Mr James Boyd
Academic History
BA Cardiff 2006
MA Cardiff 2008
PhD Research
PhD Research
Working Title: Investigation into the Structural Causes of German-American Mass Migration.
Having studied the process of modernisation in German Europe at BA and MA, one less researched consequence of this process, the mass exodus of several million rural Germans to the USA, appeared a very interesting avenue of further research. Although reasonably well developed from the perspective of US immigration history, examination of the causes of emigration from the German source are minimal, leaving scope for a very extensive project, subsequently narrowed to case studies of the areas most affected by the phenomenon. This has meant dealing with local level data to try and re-construct conditions in migration affected communities and villages. In the process, the findings have challenged some of the accepted wisdom about the causes of emigration, generating new conclusions and further research questions for the future.
Start Date: October 2009
First Supervisor: Dr Gerwin Strobl
Second Supervisor: Dr Bill Jones
Additional information
Teaching on HS1105 ‘Making of the Modern World'
Economic History Society Fellowship, 2012-13 for follow on research: ‘The Costs of German Economic Unification’.