Migration Motivation and Rural society in the 18th Century: from Upper-Rhein to North America

This investigation deals with the question of local and motivational background of emigration decisions. The investigation starts with the cause question and tests it empirically with an example case that exists in an emigration movement to North America. At the same time emigration to North America is placed in the context of the over-all migration activity in German-speaking countries at the end of the early modern age. Applying to the entire investigation area, the ´macrostudy´ on emigration to North America deals with the quantitative extents of this migration movement and its other concurrent migration movements. The ´microstudy´ on the village Goebrichen analyses the quantitative and normative structures of migration. Population development and agrarian production are reconstructed in order to test the widespread hypothesis that emigration is a sign for ´overpopulation´. Topics: price series, vital statistics in West Germany and America, ship-charter contracts in Rotterdam, trip routes of transatlantic couriers, population, area under cultivation, livestock, emigrants from Southwestern German cities, population of German name and total population in North American colonies.