Abstract
German Immigration to Pennsylvania, 1709 to I820 The largest group of non-British Europeans arriving in North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were Germans. Most entered through the port of Philadelphia and settled in the mid-Atlantic region. From 1730 to 1760, German immigrants represented 20 to 30 percent of the population growth in the middle colonies. Pennsylvanians of German ancestry accounted for 50 to 60 percent of Pennsylvania's population in 1760 and 33 percent in I790. They were a potent force in shaping the social, economic, and political life of the mid-Atlantic region.1 The social composition of German immigrants has been used to explain why Germans emigrated and how German colonists influenced, and were influenced by, American society. However, the exact nature of this composition has remained unresolved. Were Germans pushed to emigrate because economic conditions and inheritance customs made farm holdings or craft trades marginal? Or were they pulled to America by recruiters? Were German colonists mostly uneducated peasant farmers who arrived
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