Where All Passenger Liners Meet: New York as a Nodal Point for the Transatlantic Migrant Trade, 1885–1895

Abstract

As Canny argued labor demand as such does not suffice to trigger in-migration. No major migration movement would take place, until it becomes profitable for the carriers of human cargo to make the connection between supply and demand. Nonetheless, as underlined by Hvidt the transportation system of mass migration has been so far quite neglected as a field of study. On the North Atlantic trade route a cost-effective migrant transport arose between Rotterdam and Philadelphia during the 18 Century. The system established in Rotterdam to organize the migrant transport was further developed in Bremen during the first half of the 19 th century. The migrant not only provided the Bremen merchants with a lucrative product for the westbound trade to the US, it also allowed them to take control over the cotton and tobacco eastbound trade. With rise of the mass migration a fierce competition for the migrant trade broke out between various ports on both sides of the Atlantic. During the second half of the 19 century, with the transition from sail to steam, major passenger liners tried to take control of the business in each of the European emigration ports. However, the impact of these companies on the organization of the migrant trade remains an open question. Whereas the competition for the trade in Europe resulted in the development of various important emigration ports such as Liverpool, Le Havre, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremen