Historical American Migration & Settlement Patterns:
A Selected Bibliography

This is a highly selective reading list on only a few aspects of the frontier movement in America, as derived from bibliographies for college classes I've taught and workshops for genealogists on this subject which I have moderated. It is not in any way intended to be an approach to the vast subject of the American frontier in general!

As an inveterate bibliographer, I have included many important newer works along with the 50-year-old classics. Billington and Turner are the jumping-off points for this entire field of study and are therefore more general sources, but all other items include significant material on the subject at hand — including land companies, the public land system, government and state bounties, and other motivations for uprooting and starting over.

A few items have been briefly annotated. It should also be noted that I have tried to provide the earliest publication date for the edition listed, but that many of the following titles have subsequently been reprinted.

This list does not incude the following topics: General studies of emigration from the Old World to the New, general studies of the subject of "Manifest Destiny," technical works in the science of demography, studies of Alaska & Hawaii (as being atypical of experiences in the continental U.S.), genealogical studies of specific families (with a few exceptions -- because they are very uneven, though many of them contain useful information on migration patterns), the building of the transcontinental railroad, the cattle industry and cattle trails, 20th century migration (which is mostly rural-to-urban, urban-to-suburban, and post-WWII racial and ethnic migration), and seasonal migrant labor. It also does not include pamphlet-length publications, of which many hundreds have been published.

Finally, some of the resources listed may seem, at first glance, to have little to do with the topic. However, I actually have read through all recommended books and articles, and many of them include significant useful information that is not always obvious from their titles.

NOTE: Please feel free to use this bibliography in your own research or studies -- that's why it's here. However, if you wish to reproduce it or use it in teaching, please remember that it's copyrighted -- so ask for permission! You'll probably get it, but ASK!