Website alows the public full access to the 1940 Census images, census maps and descriptions.

Abstract

The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Complete Count Data include more than 650 million individual-level and 7.5 million household-level records. The IPUMS microdata are the result of collaboration between IPUMS and the nation’s two largest genealogical organizations—Ancestry.com and FamilySearch—and provides the largest and richest source of individual level and household data.

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Historic data are scarce and often only exists in aggregate tables. The key advantage of historic US census data is the availability of individual and household level characteristics that researchers can tabulate in ways that benefits their specific research questions. The data contain demographic variables, economic variables, migration variables and family variables. Within households, it is possible to create relational data as all relations between household members are known. For example, having data on the mother and her children in a household enables researchers to calculate the mother’s age at birth. Another advantage of the Complete Count data is the possibility to follow individuals over time using a historical identifier.

In sum: the historic US census data are a unique source for research on social and economic change and can provide population health researchers with information about social and economic determinants.Historic data are scarce and often only exists in aggregate tables. The key advantage of historic US census data is the availability of individual and household level characteristics that researchers can tabulate in ways that benefits their specific research questions. The data contain demographic variables, economic variables, migration variables and family variables. Within households, it is possible to create relational data as all relations between household members are known. For example, having data on the mother and her children in a household enables researchers to calculate the mother’s age at birth. Another advantage of the Complete Count data is the possibility to follow individuals over time using a historical identifier. In sum: the historic US census data are a unique source for research on social and economic change and can provide population health researchers with information about social and economic determinants.

The historic US 1940 census data was collected in April 1940. Enumerators collected data traveling to households and counting the residents who regularly slept at the household. Individuals lacking permanent housing were counted as residents of the place where they were when the data was collected. Household members absent on the day of data collected were either listed to the household with the help of other household members or were scheduled for the last census subdivision.

Notes

• We provide IPUMS household and person data separately so that it is convenient to explore the descriptive statistics on each level. In order to obtain a full dataset, merge the household and person on the variables SERIAL and SERIALP. In order to create a longitudinal dataset, merge datasets on the variable HISTID.
• Households with more than 60 people in the original data were broken up for processing purposes. Every person in the large households are considered to be in their own household. The original large households can be identified using the variable SPLIT40, reconstructed using the variable SERIAL40, and the original count is found in the variable NUMPREC40.
• Some variables are missing from this data set for specific enumeration districts. The enumeration districts with missing data can be identified using the variable EDMISS. These variables will be added in a future release.
• Coded variables derived from string variables are still in progress. These variables include: occupation, industry and migration status.
• Missing observations have been allocated and some inconsistencies have been edited for the following variables: Missing observations have been allocated and some inconsistencies have been edited for the following variables: SURSIM, SEX, SCHOOL, RELATE, RACE, OCC1950, MTONGUE, MBPL, FBPL, BPL, MARST, EMPSTAT, CITIZEN, OWNERSHP. The flag variables indicating an allocated observation for the associated variables can be included in your extract by clicking the ‘Select data quality flags’ box on the extract summary page.
• Most inconsistent information was not edited for this release, thus there are observations outside of the universe for many variables. In particular, the variables GQ, and GQTYPE have known inconsistencies and will be improved with the next r

From website:

The 1940 census records were released by the US National Archives April 2, 2012, and brought online through a partnership with Archives.com. This website allows you full access to the 1940 census images, in addition to 1940 census maps and descriptions.

The 1940 Census population schedules were created by the Bureau of the Census in an attempt to enumerate every person living in the United States on April 1, 1940, although some persons were missed. The 1940 census population schedules were digitized by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and released publicly on April 2, 2012. The 1940 Census enumeration district maps contain maps of counties, cities, and other minor civil divisions that show enumeration districts, census tracts, and related boundaries and numbers used for each census. The coverage is nation wide and includes territorial areas. The 1940 Census enumeration district descriptions contain written descriptions of census districts, subdivisions, and enumeration districts.

