Peter D. McClelland

Model-Building in the New Economic History

Of all varieties of history the economic is the most fundamental. Not the most important: foundations exist to carry better things. How a man lives with his family, his tribe or his fellow-citizens; the songs he sings; what he feels and thinks when he looks at the sunset; the prayers he raises—all these are more important than the nature of his tools, his trick of swapping things with his neighbours, the way he holds and tills his fields, his inventions and their consequences, his money-when he has learnt to use it-his savings and what he does with them [Clapham, 1957: introduction].

Demographic Dimensions of the New Republic: American Interregional Migration, Vital Statistics, and Manumissions, 1800-1860

This book provides the first comprehensive and consistent analysis of vital statistics and migration patterns for the United States between the Revolution and the Civil War. It is anchored in the one available source for nationwide estimates the decennial censuses. It attempts to provide for black and white populations a consistent set of estimates of birth and death rates rates of natural increase and net international and interregional flows. For the black population it also estimates the changing pace of manumissions in the ante-bellum decades. The census estimates are also conditioned by a wide range of historical evidence both quantitative and non-quantitative ranging from evidence on slave smuggling to ship traffic during the War of 1812. (EXCERPT)