Economic Opportunity and White American Fertility Ratios, 1800-1860 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS79 Econotnic Opportunity and White American Fertility Ratios, 18001860 . By Colin Forster and G. S. L. Tucker. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972. Pp. ix, 121. $6.50.) Historical demography has recently emerged as one of the most exciting new fields for historians interested in an interdisciplinary approach to the past. Population pressures and fertility ratios are obviously important determining factors in the course of human history, but little is yet known concerning the causes of population and fertility shifts over time. For students of the American nineteenth century, the major demographic question is to explain the sharp and perlexing drop in the American birth rate between 1800 and 1860. While western European rates held steady until the full impact of industrialism was felt late in the century, the American rate which was high in 1800, declined by 25 per cent over the next 60 years (from 55 to 41 per thousand) at a time when the population was 80-90 per cent rural. This American anomaly has attracted the attention of several scholars in the past decade , notably Yasukichi Yasuba (1962), Don R. Leet (1973), and the present study by Forster and Tucker. Yasuba's Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800-1860: An Econotnic Study set the pattern for subsequent research by singling out the factor of availability of land as "a major determinant " for the declining fertility rate on the American frontier. As nearby farmland was filled up and economic opportunity declined, potential young farmers were forced to delay marriage for several years. Yasuba's land availability thesis came under immediate attack by J. Potter (1965) for not giving adequate weight to the factors of urbanization and industrialization, immigration and internal migration, and sex ratios. Forster and Tucker's objective was to retest Yasuba's thesis. This is done by employing more sophisticated statistical methods, such as regression analysis, and by "fine tuning" data by using countylevel rather than state-level population figures. The authors' conclusion, after nearly 70 pages of detailed statistical analysis, is to reaffirm the Yasuba thesis with only minor qualifications. The growing scarcity of new farm land, not urbanization, was the single most important reason for the sharp decline in American fertility in the antebellum decades. Even European immigration had little impact because, as the authors argue, the fertility ratio of native white Americans was 70 per cent higher than that of immigrants of the 1840s and 1850s. Given the shaky nature of the evidence on native and immigrant birth ratios, which the authors admit (p. 113), this revisionist assumption does not "wash." Readers of Civil War History may not be interested in the largely technical sections of the Forster-Tucker book, but they will find intriguing the authors' general conclusions. Although written by specialists 80CIVIL WAR HISTORY for specialists, the book is not jargon-laden, and the chapter introductions and conclusions are clear, even to an unitiated reader. Robert P. Swierenga Kent State University A Whig Embattled: The Presidency under John Tyler. By Robert J. Morgan. (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, The Shoe String Press, 1974. Pp. xxi, 199. $10.00.) Robert J. Morgan's study of Tyler's presidency, originally published in 1954, has apparently been reprinted because of its timeliness in the Watergate era. Morgan's small volume discusses the whole of the Tyler administration, focusing upon the conflict between Congress and the President over constitutional, domestic, and foreign policy issues. Morgan's study lauds energetic, centralized leadership while chastising congressional efforts to plan a strong role in government. Congressional opposition to Tyler's administration—whether in the form of a vote, request for information, or refusal to approve his appointments —is uniformly labeled with "partisan," vindictive, "snyde," and other unfavorable adjectives. Tyler's vetoes, his refusal to supply requested information, or his re-submission of rejected nominees received favorable descriptive adjectives, such as "constitutional," "considered," "clever," "wise." In addition, Morgan's main theme, that Tyler was the object of partisan attack, is weakened by his insistence that parties did not exist, "merely a loose agglomeration of alliances grouped around personalities." (p. 177). Nevertheless, the heroic Tyler, "stood opposed to the aims of a...