1940 US Census contains records from Montpelier, Washington, Vermont, USA by Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.; Year: 1940; Census Place: Montpelier, Washington, Vermont; Roll: m-t0627-04238; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 12-31; Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls. - .

The 1940 Census Public Use Microdata Sample Project was assembled through a collaborative effort between the United States Bureau of the Census and the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin. The collection contains a stratified 1-percent sample of households, with separate records for each household, for each "sample line" respondent, and for each person in the household. These records were encoded from microfilm copies of original handwritten enumeration schedules from the 1940 Census of Population. Geographic identification of the location of the sampled households includes Census regions and divisions, states (except Alaska and Hawaii), standard metropolitan areas (SMAs), and state economic areas (SEAs). Accompanying the data collection is a codebook that includes an abstract, descriptions of sample design, processing procedures and file structure, a data dictionary (record layout), category code lists, and a glossary. Also included is a procedural history of the 1940 Census. Each of the 20 subsamples contains three record types: household, sample line, and person. Household variables describe the location and condition of the household. The sample line records contain variables describing demographic characteristics such as nativity, marital status, number of children, veteran status, wage deductions for Social Security, and occupation. Person records also contain variables describing demographic characteristics including nativity, marital status, family membership, education, employment status, income, and occupation.

1940 United States Federal Census contains records from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA by United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls. Year: 1940; Census Place: Upper Dublin, Montgomery, Pennsylvania; Roll: m-t0627-03585; Page: 20B; Enumeration District: 46-208 - .

This dataset includes all households from the 1940 US census.

This dataset includes all individuals from the 1940 US census.

The CenSoc WWII Army Enlistment Dataset is a cleaned and harmonized version of the National Archives and Records Administration’s Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (2002). It contains enlistment records for over 9 million men and women who served in the United States Army, including the Army Air Corps, Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and Enlisted Reserve Corps. We publish links between men in the CenSoc WWII Army Enlistment Dataset, Social Security Administration mortality data, and the 1940 Census. The CenSoc Enlistment-Census-1940 file links these enlistment records to the complete 1940 Census, and may be merged with IPUMS-USA census data using the HISTID identifier variable. The CenSoc Enlistment-Numident file links enlistment records to the Berkley Unified Numident Mortality Database (BUNMD), and the CenSoc Enlistment-DMF file links enlistment records to the Social Security Death Master File. For enlistment records in the Enlistment-Numident and Enlistment-DMF datasets that have been independently and additionally linked to the 1940 Census, we include the HISTID identifier variable that can be used to merge the data with IPUMS census data.

This dataset includes variable names, variable labels, variable values, and corresponding variable value labels for the IPUMS 1940 datasets.

These data comprise Census records relating to the Alaskan people's population demographics for the State of Alaskan Salmon and People (SASAP) Project. Decennial census data were originally extracted from IPUMS National Historic Geographic Information Systems website: https://data2.nhgis.org/main (Citation: Steven Manson, Jonathan Schroeder, David Van Riper, and Steven Ruggles. IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 12.0 [Database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 2017. http://doi.org/10.18128/D050.V12.0). A number of relevant tables of basic demographics on age and race, household income and poverty levels, and labor force participation were extracted. These particular variables were selected as part of an effort to understand and potentially quantify various dimensions of well-being in Alaskan communities. The file "censusdata_master.csv" is a consolidation of all 21 other data files in the package. For detailed information on how the datasets vary over different years, view the file "readme.docx" available in this data package. The included .Rmd file is a script which combines the 21 files by year into a single file (censusdata_master.csv). It also cleans up place names (including typographical errors) and uses the USGS place names dataset and the SASAP regions dataset to assign latitude and longitude values and region values to each place in the dataset. Note that some places were not assigned a region or location because they do not fit well into the regional framework. Considerable heterogeneity exists between census surveys each year. While we have attempted to combine these datasets in a way that makes sense, there may be some discrepancies or unexpected values. The RMarkdown document SASAPWebsiteGraphicsCensus.Rmd is used to generate a variety of figures using these data, including the additional file Chignik_population.png. An additional set of 25 figures showing regional trends in population and income metrics are also included.

