Philadelphia Social History Project: Pennsylvania Abolition Society and Society of Friends Manuscript Census Schedules, 1838, 1847, 1856

Initially taken in 1838 to demonstrate the stability and significance of
the African American community and to forestall the abrogation of African American voting rights, the Quaker and Abolitionist census of African Americans was continued in 1847 and 1856 and present an invaluable view of the mid-nineteenth century African American population of Philadelphia. Although these censuses list only household heads, providing aggregate information for other household members, and exclude the substantial number of African Americans living in white households, they provide data not found in the federal population schedules. When combined with the information on African Americans taken from the four federal censuses, they offer researchers a richly detailed view of Philadelphia's African American community spanning some forty years.
The three censuses are not of equal inclusiveness or quality, however. The 1838 and 1847 enumerations cover only the "old" City of Philadelphia (river-to-river and from Vine to South Streets) and the immediate surrounding districts (Spring Garden, Northern Liberties, Southwark, Moyamensing, Kensington--1838, West Philadelphia--1847); the 1856 survey includes African Americans living throughout the newly enlarged city which, as today, conforms to the boundaries of Philadelphia County. In spite of this deficiency in areal coverage, the earlier censuses are superior historical documents. The 1838 and 1847 censuses contain data on a wide range of social and demographic variables describing the household indicating address, household size, occupation, whether members were born in Pennsylvania, status-at-birth, debts, taxes, number of children attending school, names of beneficial societies and churches (1838), property brought to Philadelphia from other states (1838), sex composition (1847), age structure (1847), literacy (1847), size of rooms and number of people per room (1847), and miscellaneous remarks (1847). While the 1856 census includes the household address and reports literacy, occupation, status-at-birth, and occasional passing remarks about individual households and their occupants, it excludes the other informational categories. Moreover, unlike the other two surveys, it lists the occupations of only higher status African Americans, excluding unskilled and semiskilled designations, and records the status-at-birth of adults only. Indeed, it even fails to provide data permitting the calculation of the size and age and sex structure of households.
Variables for each household head and his household include (differ
slightly by census year): name, sex, status-at-birth, occupation, wages,
real and personal property, literacy, education, religion, membership in
beneficial societies and temperance societies, taxes, rents, dwelling
size, address, slave or free birth.

起初于1838年启动，旨在展示非裔美国人社区的稳定性和重要性，并防止非裔美国人投票权的废除，非裔美国人教友派与废奴主义者的人口普查持续进行于1847年和1856年，并为我们呈现了19世纪中叶费城非裔美国人人口的无价视角。尽管这些普查仅列出了户主信息，为其他家庭成员提供了汇总数据，并排除了大量居住在白人家庭的非裔美国人，但它们提供了联邦人口普查中无法找到的数据。当与从四次联邦普查中获得的相关信息相结合时，这些数据为研究者提供了跨越四十年之久的费城非裔美国人社区的丰富细节。然而，这三个普查在包容性和质量上并不相等。1838年和1847年的普查仅涵盖了“旧”费城（从河岸至河岸，从葡萄园街至南街）及其周边地区（春花园、北部自由区、南瓦克、莫亚敏斯、肯辛顿——1838年，西费城——1847年）；1856年的调查涵盖了整个新扩大城市的非裔美国人，该城市如今与费城县界相符。尽管在地域覆盖上存在不足，但早期的普查是卓越的历史文献。1838年和1847年的普查包含了描述家庭的各种社会和人口变量数据，包括地址、家庭规模、职业、成员是否在宾夕法尼亚州出生、出生时的状态、债务、税收、上学儿童的数量、有益社会和教堂的名称（1838年）、从其他州带到费城的财产（1838年）、性别构成（1847年）、年龄结构（1847年）、识字率（1847年）、房间大小和每间房间的人数（1847年）、杂项备注（1847年）。而1856年的普查包括了家庭地址和识字率、职业、出生时的状态以及关于个别家庭及其成员的偶尔评论，但排除了其他信息类别。此外，与另外两个调查不同，它仅列出了高级非裔美国人的职业，排除了非技术性和半技术性的分类，并且仅记录了成年人的出生状态。实际上，它甚至未能提供计算家庭规模、年龄和性别结构所需的数据。每个户主及其家庭的数据变量（根据普查年份略有差异）包括：姓名、性别、出生时的状态、职业、工资、动产和不动产、识字率、教育、宗教、有益社会和节制社会的成员资格、税收、租金、住宅大小、地址、奴隶或自由出生。