ABSTRACT
A significant percentage of the industrial workers on the western side of the Atlantic were immigrants. Immigration caused significant demographic change in both North and South America during the nineteenth century. It had obviously been a factor in peopling the Americas since 1492, but the numbers of European migrants greatly increased during the nineteenth century. Taken as a whole, the nineteenth-century Atlantic experienced the largest movement of people in history, comprising tens of millions of people leaving their homelands. Perhaps the most important factor was the advent of transoceanic steamship routes, which greatly shortened the duration of voyages across the Atlantic from two months to two weeks, thus significantly reducing the risks of crossing the ocean.
