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Potholes in the Road of Improvement? Estimating Census Underenumeration by Longitudinal Tracing: U.S. Censuses, 1850–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Peter R. Knights
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Extract

This ends the lesson. I certify that I have done the best. If I had a chance to do it again I could do it better but as I never shall ask for it I am entirely out of the Road of improvement. —George B. Randlette, enumerator of District 150, 1880 federal census of Maine, in a note appended to his returns

Few paid-up readers of this journal will deny the importance, as a historical source, of the U.S. manuscript population censuses, particularly those since 1850, which supposedly contain the names of all individuals. Since from 1965 to 1989 my work concerned primarily the four earliest such “nominal” censuses, 1850–80,1 shall restrict my remarks and estimates to them.

Some interesting research has been done, but much more cries out yet to be done, on the manuscript population census as a source, especially on its accuracy and comprehensiveness. Trudging along the road of improvement, we begin to learn that there are potholes aplenty in it, but how many, where, and, most vital of all, how deep? It is sloppy technique for historians to be less critical of the census than of other sources they employ.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , Winter 1991 , pp. 517 - 526
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1991 

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