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British Americans
United Kingdom United States
Total population
Americans with majority British ancestry
90,573,000 (2015)[1]

39,834,650 (12.0%) alone or in combination
19,037,139 (5.7%) British alone
Including all British responses:
37,969,018 (11.4%) alone or in combination
17,425,620 (5.3%) British alone
Including only "British":
1,139,403 (0.3%) alone or in combination
515,251 (0.2%) "British" alone

2021 estimates[2]
Regions with significant populations
Throughout the entire United States except parts of the Midwest
Predominantly in the South, New England and Mountain West regions.
Languages
English, Goidelic languages, Scots, Cornish, Welsh
Religion
Christian
Mainly Protestant (especially Baptist, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker) and to a lesser extent Catholic and Latter-day Saint as well as non-religious along with converts to Islam, Judaism, eastern religions, etc.
Related ethnic groups

British Americans usually refers to Americans whose ancestral origin originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and also the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and Gibraltar). It is primarily a demographic or historical research category for people who have at least partial descent from peoples of Great Britain and the modern United Kingdom, i.e. English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Scotch-Irish, Orcadian, Manx, Cornish Americans and those from the Channel Islands and Gibraltar.

Based on 2020 American Community Survey estimates, 1,934,397 individuals identified as having British ancestry, while a further 25,213,619 identified as having English ancestry, 5,298,861 Scottish ancestry and 1,851,256 Welsh ancestry. The total of these groups, at 34,298,133, was 10.5% of the total population. A further 31,518,129 individuals identified as having Irish ancestry, but this is not differentiated between modern Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom) and the Republic of Ireland. Figures for Manx and Cornish ancestries are not separately reported, although Manx was reported prior to 1990, numbering 9,220 on the 1980 census, and some estimates put Cornish ancestry as high as 2 million. This figure also does not include people reporting ancestries in countries with majority or plurality British ancestries, such as Canadian, South African, New Zealander (21,575) or Australian (105,152).[3] There has been a significant drop overall, especially from the 1980 census where 49.59 million people reported English ancestry and larger numbers reported Scottish, Welsh and North Irish ancestry also.

Demographers regard current figures as a "serious under-count", as a large proportion of Americans of British descent have a tendency to simply identify as 'American' since 1980 where over 13.3 million or 5.9% of the total U.S. population self-identified as "American" or "United States", this was counted under "not specified".[4] This response is highly overrepresented in the Upland South, a region settled historically by the British.[5][6][7][8][9][10] Those of mixed European ancestry may identify with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.[11] Of the top ten family names in the United States (2010), seven have English origins or having possible mixed British Isles heritage (such as Welsh, Scottish or Cornish), the other three being of Spanish origin.[12]

Not to be confused are cases when the term is also used in an entirely different (although possibly overlapping) sense to refer to people who are dual citizens of both the United Kingdom and the United States.[citation needed]

Sense of heritage

     UK       United States.

Americans of British heritage are often seen, and identify, as simply "American" due to the many historic, linguistic and cultural ties between Great Britain and the U.S. and their influence on the country's population. A leading specialist, Charlotte Erickson, found them to be ethnically "invisible".[13] This may be due to the early establishment of British settlements; as well as to non-English groups having emigrated in order to establish significant communities.[14]

Number of British Americans

Table below shows census results between 1980 (when data on ancestry was first collected) and the 2020 census. Response rates for the question on ancestry was 83.1% (1980) 90.4% (1990) and 80.1% (2000) for the total population of the United States.[15][16]

British American plurality in light green. (2010)
Year Ethnic origin Population % of pop.
British; total 61,327,867 31.67
1980[17][18] English 49,598,035 26.34
Scottish 10,048,816 4.44
Welsh 1,664,598 0.88
Northern Irish 16,418 0.01
Total 46,816,175 18.8
1990[19] English 32,651,788 13.1
Scottish 5,393,581 2.2
Scotch-Irish 5,617,773 2.3
Welsh 2,033,893 0.8
British 1,119,140 0.4
Total 36,564,465 12.9
2000[20] English 24,515,138 8.7
Scottish 4,890,581 1.7
Scotch-Irish 4,319,232 1.5
Welsh 1,753,794 0.6
British 1,085,720 0.4
Total 37,619,881 14.4
2010[21] English 25,927,345 8.4
Scottish 5,460,679 3.1
Scotch-Irish 3,257,161 1.9
Welsh 1,793,356 0.6
British 1,181,340 0.4
Total 58,649,411 TBA
2020[22][23] English 46,550,968 14.0
Scottish 8,422,613 TBA
Scots-Irish 794,478 TBA
Welsh 1,977,383 TBA
British 860,315 TBA
British Islander 43,654 TBA

