Progress amid poverty: economic opportunity in antebellum Newburyport

A study on the careers of unskilled workers in Newburyport, MA, between 1850 and 1880, focused on the prospects of economic improvement. Results revealed that migrants had strong potentials of career development than those who decided to stay. Schools in the nineteenth-century had catered mostly to children of naturally-born residents than to immigrant children. Economic considerations played an important role in the education of immigrants, where access to education depended on family income.