Scottish Emigration Reading List, part one

Over the years I have been asked to recommend books on Scottish migration. I'm not sure why it took such a long time for me to realize this blog was the perfect place for a list of books. This post and the next contain titles specifically about Scottish migration between 1700 and 1850 that I read while doing my dissertation. I have limited it to books and not articles as the former are more easily accessed, especially if you don't have access to JSTOR, EBSCO host, or an acadmic library.

• Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland Family History Society. Hands Across the Water: Emigration from Northern Scotland to North America. Aberdeen: The Society, 1995.
• I remember this just being a wee booklet from a conference held in 1994 or 1995; it was one of the first things I read
• Adams, Ian, and Meredyth Some.rville. Cargoes of Despair and Hope: Scottish Emigration to North America 1603-1803. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1993.
• Aspinwall, Bernard. Portable Utopia: Glasgow and the United States, 1820-1920 . Aberdeen, 1984.
• Bailyn, Bernard. Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. New York: Random House, 1986.
• I enjoyed this book so much, I made my students read it when I taught American immigration. I loved it even before I met Bernard Bailyn.
• Brock, Jeanette M. The Mobile Scot: Emigration and Migration, 1861-1911 Edinburgh: John Donald, 1999.
• This is another book that I read when I first started working on my dissertation and wasn't quite sure what I was doing. It was a little dry, but I remember lots and lots of statistics.
• Brock, William R. Scotus Americanus, The: A Survey of the Sources for Links Between Scotland and America in the 18th Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1982.
• Bumsted, J. M. The People's Clearance: Highland Emigration to British North America, 1770-1815. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1982.
• Academics like to argue about Bumsted's conclusions. In one of the main points of the book, Bumsted takes on the "they were all forced out" mentality of Highland emigration, and suggests that many of them chose to go. Many scholars disagree with him; I do not.
• Campey, Lucille. A Very Fine Class of Immigrants: Prince Edward Island's Scottish Pioneers, 1770-1850. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books, 2001.
• This book is now in a second edition published in 2007. I don't always like the way in which Campey phrases things, but her conclusions are generally solid.
• Devine, Thomas Martin, editor. Scottish Emigration and Scottish Society: Proceedings of the Scottish Historical Studies Seminar University of Strathclyde 1990-91. Proceedings of the Scottish Historical Studies Seminar University of Strathclyde, 1990-91. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1992.
• I tripped across this book at the OSU library before I even went to Glasgow for my PhD. Many of the papers presented at a 1990 conference are printed here; all are quite good. There is even one by my supervisor, Edward J. Cowan.
• Dobson, David. Scottish Emigration to Colonial America, 1607-1785. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994.
• ———. Ships From Scotland to America 1628-1828. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1998.
• Donaldson, Gordon. Scots Overseas. London: Robert Hale, 1966.
• Erickson, Charlotte J. Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century America (Documents in American Social History). Coral Gables: Cornell University Press, 1972.
• Another book I read before I went to Scotland. Charlotte Erickson's work helped me figure out in what ways the Highlanders in Scotch Settlement maintained their own culture - at least for a while.
• ———.  Leaving England: Essays on British Emigration in the Nineteenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
• Graham, Ian Charles Cargill. Colonists from Scotland: Emigration to North America, 1707-1783. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956.
• Gray, Malcolm. Highland Economy, 1750-1850. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957.
• Also in a 1976 edition. This readable little book deals with economics of the region in the wake of the '45
• Harper, Marjory. Emigration from Northeast Scotland: Willing Exilesand Emigration from Northeast Scotland: Beyond the Broad Atlantic. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988.
• She was the external examiner for my dissertation.
• Hewitson, Jim. Tam Blake & Co.: The Scots in America (Canongate).Edinburgh: Canongate, 1995
• There is also a new revised 2nd edition: Tam Blake & Co. I read this while driving cross country in 2000, I remember being a bit disappointed in it, but judge for yourself.
• Hunter, James. A Dance Called America: The Scottish Highlands, the United States and Canada. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publications, 1996.
• Particularly good description of the 'Last Highland Charge' at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, North Carolina, in 1776.