Friday, January 28, 2022

Pop Quiz, Part 3: 1950 US Census Vocabulary


This is the answer sheet for the vocabulary terms in Part 2 of my quiz series. 

5. Naturalized? AP

In answering the question about naturalization, enumerators would write "American Parents" when an individual was born to US citizens in another country or at sea. For more, see the full Urban & Rural Enumerator's Reference Manual on Google books here.

6. Sample Person - How would a person be designated as a sample?

On every page of the population schedule, enumerators were instructed to ask additional "sample" questions of people who they listed on certain line numbers. The line numbers varied by page, to add a measure of randomness. So on one page, a separate sample person would be designated on each of lines 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26. On the next page, the sample person would be designated on each of lines 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, and 27. For more, see the middle of the page on Steve Morse's 1950 discussion here.

7. T-Night - What does the T stand for?

T is for transient. Two nights (April 11 and April 13, 1950) were designated for enumerators to visit hotels, hostels, flop houses, and other places where people lived temporarily. For more, see the History Hub blog post here.

8. $10,000+ - When would this be shown?

If an individual answering the sample question about income earned more than $10,000 in the year 1949, the enumerator would record it as $10,000+ rather than entering a specific higher amount. For more, see here for the History Hub discussion of sample questions and enumerators' instructions for recording answers.

I hope you enjoyed these pop quiz posts as you prep for the 1950 US Census release on April 1. For Part 1 pop quiz, see here.

PS: Want to download an original Form P1? See this page on the US Census Bureau site.

And read more about getting ready for the 1950 US Census release on my summary page here.

1 comment:

  1. This is so interesting. T-Night, for example. Good idea!

    ReplyDelete