With Scarcely a Ripple: Anglo-Canadian Migration into the United States and Western Canada, 1880-1920

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom and The History of Fort St. Joseph, and the co-author of
Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American

In what seems destined to be a classic text, Widdis, an American, notes
that between 1880 and 1920, Canadians constituted the third-largest bloc
of immigrants (after Irish and Germans) to the United States. Their
impact, however, was almost imperceptible. They resembled Americans
(many of them were of American descent). They were not a homogeneous
group with regard to religion or ethnicity. And many came from families
that had spent little time in Canada and therefore lacked political
commitment to that country. Widdis notes as well that moving to the
United States did not have the same psychological implications for
Canadians as it did for Europeans: Canadians remained close to their
families and could easily visit their place of origin.

Drawing on newspapers, census data, and family records, Widdis
demonstrates that families moved in the direction of opportunity, from
one side of the border to the other—and, given enough time, back
again. He examines the push and pull factors that prompted them to leave
one country and move to the other. He describes who the migrants were,
where they went, and how they fared.

There are excellent maps that allow the reader to see migratory
patterns at a glance. Most Canadians who moved to the United States
during these decades settled in a border state (particularly Michigan
and New York), a New England state, or California. Widdis also analyzes
the migration of Americans and Canadians who had moved to the United
States into turn-of-the-century Saskatchewan. However, the emphasis is
on southbound migration.

This thoroughly researched book will be required reading for scholars
of Canada–U.S. relations, as well as for demographic historians.