Evolution of the United States economic censuses: The nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Government Information Quarterly

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 335-377

  Micarelli, William F ^a  

^a U S CENSUS BUREAU   (United States)

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EID: 0039449857     PISSN: 0740624X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0740-624X(98)90007-7     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. As this article went to print, the collecting of economic data for 1997 was underway.
2. The Census Bureau used the term "economic censuses" to cover all of its economic data-collection activities between 1954 and 1987. For 1992, on the advice of the Advertising Council, the Bureau used the term "economic census" primarily to assist its promotional activities and because data users frequently did not understand what "economic censuses" meant.
3. For details on the economic censuses take between 1810 and 1890, see Carroll D. Wright & William C. Hunt, The History of Growth of the United States Census . . . (Washington, DC: GPO, 1900), p. 20 ff.
4. See Wright & Hunt, The History of Growth of the United States Census . . . , p. 22.
5. See Wright & Hunt, The History of Growth of the United States Census
6. The 1840 census marked the first evidence of official concern with the need to regard economic census data as confidential. Subsequent censuses had similar instructions.
7. See Wright & Hunt, The History and Growth of the United States Census . . . , p. 40.
8. For a time, the government used the words "schedule" and questionnaire" interchangeably to refer to the report form completed either by a respondent or a census enumerator; however, in more recent years, the Census Bureau has generally used the term "questionnaire" in the economic censuses.
9. See Wright & Hunt, The History and Growth of the United States Census . . . , pp. 59-67.
10. The 1850 Decennial Census collected some data on telegraph facilities.
11. The special schedules asked questions (but fewer and in less detail) of steamboat companies (21), express companies (30), telegraph companies (24), and telephone/telegraph companies (16).
12. In the early 1880s, Ivan Petroff, a special Census Office agent, traveled to Alaska (in accordance with instructions from the Superintendent of the Census) to ascertain and report on the number of inhabitants. As a result of his work, he (1) produced a brief statistical review of Alaska in geographic divisions, with tables of population; (2) provided a review of the fur trade, fisheries, mineral, and agricultural resources; (3) gave a description of the geography and topography of Alaska; (4) furnished an historical sketch of Alaska from its discovery to the year 1880, and (5) wrote notes on Alaskan ethnology. However, this effort did not constitute an economic census of that territory. U.S. Census Office. Tenth Census of the United States: 1880. Vol. VIII, Part II, Population, Industry, and Resources of Alaska. (Washington, DC, GPO: 1884).
13. Statistics for manufacturing were for the year 1900. Data for mining, street and electric railroads, and electric light and power stations were for 1902, but the Census Office released these results as part of the 12th Decennial Census publication series.
14. Examples of these industries include custom tailoring, carpentering, taxidermy, and, in general, contract work done for individual customers. The census also excluded establishments that produced products with an annual value of less than $500.
15. See Legislation Relating to the Bureau of the Census (Washington, DC, GPO: 1917) , p. 23.
16. See Census Bureau Legislation, Department of Commerce and Other Executive Departments (Washington, DC, GPO: 1936), pp. 13 14.
17. See Legislation Relating to the Bureau of the Census, pp. 18-19.
18. As noted earlier, one major difference in coverage was that whereas the first four biennial censuses of manufactures included only firms reporting annual production valued of at least $5,000, the Bureau returned this cutoff to $500 for the 1930 census, inasmuch as this was the decennial enumeration.
19. Field enumerators canvassed approximately 15,000 sawmills, which had highly mobile and sporadic operations.
20. These were the forerunners of the present Office of Management and Budget-designated metropolitan statistical areas?one or more counties around central city or urbanized areas with 50,000 or more inhabitants. Contiguous counties were included if they had close social and economic ties with the area's population nucleus.
21. The law authorized censuses of mineral industries and transportation in 1949, but Congress did not appropriate funds for them and they were not taken until 1954 (minerals) and 1963 (transportation; see discussion under 1963 below).
22. Earlier censuses taken by the Bureau covered only specific areas of transportation, such as the censuses of water transportation taken periodically between 1880 and 1926, and the censuses of street railway, trolley bus, and affiliated motorbus operations covered by the early censuses of electrical industries taken at 5-year intervals between 1902 and 1926.
23. For a detailed account of the 1963 Economic Censuses, see 1963 Economic Censuses: Procedural History.
24. In 1967, Congress modified Title 13 of the U.S. Code (the law under which the Bureau operated), so that the period covered by the economic censuses would be the years ending in "2" and "7" instead of "3" and "8." This revision was introduced to distribute more evenly the staff and computer workload generated by the economic and demographic censuses.
25. For 1963, the NTS was called the Passenger Transportation Survey. As did its predecessor, the NTS measured national and regional travel patterns and their relationship to the socioeconomic characteristics of persons who traveled.
26. For a detailed account of the 1967 Economic Censuses, see 1967 Economic Censuses: Procedural History.
27. For a further description, see 1972 Economic Censuses: Procedural History.
28. The changes are contained in the publication History of the 1977 Economic Censuses, chapter 10.
29. For a description of these three methods, see chapter 2 of the History of the 1982 Economic Censuses.
30. For a detailed account of the 1982 censuses, see History of the 1982 Economic Censuses.
31. In January 1989, the United States adopted the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System) as the nomenclature for classifying both exports and imports. The Harmonized System collects information based on the metric standard.
32. For a detailed account, see History of the 1987 Economic Censuses.
33. Data for railroads collected by other agencies were included in the Census Bureau's publications, but were excluded from the 1992 Economic Census data-collection operation. This also applied to Standard Industrial Classification 45 with respect to large certified passenger air carriers.
34. In December 1990, the Bureau completed its 1989 Recordkeeping Practices Survey report. The survey targeted large multiestablishment companies and tested the collectability of data items already on the economic census questionnaires, as well as proposed new items. Analysis of the survey's responses revealed problems collecting data for some of the latter, including breakouts of employment by function at the establishment level, space utilization, etc. One the other hand, companies found relative little difficulty in reporting detailed information on purchased services.
35. The two test censuses obtained an 80-percent response rate. (For more detailed information, see "1989 Transportation, Communications, and Utilities Test Census" and the "1989 Financial, Insurance, and Real Estate Industries Test Census," Chapter 2, History of the 1992 Economic Census. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1980.)
36. The Bureau also conducted a construction industries test census in 1989, in which questionnaires were sent to 6,000 construction company addresses. The test covered such things as alternative questionnaire design and question sequence. (For more detailed information, see "1989 Construction Industries Test Census," chapter 2, History of the 1992 Economic Census.)
37. While participation was limited to retail trade for 1992, the Bureau adopted the electronic data interchange standard for reporting in the 1993 and subsequent Company Organization Survey. For details, see History of the 1992 Economic Census.
38. Title 44, United States Code, Section 2104; National Archives and Records Service, Guide to the National Archives of the United States (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), p. 106. The comparable period for population and housing census records is 72 years.