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Politics & Government

1940 Census to Shed Light on Our Ancestors

To be released in April 2012; Depression's impact on nation included in tabulation.

If you’re seeking more information about Aunt Tillie or Uncle Charlie, help is on the horizon. The 1940 Federal U.S. Census will become available to the public – electronically – on April 2, 2012.

“This was called the first modern census,” said Christopher Zarr, an education specialist for the National Archives and Records Administration, on a recent morning at the in Fairfield. His seminar, sponsored by the Freamh Eireann Genealogy Group, attracted 60 people.

For the first time, respondents were asked their highest grade of school completed (instead of whether they were able to read and write). People were asked to indicate the “amount of money, wages or salary received” in 1939. To determine migration, respondents were asked to state their address as of April 1, 1935 as well as April 1, 1940. 

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“The major goal was to gauge the effect of the Great Depression on the nation,” Zarr explained.

How different life was for Americans in 1940. The U.S. population was 132,164,569 (or less than one third of the 2010 count of 308,745,538). The life expectancy for males was 58.1 years, for females 61.6 years. The average annual salary in 1940 was $1,368. But a gallon of milk cost 14 cents.

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In Europe and Asia, World War II was under way. The U.S. was committed to its policy of isolationism, but Axis military successes in both sectors were prompting Americans to rethink their posture toward the war.

Some Depression-era inquiries were included among the 34 questions asked of all 1940 respondents. For example, “was he at work on, or assigned to, EMERGENCY WORK (WPA, NYA, CCC, etc.)?” For youngsters in the audience, those abbreviations pertained to Work Projects Administration, National Youth Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps – three New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that provided unskilled manual labor jobs to unemployed men (and some women) during the Depression.

Other questions pertained to occupation and industry. “Some of the unusual occupations in 1940,” Zarr pointed out, “were ham sniffer and whistle tester.”

Approximately five percent of the population was asked supplementary questions, 16 in all. In the category “Mother Tongue (or Native Language),” the respondent was asked to name the “Language spoken in home in earliest childhood.”

Another subset in this grouping, though, would be deemed sexist by today’s standards. “For All Women Who Are or Have Been Married,” each female respondent was to answer:

  • Has this woman been married more than once? (Yes or No)
  • Age at first marriage?
  • Number of children ever born? (Do not include stillbirths)

Why weren’t men asked the same questions? Don’t ask.

The 72-year delay in releasing our nation’s census was implemented in 1952 for reasons of privacy. That’s when the census director and the U.S. archivist agreed that population schedules were to be transferred to the National Archives “with the provision that they remain closed for seventy-two years after the enumeration date for each census.”

Zarr’s employer, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), was created in 1934. It’s headquartered in Washington, D.C., although Zarr works in its New York regional office on Varick Street in Greenwich Village.

“We’re the nation’s recordkeeper. We have the custodial care of federal agency records, according to the U.S. Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 2),” he explained.

Prior to the NARA’s formation, governmental agencies could maintain their own files. As one might guess, some files were lost or misplaced through the years. “Basically the entire 1890 census was lost in a fire,” Zarr said.

The sheer volume of the NARA records is measured in cubic feet. “We have approximately 100,000 cubic feet of documents,” he said. “That equates to an estimated 10 billion pages of documents, including maps and charts.”

Zarr was employed as a high school history teacher in his native New Jersey when he learned, quite by chance, about his current position with the NARA being available. That was about three years ago. As education specialist, he informs the populace about the records in the National Archives and how to access them.

"They're great resources for family history people," he said.

The 1940 census will be released online on April 2, 2012. Visit http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940.

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