“The boarding house is the life for me.” Regional and socioeconomic dynamics of emigration to America before the Great War

Abstract

The period between 1867 and 1914 is seen by Hungarians in two conflicting ways. One view is that of a shiny period of development when the country was able to connect to the European economic sphere as part of the Austro–Hungarian Empire. The other perception is that of a period when social and regional inequalities increased to a point where millions who could not find opportunities for themselves “stumbled” to America. One could argue that it was the increasing integration into the European and global economy which created a critical disruption which in turn led to more intensive industrialisation and its side effect: mass migration. But there is more to examine.

This study uses historical sociology to investigate the dynamics and triggers of emigration to America, with a specific emphasis on the push and pull factors on both sides of the Atlantic. We discuss emigration as a response to the challenges of modernisation in an attempt to align the two conflicting perceptions. In the study, we use both the conceptual framework of migration sociology and the period-specific policy discourse on migration.

Migration is a complex phenomenon which is difficult to understand from only one particular perspective. As our study shows, the drivers of migration comprise more than the conventional push and pull factors, as these are of different importance for different families and individuals. Investigating the Hungarian migration to the United States in this period, we disaggregate the push and pull factors as well as intervening obstacles into several factors on both a macro-level and a micro-level. In addition, we apply this approach separately for the migration to, and back from, America. This challenges the conventional picture which has long focused only on the stream leaving Hungary. The deeper historical analysis addresses the social and policy responses in both Hungary and the United States, each in its own specific cultural and economic context.

The significance of the study is that it discusses migration dynamics and period-specific responses in an era when social sciences just started to understand the systematic drivers behind migration. Large-scale population redistribution had not triggered heated political and cultural responses in Hungary before the end of the 19th century. It is a valuable conceptual exercise to study the specific migration streams that created the first policy discussions, however inadequate the understanding of this phenomenon was at the time. In addition, the study serves as an interesting historical reference point to contemporary discourses on international migration, for example, today’s emigration of Hungarians or the arrival of international companies in Hungary. In that respect, not much has changed in the past 100-plus years.