The United States Census

The first census in the United States began in 1790. Seventeen U.S. marshals solicited answers to six questions: the name of the head of the household, the number of free white males 16 years of age and older, the number of free white males under 16 years of age, the number of free white females, the number of other free persons, and the number of slaves. For the next 50 years, the census questions remained basically unchanged. In 1840 the government expanded the scope of census information and by 1860 six separate census questionnaires posed 142 different questions. With the invention in the 1880s of the punch-card system of tabulation, vast quantities of data could be processed quickly. In 1902 the Congress of the United States established the Bureau of the Census as a permanent organization. The New Deal programs of the 1930s and the subsequent wartime emergency made unprecedented demands for accurate, up-to-date information on the population. The Census Bureau developed sampling techniques to provide a wide range of information on a regular and continuing basis. In 1951 the first computer for nonmilitary use began tabulating data from the 1950 census.