United States Census

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The University of Virginia has developed an excellent resource for using the census online, the Historical United States Census Data Browser, which can be used with students to develop both quantitative literacy but also to develop a perspective on the migrations of people in United States History.

This site is: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html

Of course, the United States Census Bureau is also an excellent resource, including materials on the historical census, such as the following: The United States Census Bureau, “Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990” and The United States Census Bureau, Selected Historical Decennial Census.

For a more exhaustive list of documents and materials related to the census, including many online sources, see the “Census 2000 Toolkit” available at the University of Michigan Library.

1. Prepare for class discussion; be prepared to answer the following questions:

  • Use the Historical United States Census Data Browser to consider the issues involved in using the census as a source in your projects; also begin think about what these numbers tell you and do not tell you.’
  • Read and/or skim the U.S. Census Bureau’s publication, Measuring America.
  • What are the challenges of using this website? What other information do you need to know in order to make the census useful to your study? What sorts of things might you ask? What strategies should you adopt in using census data?
  • Finally, be prepared to discuss the census as a historical source. How useful is it as a source?

2. Tables
Prepare a data table (in excel is preferable) of the movement of African Americans from the South to the North of the United States. Use the 1890 Census, the 1910 Census, and the 1930 Census. Specifically, create a table of population for the following years—1890, 1910, and 1930—for both Ohio and the Nation as a whole. The following data elements should be in your table: Total Population, African-American population; percentage of the population that is African American. An interesting set of comparison data would be the total foreign-born population and percentage of foreign-born population.

3. Maps
Prepare Maps to accompany the tables of the movement of African Americans from the South to the North of the United States. Use the 1890 Census, the 1910 Census, and the 1930 Census. Specifically, create maps (six total) that shows the population movement graphically for the above mentioned years—1890, 1910, and 1930—across the nation and across Ohio. This would entail showing state-level data on a national map and county-level data on the state map. You should produce six separate maps.

4. Procedures

  • Go to the website and read the instructions for use.
  • Open the year for which you are collecting data.
  • Select the variables that you desire to use. For our project, from the 1890 census, select “total population” under “general population” and “negro population” under “ethnicity/race/place of birth.” To select both simultaneously, depress control as you click on each variable.
  • Click “submit query” at the bottom of the form.
  • Use the data query at the bottom of the screen to create proportions, and submit the query when you have made your selection. For example, if you want the African-American population shown as a percentage of the whole population, place “negro population” in the numerator and “total population” as the denominator. Select the box for “all states” and click “map it” on the variables that you want mapped. This will give you a map of the percentage of the population of all the states that is African American. For an example map of the proportion of African Americans living in various states in the US in 1890, follow this link.
  • Follow the same procedure for state-level data, by selecting the box next to Ohio, at the bottom of the table click “Retrieve County-Level Data.”

5. Email your table to Professor Tebeau, but also print out a copy of your table and make a photocopy, which you should bring to class.