Saturday, March 10, 2012

Do you know the 50 questions that were used on the 1940 census?


Do you know the 50 questions that were used on the 1940 census?


Randy Seaver published these recently, so many of you have seen them - but did you stop and look at them in detail (His list is really easy to read - THANKS, Randy). Today, I want to focus on two sets of the questions:

1) 21 through 34, for Persons 14 Years Old and Over - Employment Status (and Occupation, Industry and Class of Worker), as well as Income in 1939, and

2) Supplementary Questions 35-50 asked only of a 5% sample of the population, for persons 14 years old and over (For persons enumerated on lines 14 and 29).


2) I am really anxious to see if any of the people I'm really interested in, close family and friends in the community, obviously, were asked these questions. Probably my favorite single thing to look for in the 1940 US Census. How about you?

1) I am interested to see if we really get the much broader set of answers that these questions suggest compared to what we got in 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses. Who will report that they worked for the WPA, CCC, for example. What was the number of hours per week worked reported!

The occupational questions seem to be more detailed. Will the answers also be?

And, of course, the income questions. How will they be answered? How will they compare, among family and friends… there could be some 'juicy' analysis come out of this. What do you think?


Finally, it is interesting to look at the actual forms that were filled out. Have you looked at them?
I'm including the first of the five images here.
http://usa.ipums.org/usa/voliii/form1940.shtml - site of images of questionnaire



Families are Forever!  ;-)

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