Migration History: United States

“American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.”

“The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) is a think tank and an educational institute devoted to the study of international migration… Consisting of over 100 collections, the CMS Archives documents the immigrant experience from the mid-19th to the 21st century, in many communities in the eastern half of North America, from the Quebec province of Canada to Venezuela. The CMS Archives is an especially rich source for Italian-American studies, preserving the papers of individuals from the worlds of education, entertainment, labor, politics and publishing, and the records of community organizations such as parishes and educational and historical associations.” (CMS) They publish journals and writings related to international migration and maintain archives of the history of immigration to the United States. Archival sources have not been digitized.

“Our library was founded to track the history and implementation of federal immigration policy from the creation of the Immigration Bureau in 1891 to the activities of USCIS today.” (USCIS) Three periodicals are digitized and available on this site:
1) Immigration and Naturalization Service Monthly Review, 1943-1952
2) Immigration and Naturalization Reporter, 1952-1989
3) World War II Immigration and Naturalization Service Information Bulletin

Historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that document voluntary immigration to the United States from 1789 to 1930

"A two-part compendium which includes more than 12,500 time series providing a statistical history of U.S. social, economic, political, & geographic development. "

University of Texas at Austin project which traces national policy changes and agendas since WWII. Datasets are available ranging from Congressional hearings to Supreme Court cases.

Datasets are available for the public on social and demographic trends in the United States.

The General Social Survey (GSS) conducts basic scientific research on the structure and development of American society with a data-collection program designed to both monitor social change within the United States and to the United States to other nations

“The New Immigrant Survey (NIS) is a nationally representative multi-cohort longitudinal study of new legal immigrants and their children to the United States based on nationally representative samples of the administrative records, compiled by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), pertaining to immigrants newly admitted to permanent residence.” (NIS) The data from this project is available through a free account with OPR.

“The project sought to conduct in-depth interviews with immigrants residing in the northeastern United States, and was originally conceived to analyze whether the construction of immigrant identity conformed to the postulates of classic assimilation theory, segmented assimilation theory, or transnational theory, and to assess whether intergroup boundaries were being blurred or brightened...Our sampling quotas were defined by the cross-classification of location (Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York), origin (Caribbean, Mexican, Central American, South American), and generation (first or second)” (OPR) Public use data is available with an OPR account.

“Little Village, a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, is the largest Mexican community in the Midwestern United States. Previously a Czech immigrant neighborhood, the community experienced ethnic residential succession between 1970 and 2000...The process of residential succession produced a critical mass of ethnic consumers, which created a crucial market precondition for the development of an ethnic economy. Although Mexican business owners predominate in Little Village, the local business sector is ethnically heterogeneous.” To study this unique confluence of immigrant dynamics and local business, surveys were conducted of which public data is available on the OPR website.

National datasets and resources of different populations that have immigrated to the United States.

“Among the billions of historical records housed at the National Archives throughout the country, researchers can find information relating to immigrants from the late 1700s through the early 2000s. The National Archives preserves and makes available documents created by Federal agencies in the course of their daily business.” (NARA) Partially available online.

US Immigration records for individuals and families sorted by time period and context.

Data from 1840 forward from a collaborative project between Cornell's Albert R. Mann Library and the USDA.

See also the accompanying guide, Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000, which includes background information and actual questionnaires.

Presents selected decennial census data on the foreign-born population of the United States from 1850 to 1990. Updates and expands data on the foreign-born population published in 1975 in Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.

"Provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2013." See instructions about how to use the NHGIS Data Finder on the Census Data Guide under Data Sources.