I found a reference to the total wealth of immigrants coming into the United States in the early 1860s ammounted to $40,000,000 dollars. The popular history always taught us that these immigrants were masses of poor people that were worked in the mines and factories for little money.

I cannot prove this statement as of yet, but I did find that nearly 25% were English, 20% were German and 24% were Irish and about 5% were Swedish. If they brought in $40,000,000.00 then they had to have been upper middle class.

One branch of my family came from Germany to Alabama in the 1840s on their honeymoon. They liked it so much they stayed. To do what they did they had to have spent a lot of money.

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David Upton