Ancient immigrants and early cultures

Growth of U.S. Population

1.1 Growth through immigration

1.1.1 Ancient Immigrants and Early Cultures

1.1.2 European and African Immigration in the Colonies

1.1.3 Diversity and Assimilation in American Society

1.1.4 Restrictions on Immigration

1.1.5 Immigration in 20th-Century America

1.1.6 Racism

1.2 Growth through natural increase: births

1.2.1 Birthrates in Early America

1.2.2 Declining Birthrates

1.2.3 Birthrates Since World War II

1.2.4 Educational and Racial Differences in Birthrates

1.3 Growth through natural increase: deaths

Age of U.S. Population

Geographic Distribution of U.S. Population

3.1 Migrations and diversity

3.2 Major migrations of the US population

Urbanization of America

4.1 Growth of cities

4.2 Move to suburbia

Religion in the United States

5.1 History of religion in the USA

5.2 Religious discrimination

Family Life

6.1 Colonial families

6.2 African-American families under slavery

6.3 19th-century families

6.4 20th-century families

6.5 Current trends in family life

Human population of the United States today and the characteristics of that population. These characteristics include the age, ethnicity, immigration rates, birth and death rates, and geographic distribution of the American people. This article discusses these characteristics and how they have changed during the nation's history. It includes information on the growth of America’s urban and suburban society, the history of religion in the United States, and changes in the American family over time.

According to the 2000 census, the United States was a nation of 281,421,906 people living and working within an area of 9.6 million sq km (3.7 million sq mi). This population count makes the United States the third most populous country in the world, after China and India. Nearly 5 percent of the earth’s inhabitants live in the United States. Historically, this nation has attracted vast numbers of immigrants from around the globe. Yet the United States remains less densely populated than other large countries or other industrialized nations—in 2002 there were 29 persons per sq km (75 per sq mi).

The population of the United States has grown continuously, from 4 million at the first national census in 1790, to 63 million in 1890, to 250 million in 1990. Its natural growth rate in 2002 was a moderate 0.5 percent compared with a 1.25 percent growth rate for the world. This U.S. growth rate reflects the 14.1 births and 8.7 deaths per 1,000 people that were occurring yearly in the United States. At this rate of growth, it would take the United States 78 years to double in population, while the world population would double in 55 years. These growth rates, both nationally and internationally, are likely to change, however, as birthrates were declining in developed and developing nations at the turn of the 21st century, and death rates were rising in parts of Africa and the former Soviet Union.

For a large country, the United States is also remarkably uniform linguistically and culturally. Only 6 percent of Americans in the 1990 census reported they spoke little or no English. This is very different from many other countries. In Canada, 67 percent of the population speaks only English, 14 percent speaks only French. India has 14 major languages and China 7 major dialects. The linguistic uniformity in the United States results from early British dominance and from widespread literacy. Advertising, movies, television, magazines, and newspapers that are distributed across the nation also promote a common language and common experiences.

Cultural differences among parts of the United States—north and south, east and west, island and mainland—are also disappearing. In the second half of the 20th century, Americans were more likely than ever before to travel or move to other parts of the country. The national media and large corporations promote the same fashions in dress, entertainment, and sometimes in behavior throughout the states and regions. Newer suburbs, apartments, offices, shops, factories, highways, hotels, gas stations, and schools tend to look much the same across the nation. The uniformity of the American media and the dominance of the English language not only characterize the United States, but increasingly influence cultures around the globe. E-mail and the Internet are the latest technologies that are spreading American English.

Although America’s culture is becoming more uniform, its society remains a diverse mix of ethnic, racial, and religious groups. The United States is a pluralistic society, meaning it is composed of many nationalities, races, religions, and creeds. Some of the people who immigrated to America embraced the opportunity to leave old cultures behind and to remake themselves unencumbered by past traditions and loyalties. Others found that the liberties promised under the Bill of Rights allowed for distinctiveness rather than uniformity, and they have taken pride in preserving and celebrating their origins. Many Americans find that pluralism adds to the richness and strength of the nation’s culture.

The diversity of the U.S. populace has been a source of friction, as well. Throughout the nation’s history, some segments of American society have sought to exclude people who differ from themselves in income, race, gender, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. Even today, some citizens argue that recent arrivals to the United States are radically different from previous immigrants, can never be assimilated, and therefore should be barred from entry. There are very different understandings of what makes a person an American. The nation’s motto, E pluribus unum (“From many, one”), describes the linguistic and cultural similarities of the American people, but it falls short as a description of the diversities among and within the major groups—Native Americans, those whose families have been Americans for generations, and more recent immigrants. This diversity is one of America’s distinguishing characteristics.

