Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
5.1.1.
The United States in 1930
Population
4,000,000
0
5
00 km
2,000,000
400,000
Source: US Census Bureau
Designed and made by JM Zaninetti, University of Orleans, CEDETE Institute
Figure 5.4.
1930 population by county
The decennial census of 1930 is our starting point for various reasons. The Great
Depression, which put an end to the cycle of westward expansion and colonization
of the Great Plains, began in 1930. The effects of the great wave of European
immigration had dissipated and the early years of the decade were characterized by a
pause in US growth. It was also a period marked by the transition from the
paleotechnical era, where the railway (and its urban variant the tramway) and
steamboats were the main methods of mechanical transport, to the neotechnical era
during which the car would replace short-distance rail transportation and aviation
would replace long-distance sea and rail transportation. New technologies had not
yet been sufficiently tested and were not cheap enough to make any major changes
to the territory. The geography of human settlement in the United States was
dominated by the legacy of the Industrial Revolution and the development of the
Manufacturing Belt (see Figure 5.4). As there little more than 122.4 million people,
the population density of the conterminous states was still only 16 inhabitants per
km². Almost 16% of Americans (20 million) lived in one of the country's seven
cities of one million or more inhabitants. Six of them were located in the Heartland
