Ethnicity, niches, and retail enterprise in Northern Cities, 1900

Abstract

During the early twentieth century, the ethnic neighborhoods of large northern cities supposedly created conditions that promoted the concentration of European ethnic groups in niches in the retail trade. Yet this popular assertion is based mainly on studies of one group in one location (e.g., Jews in New York). Following the "interactionist approach" to ethnic business, I use a multigroup/multilocality research strategy to show that in 1900 the groups most heavily concentrated in niches in the retail trade (Russians, Italians, and Poles) had their highest rates of retail enterprise in cities far removed from the sizable ethnic communities and large populations of major urban centers. The results suggest that (1) past studies have overstated the importance of ethnic communities and big cities for the formation of ethnic niches in retailing, and (2) the extraordinary concentration of entrepreneurial groups in such niches during the early twentieth century is best explained by a theoretical and analytic approach that takes account of both ethnicity and location.