What groups of people were most likely to move to the cities of late-nineteeth-century America, and why?

African Americans and foreign immigrants. Black people moved to northern cities, to industrialized states to escape poverty, discrimination and exclusion in the South. Millions of new immigrants arrived in the USA in the late 19th century escaping poverty or religious persecution. In both cases, they moved to look for economic opportunities and jobs available in the new factories created by a rapidly growing industrial economy.