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| Jewish Migration in the Early Twentieth Century |
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Untitled Document
Another motivation, one of great importance to mass migration – including the Jewish one, was the significant improvement in mass transportation means. Throughout the nineteenth century railways were being paved at an increasing rate, connecting small and remote towns with large cities. The new railway infrastructure which resembled huge spider webs spun across the entire European continent connected not only settlements but also countries. As a result of that change emigrants were able to reach source-ports effortlessly and speedily. Another technological development was the gradual transition from sailboats to steamships. Until mid-nineteenth century immigrants crossed the ocean in sailboats. Such voyages, which lasted about forty days, were dangerous and in its course emigrants were, to a large extent, at the mercy of weather changes. From the second half of the nineteenth century steamships started being built, creating a real revolution in the field of naval transportation. Now emigrants could cross the ocean safely in about 12 days. Replacing the sailboats with steamships economized sailing time by 70 percent. Competition among shipping companies on the heart of emigrant-customers resulted in the building of faster and more improved ships as well as a significant lowering of prices. The cost of the voyage became reasonable and affordable. The story of the Titanic is the best known example of a ship epitomizing naval transportation progress. That ship transported in the first class during its first journey in 1912, which ended with the horrible sinking disaster, rich and famous people from all over the world, but also hundreds of immigrants who were overly crowded in the third class, most of whom drowned.
The ocean-crossing of millions of Europeans became a thriving financial business yielding an annual fortune to the countries dealing in transporting emigrants. The first country to realize the tremendous economic potential involved in mass migration was Germany. Between the years 1850 and 1934 some five million passengers immigrated through the port of Hamburg to overseas countries. 82 percent of them were heading to the USA. The shipping company “Hamburg American Line” owned by the German shipping tycoon Albert Balin (1857-1918) was one of the first to open regular transportation lines for handling all the emigrants’ travel arrangements. If the number of emigrants sailing from the port of Hamburg with a sailing ticket which in 1910 cost 150 mark is doubled, it will be found that in 84 years of emigration some 750 million mark entered the German treasury; and this amount does not include the expenses of such emigrants such as train tickets, border crossing, boarding, food, other expenses and waiting time at the port up to the actual sailing.
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Copyright © 2005 by Dr. Gur Alroey and the University of Haifa.
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