Different census years employed differing tabulation designs, making it difficult or impossible to evaluate change over time. By 1870 the Census Office report on the census of population included over 40 cross-tabulations, making it possible for researchers to conduct a variety of population analyses (Magnuson 1995).ĭespite the increasing detail provided by the Census Office, published census data from the nineteenth century fall far short of their potential usefulness. After 1830, however, published tabulations become more detailed and thus more valuable to social scientists. In 1790, official census reports included little more than population totals tabulated by sex, age group, race and state. Census Office (as the Census Bureau was known before 1902). Until the recent release of the 18 public use microdata samples (Ruggles and Menard 1994 Ruggles and Menard 1995), nineteenth-century historians were forced either to construct their own samples from copies of the original manuscript returns or to rely on official census returns published by the U.S. Using Census Microdata in Historical Research The purpose of this article is to suggest some possible uses of the 18 samples, briefly examine concerns about a suspected undercount in the 1870 census and provide background information on the construction of the samples and their availability. The new samples bridge the gap between the existing 18 samples, increasing the latter's usefulness for the study of long-term change and eliminating the need for researchers to interpolate results over this critical thirty-year period. Among their many applications for historical research, the two census samples will allow social scientists the opportunity to examine such important topics as black and white family structure, the distribution of wealth, the growth of female employment, and the demographic consequences of the American Civil War. 2 The samples are machine-readable transcriptions of the original census manuscripts, suitable for computerized data analysis. In 1997 the Historical Census Projects at the University of Minnesota began construction of public use microdata samples of the 18 U.S. Public Use Microdata Samples of the 1860 & 1870Īndrea R.