In the 17th to early 19th centuries, many US cities published advertisements in European (primarily English) newspapers, offering attractive conditions for artisans who wanted to move to America. The state of Massachusetts promised all professional millers a free piece of land and forest that could be used to build a mill. Individual entrepreneurs also participated in this process. For example, in 1784, the glass industry of Baltimore began to develop - a local merchant brought 68 glassblowers from Germany, and another 14 from Holland. Entrepreneurs from many other states similarly imported specialists.
By the mid-19th century, most workers in American textile manufacturing were immigrants from England - former workers of British textile manufactories. One of them, Samuel Slater, is now considered the father of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Slater, who first worked as a weaver and then as a mid-level manager, circumvented the existing ban on the immigration of professionals in England and passed himself off as an agricultural worker. After moving to the United States, he brought with him the most advanced textile technologies in the world. Slater essentially created the US textile industry from scratch.
Similarly, many other immigrants strengthened and enriched the United States: for example, the Frenchman Irénée du Pont brought the latest gunpowder manufacturing technologies to the US (the chemical concern E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, which he founded, still exists and has become one of the largest in the world). Swiss financier Albert Gallatin became US Secretary of the Treasury. Gallatin essentially organized the purchase of France's North American colony of Louisiana, thereby nearly doubling the territory of the United States.
In 1847, Andrew Carnegie emigrated to the United States from Scotland. Five years later he founded a company that later became US Steel, the largest steel firm in the world. In 1889, Carnegie published an essay 'The Gospel of Wealth,' in which he argued that wealthy people are obliged to help the poor. Carnegie was a supporter of the ideas of British philosopher Herbert Spencer and sought to apply the ideas of neo-Darwinism to modern politics. In particular, he tried to introduce the ideas of peacemaking and international arbitration into politics. One of the most famous 'think tanks' in the US, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as the Peace Palace (now the International Court of Justice in The Hague), were founded by Andrew Carnegie. In addition, he established an extensive network of free libraries in the United States.
The United States attracted talents seeking refuge from persecution in their homelands. Russian emigrant Vladimir Zworykin built the first television set in 1933. Together with another emigrant from Russia, David Sarnoff, president of RCA (Radio Corporation of America), he created the world's first television station, and RCA factories began producing the first television sets. Later, Zworykin invented the night vision device, and RCA remains one of the world's largest manufacturers of electronic equipment. Another emigrant from Russia, Igor Sikorsky, an aircraft designer, built the first helicopter in the United States in 1939. To this day, the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation remains one of the world leaders in helicopter manufacturing.
Historian Niall Ferguson, in his book 'The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West,' emphasizes that at the beginning of the 20th century, Germany possessed the world's best research centers and universities. However, Nazism led to the expulsion of many famous scientists, the most well-known of whom was Albert Einstein. In total, about 100,000 European scientists moved to the United States before, during, and immediately after World War II. Among them: the father of the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller; one of the creators of game theory, John von Neumann; one of the developers of the theory of the nuclear chain reaction, Leo Szilard; and others. In the short term, these talents allowed the United States to be the first to create nuclear weapons (as is known, Nazi Germany did not manage to do this). One of the long-term consequences of this 'brain drain' was the flourishing of US universities and American research centers, which played the first fiddle in the world.
After the end of World War II, the United States made significant efforts to obtain not only the secret technologies of Nazi Germany but also its minds. For example, the top-secret Operation Paperclip was carried out, the purpose of which was to search for and transport German military specialists to the United States (such as rocketeer Wernher von Braun, who later created American ballistic and space rockets). Historian Linda Hunt, author of the book 'Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990,' notes that the United States was not alone in the hunt for brains - similar operations in Germany were conducted by the USSR and Great Britain.
The process of European scientists moving to the United States continued in the 1950s and 1960s, when the United States spent enormous amounts on scientific research. The European Physical Society notes that unlike previous waves of brain drain, this one was driven by scientists' attempts to find better opportunities to apply their talents. Europe lost its appeal for them due to reduced state investment in science, declining prestige of the profession, lack of modern scientific equipment, vague prospects for the future, and so on. According to the journal Science, in the last decade, every seventh recipient of a doctoral degree moved from Germany to the United States. Three out of four German scientists who are Nobel laureates now work in the United States.