United States Population: All Ages data was reported at 325,719.000 Person th in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 323,406.000 Person th for 2016. United States Population: All Ages data is updated yearly, averaging 176,356.000 Person th from Jun 1900 (Median) to 2017, with 118 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 325,719.000 Person th in 2017 and a record low of 76,094.000 Person th in 1900. United States Population: All Ages data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by US Census Bureau. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G002: Population by Age. Series Remarks Population data for the years 1900 to 1949 exclude the population residing in Alaska and Hawaii. Population data for the years 1940 to 1979 cover the resident population plus Armed Forces overseas. Population data for all other years cover only the resident population.

This study examines the spread of boll weevils on cotton cultivation in the Southeastern United States, and its effects on child labor attaining education. Researchers used 1940 census records to link a sample of adults back to their childhood census records, ranging from ages 4 to 9. Data tracked cotton and farm acreage from the late nineteenth century and boll weevil arrival during the early twentieth century by state and county. Student enrollment and number of teachers based on race were calculated.

PLURAL (Place-level urban-rural indices) is a framework to create continuous classifications of "rurality" or "urbanness" based on the spatial configuration of populated places. PLURAL makes use of the concept of "remoteness" to characterize the level of spatial isolation of a populated place with respect to its neighbors. There are two implementations of PLURAL, including (a) PLURAL-1, based on distances to the nearest places of user-specified population classes, and (b) PLURAL-2, based on neighborhood characterization derived from spatial networks. PLURAL requires simplistic input data, i.e., the coordinates (x,y) and population p of populated places (villages, towns, cities) in a given point in time. Due to its simplistic input, the PLURAL rural-urban classification scheme can be applied to historical data, as well as to data from data-scarce settings. Using the PLURAL framework, we created place-level rural-urban indices for the conterminous United States from 1930 to 2018. Rural-urban classifications are essential for analyzing geographic, demographic, environmental, and social processes across the rural-urban continuum. Most existing classifications are, however, only available at relatively aggregated spatial scales, such as at the county scale in the United States. The absence of rurality or urbanness measures at high spatial resolution poses significant problems when the process of interest is highly localized, as with the incorporation of rural towns and villages into encroaching metropolitan areas. Moreover, existing rural-urban classifications are often inconsistent over time, or require complex, multi-source input data (e.g., remote sensing observations or road network data), thus, prohibiting the longitudinal analysis of rural-urban dynamics. We developed a set of distance- and spatial-network-based methods for consistently estimating the remoteness and rurality of places at fine spatial resolution, over long periods of time. Based on these methods, we constructed indices of urbanness for 30,000 places in the United States from 1930 to 2018. We call these indices the place-level urban-rural index (PLURAL), enabling long-term, fine-grained analyses of urban and rural change in the United States. The method paper has been peer-reviewed and is published in "Landscape and Urban Planning". The PLURAL indices from 1930 to 2018 are available as CSV files, and as point-based geospatial vector data (.SHP). Moreover, we provide animated GIF files illustrating the spatio-temporal variation of the different variants of the PLURAL indices, illustrating the dynamics of the rural-urban continuum in the United States from 1930 to 2018. Apply the PLURAL rural-urban classification to your own data: Python code is fully open source and available at https://github.com/johannesuhl/plural. Data sources: Place-level population counts (1980-2010) and place locations 1930 - 2018 were obtained from IPUMS NHGIS, (University of Minnesota, www.nhgis.org; Manson et al. 2022). Place-level population counts 1930-1970 were digitized from historical census records (U.S. Census Bureau 1942, 1964). References: Uhl, J.H., Hunter, L.M., Leyk, S., Connor, D.S., Nieves, J.J., Hester, C., Talbot, C. and Gutmann, M., 2023. Place-level urban–rural indices for the United States from 1930 to 2018. Landscape and Urban Planning, 236, p.104762. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104762 Steven Manson, Jonathan Schroeder, David Van Riper, Tracy Kugler, and Steven Ruggles. IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 16.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS. 2021. http://doi.org/10.18128/D050.V16.0 U.S. Census Bureau (1942). U.S. Census of Population: 1940. Vol. I, Number of Inhabitants. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. U.S. Census Bureau (1964). U.S. Census of Population: 1960. Vol. I, Characteristics of the Population. Part I, United States Summary. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

