1890 United States Census 1880 1900 → Seal of the United States Census Bureau 1890 Census form General information Country United States Date taken June 2, 1890 ( ) Total population 62,979,766 Percent change 25.5%

The Eleventh United States Census was taken beginning June 2, 1890. It determined the resident population of the United States to be 62,979,766—an increase of 25.5 percent over the 50,189,209 persons enumerated during the 1880 census. The data was tabulated by machine for the first time. The data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier. Most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in a 1921 fire and fragments of the US census population schedule exist only for the states of Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas, and the District of Columbia.

This was the first census in which a majority of states recorded populations of over one million, as well as the first in which multiple cities – New York as of 1880, Chicago, and Philadelphia – recorded populations of over one million. The census also saw Chicago rank as the nation's second-most populous city, a position it would hold until 1990, in which Los Angeles (currently 57th) would supplant it.

Census questions [ edit ]

The 1890 census collected the following information:[1]

address

number of families in house

number of persons in house

names

whether a soldier, sailor or marine (Union or Confederate) during Civil War, 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

if farmer, 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

Methodology [ edit ]

rough, count—the punched card reader has been removed, replaced by a simple keyboard. See: Truesdell, 1965, The Development of Punched Card Tabulation ..., US GPO, p.61 The Hollerith tabulator was used to tabulate the 1890 census—the first time a census was tabulated by machine. The illustration is of a Hollerith tabulator that has been modified for the first 1890 tabulation, the family, or, count—the punched card reader has been removed, replaced by a simple keyboard. See: Truesdell, 1965, The Development of Punched Card Tabulation ..., US GPO, p.61

The 1890 census was the first to be compiled using methods invented by Herman Hollerith and was overseen by Superintendents Robert P. Porter (1889–1893) and Carroll D. Wright (1893–1897). Data was entered on a machine readable medium, punched cards, and tabulated by machine.[2] The net effect of the many changes from the 1880 census: the larger population, the number of data items to be collected, the Census Bureau headcount, the volume of scheduled publications, and the use of Hollerith's electromechanical tabulators, was to reduce the time required to process the census from eight years for the 1880 census to six years for the 1890 census.[3] The total population of 62,947,714, the family, or rough, count, was announced after only six weeks of processing (punched cards were not used for this tabulation).[4][5] The public reaction to this tabulation was disbelief, as it was widely believed that the "right answer" was at least 75,000,000.[6]

Significant findings [ edit ]

The United States census of 1890 showed a total of 248,253 Native Americans living in the United States, down from 400,764 Native Americans identified in the census of 1850.[7]

The 1890 census announced that the frontier region of the United States no longer existed,[8] and that the Census Bureau would no longer track the westward migration of the U.S. population. Up to and including the 1880 census, the country had a frontier of settlement. By 1890, isolated bodies of settlement had broken into the unsettled area to the extent that there was hardly a frontier line. This prompted Frederick Jackson Turner to develop his Frontier Thesis.[9]

Data availability [ edit ]

The original data for the 1890 Census is no longer available. Almost all the population schedules were damaged in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington, D.C. in 1921. Some 25% of the materials were presumed destroyed and another 50% damaged by smoke and water (although the actual damage may have been closer to 15–25%). The damage to the records led to an outcry for a permanent National Archives.[10][11] In December 1932, following standard federal record-keeping procedures, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census sent the Librarian of Congress a list of papers to be destroyed, including the original 1890 census schedules. The Librarian was asked by the Bureau to identify any records which should be retained for historical purposes, but the Librarian did not accept the census records. Congress authorized destruction of that list of records on February 21, 1933, and the surviving original 1890 census records were destroyed by government order by 1934 or 1935. The other censuses for which some information has been lost are the 1800 and 1810 enumerations.[citation needed]

Few sets of microdata from the 1890 census survive,[12] but aggregate data for small areas, together with compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System.

State rankings [ edit ]

Rank State Population 01 New York 6,003,174 02 Pennsylvania 5,258,113 03 Illinois 3,826,352 04 Ohio 3,672,329 05 Missouri 2,679,185 06 Massachusetts 2,238,947 07 Texas 2,235,527 08 Indiana 2,192,404 09 Michigan 2,093,890 10 Iowa 1,912,297 11 Kentucky 1,858,635 12 Georgia 1,837,353 13 Tennessee 1,767,518 14 Wisconsin 1,693,330 15 Virginia 1,655,980 16 North Carolina 1,617,949 17 Alabama 1,513,401 18 New Jersey 1,444,933 19 Kansas 1,428,108 20 Minnesota 1,310,283 21 Mississippi 1,289,600 22 California 1,213,398 23 South Carolina 1,151,149 24 Arkansas 1,128,211 25 Louisiana 1,118,588 26 Nebraska 1,062,656 27 Maryland 1,042,390 28 West Virginia 762,794 29 Connecticut 746,258 30 Maine 661,086 31 Colorado 413,249 32 Florida 391,422 33 New Hampshire 376,530 34 Washington 357,232 35 South Dakota 348,600 36 Rhode Island 345,506 37 Vermont 332,422 38 Oregon 317,704 X Oklahoma 258,657 X District of Columbia [13] 230,392 X Utah 210,779 39 North Dakota 190,983 40 Delaware 168,493 X New Mexico 160,282 41 Montana 142,924 42 Idaho 88,548 X Arizona 88,243 43 Wyoming 60,705 44 Nevada 47,355 X Alaska 33,426

City rankings [ edit ]