William E. Van Vugt's Portrait of an English Migration: North Yorkshire People in North America offers an insightful and detailed assessment of the settlement and migration experiences of North Yorkshire immigrants who made their way across the Atlantic during the long nineteenth century. The research follows in the tracks of Van Vugt's scholarship on diverse aspects of the migratory movements of different migrant groups from the British Isles to North America. In Portrait of an English Migration Van Vugt expands this focus by specifically examining what we might best describe as a subset of a national immigrant group: immigrants from North Yorkshire. Portrait of an English Migration thus constitutes a case study of both the distinct aspects of this specific migration and an extrapolation of the common and wider patterns that serve to illuminate further English migration characteristics and experiences more broadly. North Yorkshire does indeed serve, as Van Vugt premises, “as a lens to bring English migration into sharper focus” (10). This is possible partly because Yorkshire exhibits characteristics—including a high rate of national population growth combined with a largely rural economy where opportunities for employment were limited—that tended to make migration, both internal and external, particularly appealing, especially during periods of change.
Within this contextual framework, Van Vugt chose to structure Portrait of an English Migration through both themes, including, for example, an exploration of the actual journey to North America, as well as themes that have to do with the experiences and impacts of immigrants post-arrival: farming and religion. Van Vugt also considers North American geographies and developments in particular states and regions. Combining themes and geographic locations is an approach that allows Van Vugt both to facilitate maximum coverage of questions relating to the emigration and settlement experiences of North Yorkshire immigrants and to keep in view the impact they had more broadly across locations. The latter enables sustained comparison across different areas throughout the study. This is particularly useful as geographies include not only such better-known settlement regions as Upper Canada, but also areas like Iowa, with which many readers will likely be less familiar as an immigration and settlement destination. The mixed approach adopted might, perhaps, have been pursued more effectively through a clear division into one thematic and one geographic section rather than the structure utilized, which jumps between the two. I recognize, however, that it can be difficult to divorce themes from locations as they frequently intersect.
Van Vugt begins with a chapter entitled “Origins” to situate Yorkshire's history and characteristics, including Yorkshire culture and practices that transferred across the Atlantic, for instance, mining, as the reference points for the study. From this follows a broadly linear account taking the reader from revolutionary America to Canada. The combination of themes and geographies succeeds in offering a fascinating and deep assessment of North Yorkshire immigration to North America that draws important conclusions. In particular, the persistence of some place-to-place migration patterns from the colonial period into the long nineteenth century and what Van Vugt describes as “the interconnectedness of North Yorkshire and North America” (293) are noteworthy. While essential migration patterns remained remarkably stable over time, some new areas, like Iowa, led to a wider dispersion of North Yorkshire, hence in that sense also English, migration in some parts and return movements, which existed for North Yorkshire immigrants too, meant a flow of people going in both directions. In that way, Van Vugt emphasizes that diasporas are not static and that connectedness and ongoing movements continue to shape them over time.
The inclusion of a chapter on Native Americans is also very welcome. Scholarship in migration and diaspora history (and I include my own in this) still does too little to address the impact that European settlement has had on indigenous peoples, so it is good to see more scholarship emerge that seeks to make new inroads, however small they sometimes remain due to issues such as limited sources. In this case, the story of Matthew Dinsdale, a Methodist preacher who had close and frequent contact with Native Americans, certainly provides some fascinating perspectives on encounters.
Ultimately, Van Vugt's well-written study is particularly important for two interconnected reasons. First is its scope: as a mix of synthesis and new research, Portrait of an English Migration makes an important contribution to the field of English diaspora studies by effectively expanding its reach and showing how an examination of an immigrant subset from below the national level can enrich our understanding of wider patterns. In essence, the distinct aspects of North Yorkshire immigrant experiences and behaviors, for instance in farming as is assessed in chapter 11, enable a much more nuanced understanding of the English whole. Being able to understand immigration through the eyes of North Yorkshire immigrants enhances the ways in which we understand Englishness and what might be called immigrantness overall. The English were a highly visible immigrant group, and Van Vugt's study gives this assessment new depth. In that way, Portrait of an English Migration makes another important—and wider—contribution to the disciplines of migration and diaspora studies, showcasing how a thematically and geographically broad study can serve to provide this depth. To allude to the study's title, it is a well-painted portrait of a migration experience indeed.