Composition of Colonial America

Ethnic distribution in 1700.[24]

  English / Welsh (80.0%)
  Dutch (4.0%)
  Scottish (3.0%)
  African American (11.0%)
  Other Europeans (2.0%)

According to estimates by Thomas L. Purvis (1984), published in the European ancestry of the United States, gives the ethnic composition of the American colonies from 1700 to 1755. British ancestry in 1755 was estimated to be 63%, comprising 52% English and Welsh, 7.0% Scots-Irish, and 4% Scottish.[25]

Studies on origins, 1790

The White Population of the United States in 1920, apportioned according to the National Origins Formula prescribed by §11(c) of the Immigration Act of 1924. About 43.5% of White Americans were deemed to be of colonial stock descended from the population enumerated in 1790, more than 3/4 of whom from Great Britain.[26]
European Americans in 1790, by nationality, according to the preliminary Century of Population Growth estimate in 1909 (top half) and revised American Council of Learned Societies study estimates accepted by the Census Bureau in 1929 (bottom half).[27][28]

The ancestry of the 3,929,214 population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names in the very first United States official census and assigning them a country of origin.[14] There is debate over the accuracy between the studies with individual scholars and the Federal Government using different techniques and conclusion for the ethnic composition.[29][14] A study published in 1909 titled A Century of Population Growth by the Census Bureau estimated the British origin combined were around 90% of the white population.[30][31][32]

Another source by Thomas L. Purvis in 1984[33] estimated that people of British ancestry made up about 62% of the total population or 74% of the white or European American population.[33] Some 81% of the total United States population was of European heritage.[34] Around 757,208 were of African descent with 697,624 being slaves.[35]

A Century of Population Growth (1909)

Estimated British American population in the Continental United States as of the 1790 Census.[27]

State or Territory
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland United Kingdom British Isles
Total
 Great Britain Kingdom of Great Britain British
Total		  Ireland
England English Wales[a] Scotland Scotch Ireland Irish
# % # % # % # % # %
 Connecticut 223,437 96.21% 6,425 2.77% 229,862 98.98% 1,589 0.68% 231,451 99.66%
 Delaware 39,966 86.30% 3,473 7.50% 43,439 93.80% 1,806 3.90% 45,245 97.70%
 Georgia 43,948 83.10% 5,923 11.20% 49,871 94.30% 1,216 2.30% 51,087 96.60%
 Kentucky 50,802 83.10% 6,847 11.20% 57,649 94.30% 1,406 2.30% 59,055 96.60%
 Maine 89,515 93.14% 4,154 4.32% 93,669 97.46% 1,334 1.39% 95,003 98.85%
 Maryland 175,265 84.00% 13,562 6.50% 188,827 90.50% 5,008 2.40% 193,835 92.90%
 Massachusetts 354,528 95.00% 13,435 3.60% 367,963 98.60% 3,732 1.00% 371,695 99.60%
 New Hampshire 132,726 94.06% 6,648 4.71% 139,374 98.77% 1,346 0.95% 140,720 99.72%
 New Jersey 98,620 58.03% 13,156 7.74% 111,776 65.77% 12,099 7.12% 123,875 72.89%
 New York 245,901 78.22% 10,034 3.19% 255,935 81.41% 2,525 0.80% 258,460 82.21%
 North Carolina 240,309 83.10% 32,388 11.20% 272,697 94.30% 6,651 2.30% 279,348 96.60%
 Pennsylvania 249,656 58.97% 49,567 11.71% 299,223 70.68% 8,614 2.03% 307,837 72.71%
 Rhode Island 62,079 95.99% 1,976 3.06% 64,055 99.05% 459 0.71% 64,514 99.76%
 South Carolina 115,480 82.38% 16,447 11.73% 131,927 94.11% 3,576 2.55% 135,503 96.66%
 Tennessee 26,519 83.10% 3,574 11.20% 30,093 94.30% 734 2.30% 30,827 96.60%
 Vermont 81,149 95.39% 2,562 3.01% 83,711 98.40% 597 0.70% 84,308 99.10%
 Virginia 375,799 85.00% 31,391 7.10% 407,190 92.10% 8,842 2.00% 416,032 94.10%
 United States 2,605,699 82.14% 221,562 6.98% 2,827,261 89.12% 61,534 1.94% 2,888,795 91.06%
  1. ^ and Welsh

