Census Research Guide  

The purpose of this guide is to help users  locate U.S. census data and name lists through Bowdoin College Library.

The U.S. Census originated with the mandate that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers” in Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. This count for determining each state's number of Representatives to the U.S. House is done every ten years. Today, data from this decennial census count is also used for planning, policy, and funding allocation by all levels of government, businesses, non-profit organizations and researchers.

The decennial censuses have collected other characteristics of the population in addition to numbers: occupation, income level, race, local government finances, agriculture and business statistics, among others.  These two centuries of numbers provide rich data for historians, sociologists, economists and other researchers. With the advent of electronically delivered information, access to census data has increased dramatically, as have methods for manipulating data and gaining insights from it.

The original lists of names, called “schedules,” are made publically available seventy years following the census in which they were gathered. Those lists are published separately from census data. They are usually in microfilm or online.

Research questions about census data can be directed to Barbara Levergood, Government Documents Librarian, or the librarians at Bowdoin Library Reference Desk.

For additonal background...

Census from The Reader's Companion to American History.(Bowdoin login)

Census from The American Economy: A Historical Encyclopedia. (Bowdoin login)

The American census handbook / Main Ref   HA37.U55 .K4 2001 

Congressional Quarterly's encyclopedia of the U.S. census / Main Ref HA37.U55 C66 2000

Measuring America : the decennial censuses from 1790 to 2000  (print) (Contains census forms.) / Govt Ref  C 3.2:M 46/2 (online)

Population information in nineteenth century census volumes / Main Ref  Z7164.D3 S44 1983

Population information in twentieth century census volumes, 1900-1940 / Main Ref  Z7164.D3 S45 1985

Population information in twentieth century census volumes, 1950-1980 / Main Ref  Z7164.D3 S46 1988

The who, what, and where of America : understanding the census results / Main Ref   HA201.122 .W46 2003