Internal Migration in Peace and War

Abstract

IN A DISCUSSION of wartime migration, it is well to remind ourselves that Americans are a very mobile people in peacetime. The long and frequent treks of the frontier period seem to have left us with a national habit of pursuing opportunity about the country. The census data on State of birth have recorded the cumulative effects of these currents and cross-currents at decennial intervals since i850. Not until I940, however, did we collect national figures on internal migration among and within States during a specific period of time. Data from which to derive measures of internal migration during the war period are relatively scarce. However, by piecing together the various items of information that are available, one can obtain the broad outlines of recent population movements in the United States. The I940 data cover the period from April II 935, to April I, I940, a period characterized by gradual and partial recovery from the Great Depression. Cityward migration from rural areas was accelerating but still lagged behind the pace set in the booming twenties. The centrifugal scatter from metropolis to suburbs was more pronounced than ever. The long-established exodus from the South to the North was slackening, but the older westward movement went on, aggravated by drought in the Plains States. About I4,000,000 persons lived in a different county' in I940 from their county of residence in I935. It is they whom we have somewhat arbitrarily chosen to call mi-