Research Guides: HIST 301: Historian's Craft (Benes, Spring 2025): Census Reports

Decennial Census Reports Online

Complete series, Decennial Census by Decade
Covers Census from 1790-2020, plus preliminary documents related to 2030 census

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:

Select your decade of interest.
Open "official publications"
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.
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.
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.

Finding Census reports in the Catalog & Worldat

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)

Search "Bureau of the Census" in the main library catalog as author
In the second bar, add your topic.
Limit publication with a decade NOT a specific year. For example, if you want education data from the 1860 census, set the date range to 1860-1870; the majority of 1860 census data isn't published until after 1865.

WorldCat
Materials held by thousands of libraries in the US and abroad. Books, websites, computer programs, films, slides, journals, magazines, papers, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, sound recordings, videotapes, etc. Coverage: Before 1000BC-present.

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.

Compiled Statistical Resources

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.

Social Explorer
Use Social Explorer to visualize and interact with data, create maps, charts, reports and downloads. Explore hundreds of thousands of built-in data indicators related to demography, economy, health, politics, environment, crime and more. Social Explorer is designed to provide quick and easy access to historical census data and demographic information from 1790 to the present.

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.

For more information on Social Explorer, see their libguide
Database website that provides a detailed tutorial

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

IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible mapping files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.
Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790-1970 (ICPSR 3)
Detailed county and state-level ecological or descriptive data for the United States for the years 1790 to 1970 are contained in this collection. These data files contain extensive information about the social and political character of the United States, including a breakdown of population by state, race, nationality, number of families, size of the family, births, deaths, marriages, occupation, religion, and general economic conditions. Though not complete over the full time span of this study, statistics are available on such diverse subjects as total numbers of newspapers and periodicals, total capital invested in manufacturing, total numbers of educational institutions, total number of churches, taxation by state, and land surface area in square miles.

W&M is an ICPSR member -- make a free account with your WM email address.

Googlebook

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.