Among the talents who have changed not only the United States but also the world, one can name the Austrian emigrant Eugene Kleiner, who de facto created the world-famous Silicon Valley, a center of high-tech development. With Kleiner's participation, companies such as AOL, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Amazon, Lotus, etc. were launched. Andrew Grove, who fled Hungary in 1956, created and led Intel to a leading position in the world. Foreign minds also made it possible to create many thriving internet companies such as Google and YouTube.
The process of attracting talent to the US has led to a number of surprises. First, the contribution of foreign specialists to US science and economy is staggering. Second, in some fields of knowledge, a reverse process has begun - for various reasons, "brains" are leaving or planning to leave for other countries.
Currently, according to the US Census Bureau, 14% of working-age Americans were born outside the country (latest available data for 2002). A study by the Migration Policy Institute showed that 44% of immigrants are employed in jobs requiring high qualifications (for native-born Americans, this figure is 60%). However, there is a nuance: low-skilled jobs are mostly held by immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Europeans and Asians excel in highly skilled positions, with 82% of them holding such positions, which is much higher than the comparable figure for native-born Americans. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, in the last decade, more and more low-educated people have been moving to the US. For example, among immigrants who arrived in the US between 2000 and 2006, 31% had no high school diploma.
A study by the International Monetary Fund showed that among legal immigrants who moved to the US, only 7% completed primary school, more than half have secondary or specialized secondary education, and about 25% graduated from universities. Immigrants from Africa make up a tiny share of immigrants, but among them, three out of four have a higher education diploma. A similar story is observed among representatives of other underdeveloped countries. For example, 70% of immigrants from Guyana have higher education, 46% from Trinidad and Tobago, and 42% from Jamaica.
Today, foreign talents play a huge role in US science and business. According to the American Enterprise Institute, 41% of patent applications for inventions filed in the US in 2005 were the brainchildren of foreign talents. "Foreigners" issued 75% of internationally registered patents owned by telecommunications firm Qualcomm, 65% of patents of pharmaceutical giant Merck, 64% of electromechanical concern General Electric, etc.
According to the Association of International Educators, the US bet on attracting foreign students led to the fact that if in 1954-1955, 34,000 foreigners studied in the US (1.4% of total students), then in 2005-2006 - 565,000 (3.9% respectively). More than half of them are students from South Korea, India, China, Taiwan, and Mexico.
According to the National Science Foundation, foreign students receive 40% of science degrees in chemistry and biology, 50% in mathematics and computer disciplines, and 58% in engineering. For every foreign student who has received an education at US technical universities, there are 62 patent applications (for native-born Americans, this figure is 51 applications per 100 graduates).
About 60% of graduates from US universities stay to work in the US. According to the Institute of International Education, more than a third of American scientists who have become Nobel laureates are immigrants. According to Time magazine, about 400,000 European scientists currently work in the US (in total, there are about 11 million scientific workers in Europe), and most of them do not intend to return to their homeland.
A study by Duke University showed that between 1995 and 2006, foreign talents (the vast majority of whom have scientific degrees) who moved to the United States created a quarter of new US engineering and technology companies and more than half of such firms based in Silicon Valley. In total, these firms created 450,000 new jobs and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006. The most common fields for foreign "brains" are software development, semiconductor manufacturing, they have created the best monitors and computer peripherals, and information technology. According to this study, immigrants from India (accounting for 26% of startups), China, Taiwan, and Japan are most active in creating new high-tech companies. In some states, post-Soviet influence is also noticeable: for example, in Massachusetts, 3% of high-tech companies are created by immigrants from Russia, and in New York - 6%.
In addition, the US has a number of government programs designed to attract foreign specialists. For example, there are special types of visas - H-1B (in 2007, it was obtained by 65,000 specialists plus 20,000 graduates of US universities) and some of its "counterparts" (for example, Australian citizens receive a similar E-3 visa). According to the Institute of International Education, about 90,000 foreigners with scientific degrees currently work in the US.
However, the US is now talking about the beginning of a "reverse brain drain" process. A 2003 study by Princeton University showed that one in three new highly skilled immigrants arriving in the US is not sure they will stay in America for long.
Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class", argues that in the long term, the United States may face a situation where "American brains" will seek happiness abroad. There are several reasons for this. One is the policy pursued by the federal authorities. For example, the US has introduced certain restrictions on stem cell research, which has led to an outflow of relevant specialists to Europe, where such restrictions do not exist. Another reason is outsourcing: American corporations are actively opening research centers in other countries around the world, where scientists are much cheaper. At the same time, they are laying off the most experienced and, accordingly, older specialists.