American Council of Learned Societies (1929)

The 1909 Century of Population Growth report came under intense scrutiny in the 1920s; its methodology was subject to criticism over fundamental flaws that cast doubt on the accuracy of its conclusions. The catalyst for controversy had been passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed numerical quotas on each country of Europe limiting the number of immigrants to be admitted out of a finite total annual pool. The size of each national quota was determined by the National Origins Formula, in part computed by estimating the origins of the colonial stock population descended from White Americans enumerated in the 1790 Census. The undercount of other colonial stocks like German Americans and Irish Americans would thus have contemporary policy consequences. When CPG was produced in 1909, the concept of independent Ireland did not even exist. CPG made no attempt to further classify its estimated 1.9% Irish population to distinguish Celtic Irish Catholics of Gaelic Ireland, who in 1922 formed the independent Irish Free State, from the Scotch-Irish descendants of Ulster Scots and Anglo-Irish of the Plantation of Ulster, which became Northern Ireland and remained part of the United Kingdom. In 1927, proposed immigration quotas based on CPG figures were rejected by the President's Committee chaired by the Secretaries of State, Commerce, and Labor, with the President reporting to Congress "the statistical and historical information available raises grave doubts as to the whole value of these computations as the basis for the purposes intended."[28] Among the criticisms of A Century of Population Growth:

  • CPG failed to account for Anglicization of names, assuming any surname that could be English was actually English
  • CPG failed to consider first names even when obviously foreign, assuming anyone with a surname that could be English was actually English
  • CPG failed to consider regional variation in ethnic settlement e.g. surname Root could be assumed English in Vermont (less than 1% German), but more commonly a variant of German Roth in states with large German American populations like populous Pennsylvania (home to more Germans than the entire population of Vermont)
  • CPG started by classifying all names as Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, or other. All remaining names which could not be classed with one of the 6 other listed nationalities, nor identified by the Census clerk as too exotic to be English, were assumed to be English
  • CPG classification was an unscientific process by Census clerks with no training in history, genealogy, or linguistics, nor were scholars in those fields consulted
  • CPG estimates were produced by a linear process with no checks on potential errors nor opportunity for peer review or scholarly revision once an individual clerk had assigned a name to a nationality

Concluding that CPG "had not been accepted by scholars as better than a first approximation of the truth", the Census Bureau commissioned a study to produce new scientific estimates of the colonial American population, in collaboration with the American Council of Learned Societies, in time to be adopted as basis for legal immigration quotas in 1929, and later published in the journal of the American Historical Association, reproduced in the table below. Note: as in the original CPG report, the "English" category encompassed England and Wales, grouping together all names classified as either "Anglican" (from England) or "Cambrian" (from Wales).[28]

United Kingdom Estimated British American population in the Continental United States as of the 1790 Census United States[28]

