A large number of English immigrants that migrated to the United States during the middle of the nineteenth century became farmers. Many immigrants coming to the U.S. wanted to own their own land, owning your own land was a sign of wealth and social standing. It was impossible to buy land in Great Britain because all of the land in England was owned by the countries nobility. Farming became a fall back plan for many English immigrants that did not succeed in jobs that they had prior. The majority of English immigrants that wanted to become farmers decided to settle in rural areas where land was plentiful.[i] By the middle of the nineteenth century Alexandria, VA was not a rural area, it was a burgeoning city. According to the 1860 census there was only one farmer in the Alexandria area, George Perverell.[ii] Perverell like other English immigrants that became farmers in the United State did not find the immediate success that they hoped for in farming when they came to the United States. Like other English immigrants, George Perverell, had to learn how to farm the land in the United States.[iii] English immigrant farmers in the U.S. during the nineteenth century also had to adjust to the country becoming more industrialized, the high point of farming ended in 1840.[iv]
[i] Charlotte Erickson, Invisible Immigrants: The Adaption of English and Scottish Immigrants in the Nineteenth- Century America (Coral Gables Florida: University of Miami Press, 1972), 22-83
[ii] 1860 Federal Census (Population Schedule) Alexandria, Virginia,
[iii] Charlotte Erickson, “The Bricket Series of Letters,” In Invisible Immigrants: The Adaption of English and Scottish Immigrants in the Nineteenth- Century America (Coral Gables Florida: University of Miami Press, 1972), 81-102
[iv] Rowland Tappan Berthoff, British Immigrants in Industrial America: 1750-1950 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1953), 20-25
