Progressive Era Reforms and the Upward Mobility of Immigrants in the U.S.

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Civil Service Reform

Abstract

How did Progressive era reforms affect the economic fortunes and upward mobility of poor and immigrant communities in U.S. cities? The historical record is unclear. Some scholars point out that reformers often sought to improve urban living and working conditions and expand access to education, which generated new opportunities for economic advancement for poor and immigrant residents. Others argue that many of the progressive reforms adopted by cities were explicitly designed to reduce the political power and participation of these groups. We take advantage of deanonymized census data from 18700 to 1940 to contribute to this debate by examining how economic conditions evolved over time for poor and immigrant communities across 1,100 U.S. cities. After documenting how these groups fared in terms of their wages and occupations in each decade in cities that adopted different types of institutional reforms at different times, we implement a linking procedure that allows us to compare outcomes for fathers and sons within the same family. This approach provides the most broad and comprehensive account to date of whether and how municipal institutions matter for social and economic inequality.

Authors

• Maria Carreri, University of California, San Diego

• Julia Payson, New York University