History

Artifacts

1910 Enumerator Instruction Manual

Cover of the instruction manual enumerators carried when
conducting the 1910 Census.

In 1910, all census enumerators received this instruction manual to guide them through the 32 questions on the General Population Schedule. During the 1910 Census, enumerators recorded the language spoken by each household member for the first time.

Enumerators were instructed to record the language spoken as follows:

"Ability To Speak English

133. Column 17. Whether able to speak English; or, if not, give language spoken.—This question applies to all persons 10 years of age and over. If such a person is able to speak English, write English. If he is not able to speak English—and in such cases only—write the name of the language which he does speak, as French, German, Italian. If he speaks more than one language, but does not speak English, write the name of that language which is his native language or mother tongue. For persons under 10 years of age, leave the column blank."

To read and download the instructions, click here.

A blank copy of the 1910 General Population Schedule is available here.

Learn more about interesting census-related artifacts on the Census Bureau's social media pages using the tag #ArtifactFriday. For previous #ArtifactFriday posts, visit the History Web site's Artifacts pages.