State or Territory
 United Kingdom United Kingdom British Isles
Total
 Great Britain Kingdom of Great Britain British
Total		  Ulster
England English Wales[a] Scotland Scotch Northern IrelandScotch-Irish
# % # % # % # % # %
 Connecticut 155,598 67.00% 5,109 2.20% 160,707 69.20% 4,180 1.80% 164,887 71.00%
 Delaware 27,786 60.00% 3,705 8.00% 31,491 68.00% 2,918 6.30% 34,409 74.30%
 Georgia 30,357 57.40% 8,197 15.50% 38,554 72.90% 6,082 11.50% 44,636 84.40%
 Kentucky & TennesseeTenn. 53,874 57.90% 9,305 10.00% 63,179 67.90% 6,513 7.00% 69,692 74.90%
 Maine 57,664 60.00% 4,325 4.50% 61,989 64.50% 7,689 8.00% 69,678 72.50%
 Maryland 134,579 64.50% 15,857 7.60% 150,436 72.10% 12,102 5.80% 162,538 77.90%
 Massachusetts 306,013 82.00% 16,420 4.40% 322,433 86.40% 9,703 2.60% 332,136 89.00%
 New Hampshire 86,078 61.00% 8,749 6.20% 94,827 67.20% 6,491 4.60% 101,318 71.80%
 New Jersey 79,878 47.00% 13,087 7.70% 92,965 54.70% 10,707 6.30% 103,672 61.00%
 New York 163,470 52.00% 22,006 7.00% 185,476 59.00% 16,033 5.10% 201,509 64.10%
 North Carolina 190,860 66.00% 42,799 14.80% 233,659 80.80% 16,483 5.70% 250,142 86.50%
 Pennsylvania 149,451 35.30% 36,410 8.60% 185,861 43.90% 46,571 11.00% 232,432 54.90%
 Rhode Island 45,916 71.00% 3,751 5.80% 49,667 76.80% 1,293 2.00% 50,960 78.80%
 South Carolina 84,387 60.20% 21,167 15.10% 105,554 75.30% 13,177 9.40% 118,731 84.70%
 Vermont 64,655 76.00% 4,339 5.10% 68,994 81.10% 2,722 3.20% 71,716 84.30%
 Virginia 302,850 68.50% 45,096 10.20% 347,946 78.70% 27,411 6.20% 375,357 84.90%
Thirteen Colonies 1790 Census Area 1,933,416 60.94% 260,322 8.21% 2,193,738 69.15% 190,075 5.99% 2,383,813 75.14%
Ohio Northwest Territory 3,130 29.81% 428 4.08% 3,558 33.89% 307 2.92% 3,865 36.81%
New France French America 2,240 11.20% 305 1.53% 2,545 12.73% 220 1.10% 2,765 13.83%
Spanish Empire Spanish America 610 2.54% 83 0.35% 693 2.89% 60 0.25% 753 3.14%
 United States 1,939,396 60.10% 261,138 8.09% 2,200,534 68.19% 190,662 5.91% 2,391,196 74.10%
  1. ^ and Welsh

1980

The 1980 census was the first that asked people's ancestry.[36] The 1980 United States Census reported 61,327,867 individuals or 31.67% of the total U.S. population self-identified as having British descent. In 1980, 16,418 Americans reported "Northern Islander". No Scots-Irish (descendants of Ulster-Scots) ancestry was recorded, although over ten million people identified as Scottish.[37] This figure fell to over 5 million each in the following census when the Scotch-Irish were first counted.[38]

1990

Over 90.4% of the United States population reported at least one ancestry, 9.6% (23,921,371) individuals as "not stated" with a total of 11.0% being "not specified".[39] Additional responses were Cornish (3,991), Northern Irish 4,009 and Manx 6,317.[40]

2000

Most of the population who stated their ancestry as "American" (20,625,093 or 7.3%) are said to be of old colonial British ancestry.[41]

2000 Census[42]
Ancestry Number % of total
German 42,885,162 15.2
African 36,419,434 12.9
Irish 30,594,130 10.9
English 24,515,138 8.7
Mexican 20,640,711 7.3
Italian 15,723,555 5.6
French 10,846,018 3.9
Hispanic 10,017,244 3.6
Polish 8,977,444 3.2
Scottish 4,890,581 1.7
Dutch 4,542,494 1.6
Norwegian 4,477,725 1.6
Scotch-Irish 4,319,232 1.5
United States 281,421,906 100

Geographical distribution

English
Scottish
Scots-Irish
Welsh

Following are the top 10 highest percentage of people of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry, in U.S. communities with 500 or more total inhabitants (for the total list of the 101 communities, see references)[43][44][45]

