ABSTRACT
With efficient transportation to any destination and with effective information about work, these individuals moved to where demands were greatest. The industrial economies of the Atlantic world, especially the United States, demonstrated an intense, almost insatiable, demand for labor. The United States, with its huge economy, drew the largest share of the human migrations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It called for workers to dig subway tunnels in the huge metropolises such as New York City, to fill the ranks of textile workers in New England or to descend the mines of Pennsylvania. The rapidly expanding economy meant the need for migrant workers never ceased. Migrants came to the United States often for short-term goals. Many did remain, while millions returned to their original homes. For the United States, short-term and long-term labor met its many diverse needs.