The Census Tree is the largest-ever database of record links among the historical U.S. censuses, with over 700 million links for people living in the United States between 1850 and 1940. These links allow researchers to construct a longitudinal dataset that is highly representative of the population, and that includes women, Black Americans, and other under-represented populations at unprecedented rates. Each .csv file consists of a crosswalk between the two years indicated in the filename, using the IPUMS histids. For more information, consult the included Read Me file, and visit https://censustree.org.

The 1915 Iowa State Census is a unique document. It was the first census in the United States to include information on education and income prior to the United States Federal Census of 1940. It contains considerable detail on other aspects of individuals and households, e.g., religion, wealth and years in the United States and Iowa. The Iowa State Census of 1915 was a complete sample of the residents of the state and the returns were written by census takers (assessors) on index cards. These cards were kept in the Iowa State Archives in Des Moines and were microfilmed in 1986 by the Genealogical Society of Salt Lake City. The census cards were sorted by county, although large cities (those having more than 25,000 residents) were grouped separately. Within each county or large city, records were alphabetized by last name and within last name by first name. This data set includes individual-level records for three of the largest Iowa cities (Des Moines, Dubuque, and Davenport; the Sioux City films were unreadable) and for ten counties that did not contain a large city. (Additional details on sample selection are available in the documentation). Variables include name, age, place of residence, earnings, education, birthplace, religion, marital status, race, occupation, military service, among others. Data on familial ties between records are also included.

The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a U.S. federal agency that graded mortgage investment risk of neighborhoods across the U.S. between 1935 and 1940. HOLC residential security maps standardized neighborhood risk appraisal methods that included race and ethnicity, pioneering the institutional logic of residential “redlining.” The Mapping Inequality Project digitized the HOLC mortgage security risk maps from the 1930s. We overlaid the HOLC maps with 2010 and 2020 census tracts for 142 cities across the U.S. using ArcGIS and determined the proportion of HOLC residential security grades contained within the boundaries. We assigned a numerical value to each HOLC risk category as follows: 1 for “A” grade, 2 for “B” grade, 3 for “C” grade, and 4 for “D” grade. We calculated a historic redlining score from the summed proportion of HOLC residential security grades multiplied by a weighting factor based on area within each census tract. A higher score means greater redlining of the census tract. Continuous historic redlining score, assessing the degree of “redlining,” as well as 4 equal interval divisions of redlining, can be linked to existing data sources by census tract identifier allowing for one form of structural racism in the housing market to be assessed with a variety of outcomes. The 2010 files are set to census 2010 tract boundaries. The 2020 files use the new census 2020 tract boundaries, reflecting the increase in the number of tracts from 12,888 in 2010, to 13,488 in 2020. Use the 2010 HRI with decennial census 2010 or ACS 2010-2019 data. As of publication (10/15/2020) decennial census 2020 data for the P1 (population) and H1 (housing) files are available from census. Updated (8/9/2023) - The Historic Redlining Score has been renamed the Historic Redlining Indicator or HRI. The HRI has also been calculated for Census 2000 boundaries.

