Frontier Patterns of Marriage, Family, and Ethnicity: Central Wisconsin in the 1880S

Abstract

This essay examines ethnicity, nuptuality, and fertility in four central Wisconsin counties which typified newly opened areas in the North Central Region during the late nineteenth century. Frontier settlement was largely a family affair involving far more immigrants than native-born migrants. Central Wisconsin settlers had higher child-woman ratios than their national counterparts because they were more likely to be married, and their children were more apt to survive infancy. Interrelated factors involving marriage patterns, religious beliefs, residence, and husbands occupation were responsible for the fertility differentials among the ethnic groups within the region.