English

  1. Hildale, UT 66.9%
  2. Colorado City, AZ 52.7%
  3. Milbridge, ME 41.1%
  4. Panguitch, UT 40.0%
  5. Beaver, UT 39.8%
  6. Enterprise, UT 39.4%
  7. East Machias, ME 39.1%
  8. Marriott-Slaterville, UT 38.2%
  9. Wellsville, UT 37.9%
  10. Morgan, UT 37.2%

Scottish

  1. Lonaconing, MD town 16.1%
  2. Jordan, IL township 12.6%
  3. Scioto, OH township 12.1%
  4. Randolph, IN township 10.2%
  5. Franconia, NH town 10.1%
  6. Topsham, VT town 10.0%
  7. Ryegate, VT town 9.9%
  8. Plainfield, VT town 9.8%
  9. Saratoga Springs, UT town 9.7%
  10. Barnet, VT town 9.5%

Welsh

  1. Malad City, ID city 21.1%
  2. Remsen, NY town 14.6%
  3. Oak Hill, OH village 13.6%
  4. Madison, OH township 12.7%
  5. Steuben, NY town 10.9%
  6. Franklin, OH township 10.5%
  7. Plymouth, PA borough 10.3%
  8. Jackson, OH city 10.0%
  9. Lake, PA township 9.9%
  10. Radnor, OH township 9.8%

2020 state totals

As of 2020, the distribution of British Americans (combined English, Welsh, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and British ancestry self-identification) across the 50 states and DC is as presented in the following table:

Estimated British American population by state[46][47]
State Number Percentage
 Alabama 593,684 12.13%
 Alaska 95,555 12.97%
 Arizona 880,800 12.28%
 Arkansas 362,319 12.03%
 California 3,194,332 8.12%
 Colorado 891,059 15.67%
 Connecticut 410,316 11.49%
 Delaware 125,678 12.99%
 District of Columbia 62,960 8.97%
 Florida 2,182,375 10.29%
 Georgia 1,229,670 11.69%
 Hawaii 85,508 6.02%
 Idaho 413,867 23.59%
 Illinois 1,039,812 8.18%
 Indiana 827,256 12.35%
 Iowa 363,077 11.53%
 Kansas 424,001 14.56%
 Kentucky 689,667 15.46%
 Louisiana 362,382 7.77%
 Maine 359,023 26.78%
 Maryland 643,269 10.65%
 Massachusetts 886,192 12.89%
 Michigan 1,259,125 12.62%
 Minnesota 455,104 8.13%
 Mississippi 326,418 10.95%
 Missouri 800,254 13.07%
 Montana 187,084 17.62%
 Nebraska 214,299 11.14%
 Nevada 317,810 10.49%
 New Hampshire 321,821 23.75%
 New Jersey 606,095 6.82%
 New Mexico 206,995 9.87%
 New York 1,399,358 7.17%
 North Carolina 1,618,439 15.58%
 North Dakota 50,522 6.64%
 Ohio 1,508,197 12.92%
 Oklahoma 473,455 11.99%
 Oregon 731,409 17.51%
 Pennsylvania 1,465,777 11.46%
 Rhode Island 142,889 13.51%
 South Carolina 748,602 14.70%
 South Dakota 77,081 8.77%
 Tennessee 1,004,100 14.83%
 Texas 2,667,892 9.32%
 Utah 1,044,688 33.15%
 Vermont 152,659 24.45%
 Virginia 1,254,899 14.75%
 Washington 1,201,638 16.00%
 West Virginia 293,448 16.24%
 Wisconsin 471,045 8.11%
 Wyoming 111,384 19.16%
 United States 37,235,289 11.40%

History

Overview

The British diaspora consists of the scattering of British people and their descendants who emigrated from the United Kingdom. The diaspora is concentrated in countries that had mass migration such as the United States and that are part of the English-speaking world. A 2006 publication from the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million British-born people lived outside of the United Kingdom.[48][49]

After the Age of Discovery, the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe, and the British Empire's expansion during the latter half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century saw an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", with particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America".[50]

The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people",[51] who left the United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents".[50] As a result of the British colonization of the Americas, what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British".[50]

