Costs, Risks and Migration Networks between Europe and the United States, 1900-1914

Abstract

This essays explores the peak period of voluntary mass migration between Europe and the United States - 1900 to 1914. It focuses on the four major networks that enabled migration in such high numbers: kinship and community; steamship agents; steamship conferences; and government regulatory bodies. It analyses the push and pull factors of mass migration; the business risks plaguing passenger cargo over freight cargo; the US political responses to mass migration; the cost of migration; and the approaches to risk management in migration networks. It concludes by claiming that the well-documented risk-mitigating networks during the ‘Great Migration’ offers insights into the migration networks of the early twenty-first century and provides possible solutions for coping with the contemporary risks of globalisation.