Department of Commerce Report, "Trends in Location of Industry and Population"
Images (12)
Document
| id |
id
209298404
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 12FILED BY
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
BUREAU OF THE CENSUS
#
DR. STEELMAN
APR 1 7 1951
WASHINGTON 25
mottes
TRENDS IN LOCATION OF INDUSTRY AND POPULATION
30
x
add
(Abstract of an address by Director Roy V. Peel of the Bureau of
the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, before the American
Industrial Development Council of the Chamber of Commerce of the
United States at Washington, D. C. Monday, April 2, 1951)
For many years, advertisements of industrial products in magazines
X 172 have carried the notation, "Prices higher, west of the Mississippi" Now we
see, from time to time, advertisements bearing the footnote, "Prices higher,
east of the Rockies". This anomaly is a symptom of changes in the location of
industry and in the distribution of population in the United States of more
than passing interest to those concerned with industrial development and
management.
While more than half of American manufactures still is concentrated
in the Middle Atlantic and Great Lakes States, the steady growth of population
in other sections of the country has been accompanied by the development of
local industries. New industrial projects have gone into areas of rapid popu-
lation growth, of which the expansion in the Pacific Coast States is a major
example.
mor?
The Change in Half a Century
Fifty years ago, the Pacific Coast had 3 1/4 per cent of the Nation's
population, its factories employed less than 3 per cent of the country's in-
dustrial workers, who produced slightly more than 3 per cent of the country's
industrial goods as measured in terms of value added by manufacture. The last
Census of Manufactures, covering the year 1947, revealed that, with approxi-
mately 10 per cent of the Nation's population, the Pacific Coast States had
doubled their strength industrially with about 6 1/4 per cent of the country's
production workers, whose output in terms of value added represented nearly
7 1/2 per cent of the country's industrial products. Thus Census figures show
that industry, in substantial degree, has followed the westering population.
Moderate gains have been experienced in the South, in the Great Plains
States, and in the Mountain Division; while the rest of the country has shown
relative but not absolute losses. The change has not been great for the major
industrial States of the Middle Atlantic and East North Central Divisions.
Half a century ago, their industries employed nearly 59 1/2 per cent of the
as
Nation's production workers. Today, they still employ more than 57 per cent
of factory wage earners. Fifty years ago, these industrial States accounted for
62 per cent of the value added by manufacture. In the last Census of Manufac- -
tures they reported 59 1/2 per cent of the value added by manufacture. For
New England, however, the story is different. In the last fifty years, New
England's proportion of the Nation's wage workers declined from about 19 per
cent to a present 10 1/2 per cent, while the proportion of value added by
manufacture decreased from nearly 16 1/2 per cent to a little over 9 per cent.
the
Relations
belongs_to
belongs_to