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History
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Artifacts
Cardboard Desks
Timothy Olson, Associate Director for Field Operations, sits at a cardboard
desk used in field offices during the 1990 and 2000 censuses.
For the 1990 and 2000 censuses, the U.S. Census Bureau purchased thousands of cardboard desks for use at temporary field offices around the country. The desks were easy to assemble, strong enough for someone to sit on, and sturdy enough to hold a desktop computer. However, one office discovered the desks' fatal flaw—they were no match against hundreds of gallons of water from a malfunctioning fire sprinkler system!
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.
To learn more about 1990 and 2000 census operations, download the procedural histories:
2000 Census of Population and Housing Volume 1 [PDF 14.3MB] and Volume 2 [PDF 5.7MB].
Procedural History: 1990 Census of Population and Housing [63 MB].
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