U.S. Census Office, Increase or Decrease of the Rural Population, 1880 to 1890 (1898)

The story of the United States in the decades following the Civil War often focuses on the increasing urban population, and for good reason. America’s urban population increased sevenfold in the latter part of the 19th century. However, as this map shows, parts of the United States west of the Mississippi also saw increases in the rural population, as people moved westward in search of riches, land, and work. The map, published under the direction of Henry Gannett in the The Statistical Atlas of the United States, Based Upon the Results of the Eleventh Census, is part of a series of maps focusing on the distribution of different elements of the population, and shows decreases in the rural population in red, and increases in the rural population in yellow. In discussing the map, Gannett focuses attention on the areas that decreased in rural population, writing, "Comparing the rural population of 1880 with that of 1890, county by county, it is found that over large areas this part of the population has diminished in number during this decade" (p. 17). However, it is hard to discount the large portions of the West that increased in rural population over the same decade due to westward migration.