Historically in the 1790 United States census estimate and presently in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population" contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere.[51] There is also a significant population of people with British ancestry in South Africa.[citation needed]

Colonial period

Main article: British colonization of the Americas

An English presence in North America began with the Roanoke Colony and Colony of Virginia in the late-16th century, but the first successful English settlement was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. By the 1610s, an estimated 1,300 English people had traveled to North America, the "first of many millions from the British Isles".[52] In 1620, the Pilgrims established the English imperial venture of Plymouth Colony, beginning "a remarkable acceleration of permanent emigration from England" with over 60% of trans-Atlantic English migrants settling in the New England Colonies.[52] During the 17th century, an estimated 350,000 English and Welsh migrants arrived in North America, which in the century after the Acts of Union 1707 was surpassed in rate and number by Scottish and Irish migrants.[53]

John Trumbull's famous painting, Declaration of Independence. Most of the Founding Fathers had British ancestors.

The British policy of salutary neglect for its North American colonies intended to minimize trade restrictions as a way of ensuring they stayed loyal to British interests.[54] This permitted the development of the American Dream, a cultural spirit distinct from that of its European founders.[54] The Thirteen Colonies of British America began an armed rebellion against British rule in 1775 when they rejected the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation; they proclaimed their independence in 1776, and subsequently constituted the first thirteen states of the United States of America, which became a sovereign state in 1781 with the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The 1783 Treaty of Paris represented Great Britain's formal acknowledgment of the United States' sovereignty at the end of the American Revolutionary War.[55]

In the original Thirteen Colonies, most laws contained elements found in the English common law system.[citation needed]

The vast majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States were of mixed British extraction. Most of them were of English descent, with smaller numbers of those of Scottish, Irish or Scots-Irish, and Welsh ancestry. A minority were of high social status and can be classified as White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP). Many of the prewar WASP elite were Loyalists who left the new nation.[56]

Uncle Sam embracing John Bull, while Britannia and Columbia hold hands and sit together in the background (1898).

Immigration after 1776

British immigration to the U.S. 1820–2000
Period Arrivals Period Arrivals Period Arrivals
1820–1830 27,489 1901–1910 525,950 1981–1990 159,173
1831–1840 75,810 1911–1920 341,408 1991–2000 151,866
1841–1850 267,044 1921–1930 339,570
1851–1860 423,974 1931–1940 31,572
1861–1870 606,896 1941–1950 139,306
1871–1880 548,043 1951–1960 202,824
1881–1890 807,357 1961–1970 213,822
1891–1900 271,538 1971–1980 137,374
Total arrivals: 5,271,016[57][58][59][60]

Nevertheless, longstanding cultural and historical ties have, in more modern times, resulted in the Special Relationship, the exceptionally close political, diplomatic and military co-operation of United Kingdom – United States relations.[61] Linda Colley, a professor of history at Princeton University and specialist in Britishness, suggested that because of their colonial influence on the United States, the British find Americans a "mysterious and paradoxical people, physically distant but culturally close, engagingly similar yet irritatingly different".[62]

For over two centuries (1789–2009) of early U.S. history, all Presidents with the exception of two (Van Buren and Kennedy) were descended from the varied colonial British stock, from the Pilgrims and Puritans to the Scotch-Irish and English who settled the Appalachia.[63]

Cultural contributions

Much of American culture shows influences from nation states of British culture. Colonial ties to Great Britain spread the English language, legal system and other cultural attributes.[64] Historian David Hackett Fischer has posited that four major streams of immigration from the British Isles in the colonial era contributed to the formation of a new American culture, summarized as follows:

Fischer's theory acknowledges the presence of other groups of immigrants during the colonial period, both from the British Isles (the Welsh and the Highland Scots) and not (Germans, Dutch, and French Huguenots), but believes that these did not culturally contribute as substantially to the United States as his main four.

Historical influence

Apple pie – New England was the first region to experience large-scale English colonization in the early 17th century, beginning in 1620, and it was dominated by East Anglian Calvinists, better known as the Puritans. Baking was a particular favorite of the New Englanders and was the origin of dishes seen today as quintessentially "American", such as apple pie and the oven-roasted Thanksgiving turkey.[69] "As American as apple pie" is a well-known phrase used to suggest that something is all-American.

