Sunday, August 18, 2013

The 1890 Census

In an earlier post, I had mentioned briefly about the 1890 census record being in pieces. For those who do not know, the Eleventh United States Census (or the 1890 census) was destroyed in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington D.C. 1921. If you were doing family research prior to that year, you were lucky. This is what you would have seen:





  • address
  • number of families in house
  • number of persons in house
  • names
  • whether a soldier, sailor or marine (during the American Civil War), (whether Union
  •  or Confederate), or widow of such person
  • relationship to head of family
  • race, described as white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian
  • sex
  • age
  • marital status
  • married within the year
  • mother of how many children, and number now living
  • place of birth of person, and their father and mother
  • if foreign-born, number of years in US
  • whether naturalized
  • whether naturalization papers have been taken out
  • profession, trade or occupation
  • months unemployed during census year
  • ability to read and write
  • ability to speak English, and, if unable, language or dialect spoken
  • whether suffering from acute or chronic disease, with name of disease and length of time afflicted
  • whether defective in mind, sight, hearing or speech, or whether crippled, maimed or deformed, with name of defect
  • whether a prisoner, convict, homeless child, or pauper
  • home rented, or owned by head or member of family, and, if owned, whether free from mortgage
  • whether farm is rented, or owned by head or member of family; if owned, whether free from mortgage; if rented, post office box of owner.

    The 1890 census was the first to use Herman Hollerith's methods of data compiling. This data used a punched method, which was entered on a reader that could tabulate it. This particular method was said to reduce the census counting 8:1. For its time, it was very state of the art. 


    The original data for the 1890 census is not available. The public was informed that 25% of the materials were presumed destroyed and 50% were destroyed by smoke and water. This led to a public outcry for a permanent National Archives. 


    Even more records were destroyed when in 1932, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census gave the Librarian of Congress a list of papers to be eradicated, including the 1890 census schedules. The Bureau asked the Librarian to put aside any records deemed historical, and the census records were not designated to be saved. Congress authorized that list of records to be destroyed in 1933 and the rest in 1934-35. 


    The other two census reports that are lost are the 1800 and 1810 enumerations. 




    How could anyone deem any census record not worthy of saving? This particular census record is a major setback for a great deal many people trying to locate family members. Hopefully this will never happen again with any census records. With all the technology we have now, I doubt that would ever happen.

    Anyway, good luck with your researching!

    ~Shasta








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