1940 Census Data Release

1940 Census Celebration at the Government and Heritage Library

Apr 4th, 2012

We had such a wonderful time at the 1940 Census Celebration held April 2nd at the Government and Heritage Library. Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate the release of the 1940 Census. Enjoy some photos and a video from the Tar Heel Traveler from the party!

Audience waiting for the program to begin. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Guests playing the "enumerate the jar" game. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Cake to celebrate the release of the 1940 Census. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Dresses from the 1930s and 1940s from the collections of the North Carolina Museum of History. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Kelly Karres, Data Dissemination Specialist, Atlanta Regional Office of the U.S. Census Bureau discussing the 1940 Census. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Sandy Webbere, Curator of Special Exhibits and Programs, North Carolina Museum of History. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

Visitors looking at paper dolls and toys from the 1940s from the collections of the North Carolina Museum of History. Photo by Alan Westmoreland, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

To view more image from our 1940 Census celebration please check out the Department of Cultural Resources Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncculture/sets/72157629731264677/.

Countdown to the 1940 Census: Thank Goodness It’s Census Day!

Apr 2nd, 2012

by Reference and Outreach.

No comments yet

It’s a Census Cornucopia!

Never before have we looked forward to a Monday more than today. Probably not since Monday, April 1, 2002 when the 1930 Census data was released to the public. We’ve been busy getting ready for today’s event at 11:00am and we’re ecstatic to share in this historic moment with our patrons, novice and avid genealogists.

To get you in the mood here are some tidbits related to the 1940 Census release:

Cool 1940 Census fact: Tom Lieb, former Loyola Marymount University football coach in Los Angeles, was working as an enumerator when he received the call to coach at University of Florida. I learned this cool fact from Jessica Green’s blog which has a series of Census related posts.

From the Omaha Morning World-Herald, Sunrise Edition in Omaha, Nebraska

on April 1, 1940

Navigating the 1940 Census: We have created a helpful resource to guide you through your journey of finding family and friends in the 1940 Census. Use this resource to help you find your ancestors’ enumeration districts before spending time reading the Census rolls accessible at http://www.1940census.archives.gov/.

Wake County Census Workers: We certainly never published the names of the Census workers in the newspaper during the 2010 Census, but how wonderful it is to see a list of names that served as enumerators in Wake County. From the article below, we learn that the manager was named E.A. Hughes who revealed that 172 people qualified for the 90 available enumerator positions. The article lists enumerators from Cary Township, Holly Springs, Little River, and Neuse among several other areas in Wake County.

Countdown to the 1940 Census: The 1940 Census through the Eyes of African Americans

Mar 19th, 2012

by Reference and Outreach.

No comments yet

On the first and third Mondays of the month our guest blogger, Government and Heritage Library intern Carla Sarratt will be counting down to the release of the 1940 Census data on Monday, April 2, 2012.

Having been born in the 1970s, I had a much easier upbringing than those who were living in the 1940s. I take it for granted that I did not have to live in the midst of The Great Depression. I know that my grandparents and great-grandparents arrived inCleveland,Ohio in the years preceding the Great Depression fromGeorgia andSouth Carolina with children in tow seeking better job and educational opportunities for themselves and their children.

African Americans in 1940 12,672,971

African Americans in North Carolina in 1940 981,298

Total Population 132,164,569

It should come as no surprise that the southern states had the highest concentration of African Americans. Of the top five states with the highest amount of African Americans, North Carolina was ranked as number four.

African Americans in Georgia in 1940: 1,084,927

African Americans in Mississippi in 1940: 1,074,578

African Americans in Alabama in 1940: 983,290

African Americans in Texas in 1940: 924,391

Data was provided through the Historical Census Browser from the University of Virginia.

Unlike my experience with the 2010 Census, African American census workers were not trained together with Caucasian census workers in 1940. An article in The Charlotte Observer educated me on this historical element of employment segregation. I was cognizant enough to know that African American workers were likely trained to not enumerate Caucasian households.

Charlotte Observer, 1940

Titles from the collections of the Government and Heritage Library:

Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture, 1940 to the Present

Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration 1915-1940

Walls Come Tumbling Down; a History of the Civil Rights Movement–1940-1970

Who’s Who in Colored America; a Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of Negro Descent in the United States

About the author

Formerly employed with the 2010 Census, Carla Sarratt is a Master of Library Science student at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina interning with the Government and Heritage Library.