Danish Emigration, 1868-1900

This is a socio-historical survey of Danish emigration in the period 1868-1900. The method and the results of the survey are described in Kristian Hvidt's dissertation 'Flugten til Amerika eller Drivkræfter i masseudvandringen fra Danmark 1868-1914' (Flight to America. Motive Forces of the Mass Emigration from Denmark 1868-1914). # The survey examines Danish emigration between 1868 and 1900 in the context of the larger patterns of European migration, and it analyses the motive forces of that emigration by comparison with migration from other countries, especially from the rest of Scandinavia. # The most important source material is the archives of the police authorities of Copenhagen, which was the main port of embarcation for emigrants from Denmark and Southern Sweden. According to the first Danish law on emigration from 1868, the police had to certify all travel contracts between emigrants and agents. As a result the archives contain 86 large alphabetical registers with personal data on all emigrants who passed through the hands of the Copenhagen emigration agents during the period 1868-1934. These registers are the source of the data which, by means of computer-processing, have been used as the basis of the analyses. The study covers 172,022 Danes who emigrated in the period 1868-1900, and the following information was coded for each emigrant: year and month of emigration; route (direct or indirect via Hamburg or Liverpool); volume and page number in the registers; age; sex; accompanied or single (number in a group); occupation or status (wife, child, widow, etc.); place of last residence in Denmark; and destination