Statistics on nineteenth-century growth are shaky, but the most reliable indicate that even though the United States grew faster than Europe between 1870 and 1913—with the most rapid and sustained growth coming after 1897—its growth rate was very similar to those of other British settler colonies: Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The American growth rate after 1870 was actually lower than it had been between 1820 and 1870. In part the American economy was growing because the United States was growing.
