Fertility and Population Density, 1850

Census data from 1850 show that white women in the most densely populated states had the lowest fertility levels while those in the western states had the highest fertility levels. For example, women of child-bearing age in New England had, on average (statistically speaking), fewer than one child under the age of ten, but women in the Oregon Territory, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida had two or three times more children than their New England counterparts. Notice, however, that Missouri and Wisconsin were sparsely settled, and yet mothers in those states had fewer children than their counterparts in Indiana, which was relatively well developed. Frontier environments, the data suggest, did not always lead to higher fertility rates. (Comparable data are unavailable for African American mothers.)