This dataset comprises physician-level entries from the 1906 American Medical Directory, the first in a series of semi-annual directories of all practicing physicians published by the American Medical Association [1]. Physicians are consistently listed by city, county, and state. Most records also include details about the place and date of medical training. From 1906-1940, Directories also identified the race of black physicians [2].This dataset comprises physician entries for a subset of US states and the District of Columbia, including all of the South and several adjacent states (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia). Records were extracted via manual double-entry by professional data management company [3], and place names were matched to latitude/longitude coordinates. The main source for geolocating physician entries was the US Census. Historical Census records were sourced from IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System [4]. Additionally, a public database of historical US Post Office locations was used to match locations that could not be found using Census records [5]. Fuzzy matching algorithms were also used to match misspelled place or county names [6].The source of geocoding match is described in the “match.source” field (Type of spatial match (census_YEAR = match to NHGIS census place-county-state for given year; census_fuzzy_YEAR = matched to NHGIS place-county-state with fuzzy matching algorithm; dc = matched to centroid for Washington, DC; post_places = place-county-state matched to Blevins & Helbock's post office dataset; post_fuzzy = matched to post office dataset with fuzzy matching algorithm; post_simp = place/state matched to post office dataset; post_confimed_missing = post office dataset confirms place and county, but could not find coordinates; osm = matched using Open Street Map geocoder; hand-match = matched by research assistants reviewing web archival sources; unmatched/hand_match_missing = place coordinates could not be found). For records where place names could not be matched, but county names could, coordinates for county centroids were used. Overall, 40,964 records were matched to places (match.type=place_point) and 931 to county centroids ( match.type=county_centroid); 76 records could not be matched (match.type=NA).Most records include information about the physician’s medical training, including the year of graduation and a code linking to a school. A key to these codes is given on Directory pages 26-27, and at the beginning of each state’s section [1]. The OSM geocoder was used to assign coordinates to each school by its listed location. Straight-line distances between physicians’ place of training and practice were calculated using the sf package in R [7], and are given in the “school.dist.km” field. Additionally, the Directory identified a handful of schools that were “fraudulent” (school.fraudulent=1), and institutions set up to train black physicians (school.black=1).AMA identified black physicians in the directory with the signifier “(col.)” following the physician’s name (race.black=1). Additionally, a number of physicians attended schools identified by AMA as serving black students, but were not otherwise identified as black; thus an expanded racial identifier was generated to identify black physicians (race.black.prob=1), including physicians who attended these schools and those directly identified (race.black=1).Approximately 10% of dataset entries were audited by trained research assistants, in addition to 100% of black physician entries. These audits demonstrated a high degree of accuracy between the original Directory and extracted records. Still, given the complexity of matching across multiple archival sources, it is possible that some errors remain; any identified errors will be periodically rectified in the dataset, with a log kept of these updates.For further information about this dataset, or to report errors, please contact Dr Ben Chrisinger (Benjamin.Chrisinger@tufts.edu). Future updates to this dataset, including additional states and Directory years, will be posted here: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/amd.References:1. American Medical Association, 1906. American Medical Directory. American Medical Association, Chicago. Retrieved from: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000543547.2. Baker, Robert B., Harriet A. Washington, Ololade Olakanmi, Todd L. Savitt, Elizabeth A. Jacobs, Eddie Hoover, and Matthew K. Wynia. "African American physicians and organized medicine, 1846-1968: origins of a racial divide." JAMA 300, no. 3 (2008): 306-313. doi:10.1001/jama.300.3.306.3. GABS Research Consult Limited Company, https://www.gabsrcl.com.4. Steven Manson, Jonathan Schroeder, David Van Riper, Tracy Kugler, and Steven Ruggles. IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 17.0 [GNIS, TIGER/Line & Census Maps for US Places and Counties: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950; 1910_cPHA: ds37]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS. 2022. http://doi.org/10.18128/D050.V17.05. Blevins, Cameron; Helbock, Richard W., 2021, "US Post Offices", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NUKCNA, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:8ROmiI5/4qA8jHrt62PpyA== [fileUNF]6. fedmatch: Fast, Flexible, and User-Friendly Record Linkage Methods. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/fedmatch/index.html7. sf: Simple Features for R. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sf/index.html

The Census Tree is the largest-ever database of record links among the historical U.S. censuses, with over 700 million links for people living in the United States between 1850 and 1940. These links allow researchers to construct a longitudinal dataset that is highly representative of the population, and that includes women, Black Americans, and other under-represented populations at unprecedented rates. This project contains the files necessary to closely replicate the links between the 1900 and 1910 censuses. For more information, consult the included Read Me file, and visit https://censustree.org.