efforts point the way to an approach which seems well suited to penetrating the confusion surrounding earlier mortality rates and trends. One advantage of this approach is that it allows for the full exploitation of the often fragmentary and idiosyncratic records kept by most cities. Another is that it per~ mits demographic phenomena to be placed within their specific and often unique urban contexts. Unlike the national study, that of the single city does not require that hypothesized determinants of mortality be measured disembodied from local conditions or that the city itself be treated as a static entity. This last factor is especially significant, for the nineteenth-century American city was constantly changing in size, composition, and shape.’ No city may better illustrate the protean character of nine- teenth-century urban America than Boston during the middle decades of the century. Its population in 1840 numbered 84,401 Forty years later it had grown to 362,839. Immigration contrib uted heavily to this increase and significantly changed the social fabric of the city. In 1840 barely 30 percent of all Bostonians were foreign born or the children of foreigners. By 1880 almost 64 percent were, Yet immigration and population growth tell only part of the story of Boston's transformation during these years. Physically, the city also changed in dramatic fashion, At the be- ginning of the period Boston was a relatively compact urban area of slightly over 3,300 acres. At the end it was a sprawling me- tropolis, covering more than thirty-six square miles. ‘Admittedly, Boston represents something of an extreme case. Only a handful of American cities approached its rate of popu- lation or area growth. Yet many cities did experience some form of decentralization and urban sprawl] during the second half of the nineteenth century. Consequently, the physical transformation of the urban environment demands some evaluation as a determinant of nineteenth-century urban mortality rates and trends. Such an evaluation is at the heart of this article, By examining mortality 3 Condrun and Rose Cheney, “Mortality Trends in Philadephia: Age and Cause-Specife Death Rates, 1860-1930," Demography, XIX (1982), 9-133,