HIST 712: US Civil War Era Research (Spring 2025)

When we talk about The Census, we usually mean the statistical Decennial Census tables. Census also publishes subject-specific analytical reports and specialized studies to supplement the decennial statistical reports.  

The good news: all Census publications are in the public domain and accessible online.

The bad news: Census reports differ in style, format, and substance every decade, so it can be hard to navigate Census reports if you're unfamiliar with these publications. Even other librarians find govdocs hard to navigate, calling the field "Arcane," "forlorn," and "intimidating." See citation below for more on this point.

In addition to statistical data, the census volumes will include small reports for each session, followed by very details statistics. Reports are usually several pages long. To find these reports, and their companion figures:

1. Select your decade of interest.
2. Open "official publications"
3. Based on your topic, select the correct subject volume
   1. note: the "population" volume is usually the data in Social Explorer. For more detailed information (Ex number of college libraries in VA in 1860), read the descriptions of other volumes.
4. Open the correct volume of interest, then find the correct section.
   1. If I'm interested in college libraries in 1860, I'd go to 
      1. 1860 Census: Statistics of the United States, (including mortality, property, etc.), then "education statistics, libraries, Schools, Colleges, etc.
5. Go to the correct state, city, county, etc (some figures are only county level, others will go to the town/city level.
   1. I find on page 505 that in 1860 Virginia has 1,350 public libraries, 10 school libraries, 71 sunday school libraries, 18 college libraries, and 4 church libraries.

For specialized report NOT created for a specific decennial census, search Census as AUTHOR, use the second box as a keyword search, and limit publications to the time period of interest (Ex 1860-1890)

This approach works in WorldCat as well. Search Census as the Author, then add your topic as a keyword or subject. Limit the publication date range to the time period of interest. Do not limit to a specific year, but maybe 2 or 3 decades.

Start with Social Explorer, which has statistics from 1790-present, including 10-year, 5-year, 3-year, and 1-year survey data. It also includes some special report data. It will Not tell you how many college libraries existed in Virginia in 1860, but will tell you about state-wide literacy and education rates. ALSO, the answer is 18 college libraries, with about 67,150 volumes total; for that level of detail, we will need to go into the volumes themselves.

Using Social Explorer

• Select “Tables" on the left
  • Select  geographies of interest in drop-down menus
  • Select and add your tables from the drop menu
  • View the report online 
• Use the citation tool at the bottom of the results pages to cite material.

Historical Census Data can also be downloaded as datasets through IPUMS and ICSPR

You can also use GoogleBook to find census reports, if you're looking for something Very specific.

To do this, use the Googlebook advanced settings and:

• Put Census as the author
• Keyword search for your items/topic of interest
• Limit publication dates

This is not an exhaustive way to search, but it can be a good starting point.

NOTE: the Census records for 1790 and 1800 have been lost for Prince William County