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There are two primary demographic locations or settlement patterns -- rural and urban. The decadal census provides a detailed record of the growth of America from a rural people on the edge of a vast, undeveloped frontier to a highly developed urban colossus. At the time of its founding (1780s), the United States was almost entirely a rural, mostly agricultural society. The first Census showed that some 95 percent of Americans lived in rural areas (1790). This was one reason that the British failed to subdue the rebellious American colonists. The British could occupy the major cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, etc.), but this was a minuscule part of the colonial population. Most Americans lived on small, largely self sufficient family farms, largely unaffected by any British occupation of the few, still small urban centers. The British could occupy the cities, but occupying the countryside where most Americans lived was beyond the scope of British power. Unlike the Soviets in Afghanistan and now Ukraine, the British were unwilling to pursue genocide and destroy the population. And the small family farm was a fixture that the founding fathers based on the traditions of the Roman Republic sought to perpetuate as the United Stats began to settle the vast frontier. The Northwest Ordinance (1785) sought to proportionate the land for family farms rather than to vast plantations/haciendas. This was just as revolutionary as the creation of a democratic republic. For the first time in modern history, an important economy would not be based on forced labor (a landless peasantry). Rather the land would be worked by the people who owned it. The southern states developed on a different basis, burdened by the institution of slavery. This set up a conflict between free and forced labor that would defy solution by the political process. This would eventually be resolved only by the Civil War. And in the conflict between free and slave labor, it would be the dynamism of free labor leading to the industrialization of the northern states that would be the deciding factor. Industry would play a major role in the development of agriculture. First canals and steam boats mean that farmers had a way of getting their crops to market. But it was the rail road that eventually solved that problem. And Congress would extend the family farm pattern to the vast frontier West of the Mississippi River with the Homestead Act (1862)-- a major step along with the abolition of slavery that would signal the beginning of the end of forced labor in the world economy--one of America's great gifts to mankind. Industrialization fed by an inventive spirit and the push of free labor led to mechanization. This had begun (1860s), could not be fully achieved until Henry Ford set the process of putting American on wheels. The Model-T Tin Lizzy was soon followed by trucks and tractors. But the mechanization of the American farm had already began by the time of the Civil War. Mechanization in the 20th cebntury woud enable the United States to increase food production even as the rural populaionbegan to secline. The railroads had solved the farmer's market problem, but left the farmer hostage to the railroad tycoons. This would be a major problen in the Progressive Era. America by the turn of the century was not only an industrial colossus, but the greatest producer of agricultural products in the world--a phenomenon that would prevent famine in Europe after two terrible World Wars. That created major problems after World War I. American farmers expanded production during the War leading to boom and bust -- a depression after the War. These problems were not addressed until the the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal which developed major initiatives for the American farmer. The nature of rural life changed over time. The people on small farms were isolated from the rapid developments in the cities. Trips into the cities to purchase necessities were limited by transportation technology. The railroads transformed the American economy, but still did mot affect the isolation of rural people. But a string of important developments fundamentally changed the nature of rural life, including the mail order catalog (1880s), the Model-T Ford (1907), commercial radio (1920s), rural electrification (1930s), and the consolidation of small rural schools (1940s). Notice how fundamentally American all these development were.
U.S. Census. The population data we use here comes from the U.S. Censu, a continuous record mandated by the Constitution, and beginning in 1790. In using the Census data, it is important ti recognize changes in the definition of urban areas.
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