The Business of Transatlantic Migration between Europe and the United States, 1900–1914: Mass Migration as a Transnational Business in Long Distance Travel by Drew Keeling (review)

Whereas container transport, legal issues, and financial services are paramount to transatlantic migration today, passage on an ocean liner was the most important component of any move to the New World at the turn of the twentieth century. Using a range of predominantly quantitative source materials, Keeling’s book focuses on the business of several passenger lines during the two decades before World War I, providing an overview of the economics behind transatlantic migration. Although he freely consults the documents of the businesses in his study, Keeling relies primarily on his own data set—constructed from various company records, government reports, and even ship plans—covering transatlantic voyages and their resulting annual migration flows. He manages to integrate the quantitative material effortlessly into the text, which is structured chronologically and thematically at the same time; the narrative effectively marshals important events of chronological subperiods to confer a thematic structure on the delineated parts.

The initial chapters provide a general outline of the history, politics, and economics of steamship-based transatlantic migration during the nineteenth century. The main analysis begins with a description of the oligarchical market structure of the migration shipping sector in 1900, detailing the varying degrees of cooperation and coordination between the major participants, including a temporary breakdown of the system in 1904 that resulted in an escalating, destructive fare war between the companies. Keeling complements his discussion of the developing U.S. immigration and customs policies during the first decade of the twentieth century, especially the role of European shipping companies in the political process, with an emphasis on the importance of American labor-market conditions for the rise and fall of migration flows, as seen in the slump of 1907/08. Returning to the actual migration passage, Keeling links the improvement of safety and comfort with competition between the companies and the rise of return migration and tourist travel. In most of the chapters, he compellingly examines the personal motives and actions of important personages—most notably Albert Ballin of Hapag, Bruce Ismay of White Star, American financier John Pierpont Morgan, and President Theodore Roosevelt.

Unfortunately, Keeling omits a separate discussion of the migration process before embarkation in Western European port cities. Although other chapters allude to the involvement of certain companies before that stage, ranging from their agent networks to their coordination with government agencies, this omission is especially regrettable; it would have provided a better link to the literature about the motives behind emigration decisions and revealed more clearly the role that shipping companies played in them. Nonetheless, Keeling largely succeeds in presenting an accessible account of the migration business that will be useful not only to scholars of migration but also to specialists from such tangential fields as naval and U.S.-political history.