Automakers

Buick – David Dunbar Buick was a Scottish-born American, a Detroit-based inventor, best known for founding the Buick Motor Company.[citation needed]

Motorcycle manufacturer

Founders of Harley-Davidson, from left: William A. Davidson, Walter Davidson Sr., Arthur Davidson and William S. Harley.

Harley-Davidson – The Davidson brothers were of Scottish descent (William. A., Walter and Arthur Davidson) and William S. Harley of English descent. Along with Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company was the largest and most recognizable American motorcycle manufacturer.[70]

Sports

Main article: Origins of baseball

Baseball – The earliest recorded game of base-ball for which the original source survives, involved the family of George II of Great Britain, played indoors in London in November 1748. The Prince is reported as playing "Bass-Ball" again in September 1749 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, against Lord Middlesex.[71] The English lawyer William Bray wrote in his diary that he had played a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, also in Surrey.[72][73] English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey; Bray's diary was verified as authentic in September 2008.[74][75] This early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by British immigrants. The first appearance of the term that exists in print was in "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book" in 1744, where it is called Base-Ball. Today, rounders, which has been played in England since Tudor times, holds a similarity to baseball. Although, literary references to early forms of "base-ball" in the United Kingdom pre-date use of the term "rounders".[76]

In addition to baseball, American football is a sport that developed from soccer and Rugby, which are both sports that originated in the British Isles.[77]

Bowling or ten-pin bowling derived from Nine-Pins (nine-pin bowling) brought over by early British settlers.

Continental Colors, 1775–1777

The "Grand Union Flag" which served as the U.S. national flag from 1776 to 1777; the thirteen stripes represent the original Thirteen Colonies.

The Grand Union Flag is considered to be the first national flag of the United States.[78] The design consisted of 13 stripes, red and white, representing the original Thirteen Colonies, the canton on the upper left-hand corner bearing the British Union Flag, the red cross of St. George of England with the white cross of St. Andrew of Scotland. The flag was first flown on December 2, 1775, by John Paul Jones (then a Continental Navy lieutenant) on the ship Alfred in Philadelphia).[78]

Place names

Alabama

California

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Texas

Utah

Virginia

Wisconsin

In addition, some places were named after the kings and queens of the former kingdoms of England and Ireland. The name Virginia was first applied by Queen Elizabeth I (the "Virgin Queen") and Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.,[92] the Carolinas were named after King Charles I and Maryland named so for his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary). The Borough of Queens in New York was named after Catherine of Braganza (Queen Catherine), the wife of the King Charles II.[93]

See also

References

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Scholarly sources

  • Berthoff, Rowland Tappan (1953). British Immigrants in Industrial America, 1790–1950.
  • Bridenbaugh, Carl. Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, 1590–1642 (1976).
  • Colley, Linda (1992), Britons: Forging the Nation, 1701–1837, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-05737-9
  • Ember, Carol R.; et al. (2004). Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Springer. ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.
  • Erickson, Charlotte. Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century America (1972_.
  • Fischer, David Hackett (1989). Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways In America.
  • Furer, Howard B., ed. The British in America: 1578–1970 (1972).
  • Handlin, Oscar (1980). Orlov, Ann; Thernstrom, Stephan (eds.). Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. the standard reference source for all ethnic groups.
  • McGill, David W., and John K. Pearce. "American families with English ancestors from the colonial era: Anglo Americans." in Ethnicity and family therapy (1996): 451–466; reviews modern social psychology of family types.
  • Marshall, Peter James (2001). The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00254-7.
  • Shepperson, Wilbur S. British emigration to North America: projects and opinions in the early Victorian period (1957), examines opinion in Britain. online
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  • Van Vugt, William E. "British (English, Scottish, Scots Irish, and Welsh) and British Americans, 1870–1940’." in Elliott Barkan, ed., Immigrants in American History: Arrival, Adaptation, and Integration (2013): 4:237+.
  • Van Vugt, William E. British Buckeyes: The English, Scots, and Welsh in Ohio, 1700–1900 (2006).
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