Census, U.S.

The Census Begins

Following Article 1, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution, which made the United States the first nation to make a census mandatory in 1787, the first census was taken in 1790, led by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. While the main purpose of the census was enumeration of the residents for political representation and taxes, by 1850, the information collected through the census grew substantially to include churches, crime, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, mining, housing, [Page 250]local governments, commerce, transportation, business, and fisheries. This was also the year measurement of ethnicity and national origin began. Geographically, censuses grew to also include areas under U.S. sovereignty or jurisdiction.

As the need for economic and social information grew, censuses started to play an increasingly important role, and the U.S. Census Bureau became a permanent institution in 1902. The redistricting of political boundaries based on the decennial census has been a controversial topic, as gerrymandering of political districts has been used by various constituents, including members of racial, religious, and class groups, to favor the ruling incumbents or political parties.

As the need for more detailed information about the population increased, not only the contents of the decennial census changed but also the ways in which the information is collected. To increase the content, additional households were sampled for additional questions. These additional sets of questions that only randomly selected households receive are widely known as the long form, as opposed to the short form, which every household is asked to fill out.

The early days of the census included questions about the number of White males 16 years of age or older in order to determine young men available for draft into wars and the labor force as well as the gender and color of all other persons in the household. The first census, which counted 3.9 million inhabitants, included free persons as well as slaves, who were counted as three-fifths of a person. Native Americans, however, were not included, since they were not taxed. On the contrary, the U.S. population between 1990 and 2000 increased by 33 million people, making this period the largest census-to-census increase thus far in U.S. history.

Racial Categories

The racial categories on census questionnaires have changed over time, reflecting changes in societal perceptions, political circumstances, and labels for racial categories. For instance, to count Blacks, or anyone with at least three-eighths to five-eighths Black blood, terms such as quadroon, octoroon, and mulatto were used from 1850. The term Black became common in the 1960s, and, in the 1980s, African American reflected the movement to assert pride in African origin. Other significant modifications include addition of the racial category called Mexican in 1930, only to be dropped in 1940 and then replaced by an additional question on Hispanic origin later on. This change was to recognize the distinction between race and ethnicity, particularly for a rapidly growing group that contains diverse immigrants from various Central and South American countries and Mexico.

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