RD
MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES
The marked depression year 1837 shows a sharp decline of im-
ports but immigration does not show a substantial decline until
1838. The dullness from 1840 to 1842 and again in 1846 is evident
in imports in 1840, 1842, and 1846, but is only tardily reflected in
immigration by slumps in 1845 and 1848, respectively.
Imports and immigration both show a substantial decline in
1855 and 1858, which may have been due to the brief depressions
following the panics of 1854 and 1857, respectively.
The evidence considered in the preceding paragraphs, though
fragmentary and scarcely adequate for conclusive judgments,
suggests that prior to the Civil War, although the relation between
industrial conditions in this country and the fluctuations in im-
migration is not obviously close, there is, nevertheless, some ten-
dency for the effects of a depression to be evident in immigration
after a period of time somewhat irregular in duration.
Of course, as long as free land was the chief lure to immigration,
one would not expect so close a relation between immigration and
business conditions as later when the chief incentive became the
chance of employment and good wages.
The Civil War interfered with both the imports of men and of
merchandise, but for both there was a recovery to a peak in 1866.
The influence of the depression of 1866-1867 is seen in a decline in
both immigration and imports in 1867 and 1868.
The great depression of the seventies, precipitated by the Sep-
tember panic of 1873, is accompanied in both imports and im-
migration by the most severe and prolonged slump in the entire
period, except that immigration fell off even more decisively during
the Great War. The decline in both immigration and imports is
evident in the annual data by 1874, and both curves show a recovery
in 1879 (fiscal year for imports, calendar year for immigration).
The industrial boom of the early eighties, culminating in 1882, is
accompanied by a similar boom in immigration, and the subsequent
depression, which became acute by May of 1884, is accompanied by
a continuous decline in both imports and immigration to a lowpoint
in 1885.
The period after the Civil War, and particularly the years sub-
sequent to 1889, is dealt with in more detail in succeeding chapters,
but we may profitably note here the major features of these recent
decades by continuing our comparison of immigration with imports
of merchandise as shown in Chart 10.
The mild crisis of 1890 does not find reflection in the movement
