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When the Tide Turned: Immigration and the Delay of the Great Black Migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Wiiliam J. Collins
Wiiliam J. Collins
Affiliation:
graduate student in the Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
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Abstract

This article uses state and city level data to evaluate empirically Brinley Thomas's immigrant-as-deterrent view of the relationship between black emigration from the South and European immigration to the North. The article suggests a Todaro-like interpretation of the Great Migration, which emphasizes the importance of job availability to blacks in determining their expected wages. The combination of mass European immigration and hiring practices that favored white immigrants over blacks may have delayed the Great Migration by decades. The empirical work supports this view.

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Type
Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 1997 , pp. 607 - 632
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1997

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