| In the thirty year period from 1815-1845, immigration began to affect American life, making the eastern part of the continent more ethnically diverse. Immigration also began to have a marked affect on North Atlantic commerce. In this period, the passenger trade emerged as a discrete, self-conscious entity.;Ireland, however, could not sustain the trade required to keep vessels coming to local ports, and Irish ports began to lose business to more centrally located Liverpool by 1830. Liverpool's dominance resulted from its preeminence as the chief port of import and export for England's growing industrial complex. The vast cotton trade centered on Liverpool, and the world's first regularly scheduled shipping lines, the packets, developed to connect this port with New York, the North American center of the Atlantic trades.;Liverpool and New York also became centers of migration. Merchants in these two ports were crucial to the development of the passenger trade. As emigrants began arriving in Liverpool seeking passage, local merchants saw the potential of this commerce, and, in the 1820's, developed the local passenger trade to New York. Their activities were successful enough to center much of the steerage trade on Liverpool.;The business of the Liverpool passenger agents grew in the 1830's. They extended the range of their activities deep into England and Ireland, and developed the remittance as the chief means of financing the journey. In the process, they created a vast new maritime activity, stimulating emigration, and paving the way for the mass movements of later decades.;The organization of the passenger trade was one of the most important commercial developments of the early nineteenth century. This trade began in Ireland after 1815. In the ports of Ulster, important centers for emigration, merchants saw the potential of passengers as a source of business, and developed this commerce as a full-time activity. The first shipping lines devoted primarily to steerage passengers developed out of Belfast in the 1820's, helping to initiate and focus mass migration from Ireland. |
