Railways and Immigration, 1865-1914Railways and Immigration, 1865-1914

By: John Fowell '20 Geology

As immigrants arrived in the United States looking for a new life, they used the railways to travel west into the American continent. They arrived in East Coast cities, like New York and Boston and headed into the Great Lakes and Midwest to places like Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago. A city’s immigrant population was shaped by its economic history, with older, established cities having higher populations of western Europeans, such as German or Irish immigrants. New, growing cities had higher populations of the new immigrant groups from southern and eastern Europe, such as Polish or Italian immigrants. This project maps both the railways and the people that came, showing the connection between the two.