Historic US Census - 1900

#Documentation

The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) Complete Count Data include more than 650 million individual-level and 7.5 million household-level records. The microdata are the result of collaboration between IPUMS and the nation’s two largest genealogical organizations—Ancestry.com and FamilySearch—and provides the largest and richest source of individual level and household data.

Historic data are scarce and often only exists in aggregate tables. The key advantage of the IPUMS data is the availability of individual and household level characteristics that researchers can tabulate in ways that benefits their specific research questions. The data contain demographic variables, economic variables, migration variables and family variables. Within households, it is possible to create relational data as all relations between household members are known. For example, having data on the mother and her children in a household enables researchers to calculate the mother’s age at birth. Another advantage of the Complete Count data is the possibility to follow individuals over time using a historical identifier.

In sum: the IPUMS data are a unique source for research on social and economic change and can provide population health researchers with information about social and economic determinants.

The IPUMS 1900 census data was collected in June 1900. Enumerators collected data traveling to households and counting the residents who regularly slept at the household. Individuals lacking permanent housing were counted as residents of the place where they were when the data was collected. Household members absent on the day of data collected were either listed to the household with the help of other household members or were scheduled for the last census subdivision.