1. Growth of U.S. Population

1.1 Growth through immigration

Colonizers and conquerors, wanderers and settlers have long been attracted to America’s abundant resources. Since 1820, when national record keeping began, more than 65 million people have come to the United States; 660,000 immigrants arrived in 1998 alone. The vast majority of Americans trace their ancestry to one or more of these immigrant groups. The various ethnic and racial origins of the residents and immigrants remain important sources of personal identity. Of the 224 million people reporting their ancestry in the 1990 census, only 13 million, or 6 percent, identified themselves as Americans only. The rest chose one or more broad racial or linguistic groupings (such as African American or Hispanic) or national heritages (German, English, Irish, and Italian were most common) to define their origins. Most Americans possess varied national, ethnic, and racial identities that reflect both the origins of their ancestors and their own affiliation to the United States.

Until the late 19th century, immigration to the United States was unrestricted, and immigrants came freely from all parts of the world. However, the areas of the world contributing the largest share of immigrants have shifted during the course of America’s history. In the 1790s the largest numbers of immigrants came from Great Britain, Ireland, western and central Africa, and the Caribbean. A hundred years later, most immigrants came from southern, eastern, and central Europe. In 1996 they were most likely to come from Mexico, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and China—indicating a recent increase in Asian immigration. Not all immigrants stay in the United States. Although 46 million immigrants arrived in the United States from 1901 to 1999, nearly a third later returned to their homelands. In earlier years, a similar proportion of migrants returned.

The 1990 census indicated that nearly 20 million inhabitants had been born outside the United States, about 8 percent of the total population. Eight million, or 40 percent, of those born overseas became naturalized citizens. Early in the 20th century it took immigrants three generations to switch from their native language to English. At the end of the 20th century, the shift to English was taking only two generations. This is not only because of the daily exposure to English-language movies, television, and newspapers, but because entry-level jobs in service industries require more communication skills than did the factory jobs that immigrants took a century or more ago.

Ancient immigrants and early cultures

The earliest arrivals of humans into the territory that is now the United States are poorly documented, but archaeological work provides an idea of when human settlement began in the Americas. Most anthropologists believe that small groups of hunters and foragers began migrating from northeastern Asia to northwestern North America at least 15,000 years ago. These ancient migrants crossed to North America during the most recent of the ice ages, when glaciers had frozen much of the world's water on land. At that time, sea levels were lower than they are today, and a natural land bridge, called Beringia, linked present-day Siberia and Alaska. The earliest archaeological sites in North America, dated at more than 11,000 years old, indicate that humans quickly spread south and east across the continent. Separate waves of peoples migrated to the Americas over thousands of years. The last of these occurred around 4,000 years ago when the Inuit and Aleut peoples arrived in what is now Alaska from northeastern Asia. Other migrations include the Hawaiian people, who arrived from the island of Raiatea, near Tahiti in Polynesia, in the 7th century ad. More migrations to Hawaii from the same region occurred through the 13th century.

By the 15th century thousands of separate groups lived in North America, speaking hundreds of mutually incomprehensible languages and many more related languages and dialects. The cultures were as varied as the languages, ranging from agricultural, mound-building cultures in the Southeast and in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys to the cliff dwellers in the Southwest, and from the complex fishing societies in the Northwest to the foragers of the northern Great Lakes. These various groups were neither static nor homogeneous populations. They only seemed alike to the later-arriving Europeans, who mistakenly labeled all these groups as “Indians.” In fact, recent histories of native America show that towns and cultures emerged, prospered, and sometimes fell because of changes in climate, technology, or available resources. Warfare, diplomacy, and trade also affected native cultures and settlements. The peoples of America have always exhibited social, political, and economic diversity, and American history did not begin with European settlement.

The arrival of Europeans and Africans starting in the late 16th century brought irreversible changes. As the European population grew, conflicts developed between Europeans and Native Americans over the control of the land. From the early 17th century to the late 19th century, war, disease, and the confiscation of land, resources, and livelihoods took a severe toll on all native populations. In what are now the lower 48 states, a native population that ranged from 1.5 million to 8 million or more prior to European conquest was reduced to 243,000 by 1900. On the Hawaiian Islands, the native Hawaiian people numbered 300,000 when Europeans arrived in 1778 and only 135,000 by 1820. In Alaska, 20,000 Aleutian natives existed before contact with Europeans in the 18th century and only 1,400 by 1848.

Entire peoples and ways of life disappeared, and straggling survivors formed new nations or tribal groups with the remnants of other groups, moved to new territories, and adopted various social, economic, and military strategies for survival. Some migrated west, ahead of the advance of European migration. Some went to Canada, where westward settlement by European Canadians occurred somewhat later and where government relations with native peoples were somewhat less harsh. The overall decline of native populations masks periods of recovery and the continued resistance of native peoples, but the dominant trend was one of a steep decline in numbers. This trend was not reversed until the second half of the 20th century—by the 2000 census, 2.5 million Native Americans, including Inuits and Aleuts, lived in the United States.

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