History

Legislation

Legislation 1830 - 1899

• Census Act of 1830 (March 23, 1830) Download PDF [731KB PDF]
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1830 census. Expanded age categories, which were now to start at infancy and continue upward at ten-year intervals. Additionally, the date of enumeration was shifted from the late summer to springtime. There was to be no manufacturing census in 1830.
• Census Act of 1830: Extension (February 3, 1831) Download PDF [166KB PDF]
  • An act to extend the time marshals had to conduct the 1830 census.
• Census Act of 1839 (March 3, 1839) Download PDF [1.47MB PDF]
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1840 census. Did not, as previous laws had, list the specific questions to be asked. Instead, the law stipulated only broad categories to be addressed. This law was amended several times during the next two years, mostly to give the marshals and their assistants extra time to complete the population count.
  • An Act to amend the act "to provide for taking the sixth census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States (March 3, 1839) Download PDF [179KB PDF]
  • An Act further to amend the act entitled "An act to provide for taking the sixth census or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States (January 14, 1841) Download PDF [99KB PDF]
  • An Act to amend the act entitled "An act to provide for taking the Sixth Census, or enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States" (September 1, 1841) Download PDF [195KB PDF]
• Census Act of 1850 (May 23, 1850) Download PDF [909KB PDF]
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1850 and subsequent censuses. Laid out six specific questionnaires that covered the populations of free and slave inhabitants, agriculture, products of industry, social statistics, and vitality. The department responsible for the census was shifted from State to Interior.
  • An Act supplementary to the Act entitled " An Act providing August for 30, 1850. the taking of the seventh and subsequent Cenuses of the United States, and to fix the Number of the Aembers of the House of Representatives, and to provide for their future apportionment among the several States (August 30, 1850) Download PDF [88KB PDF]
• Census Act of 1850: Amendment [Concerning California] (July 30, 1852) Download PDF [99KB PDF]
  • An act supplementary to "An Act providing for the taking of the seventh and subsequent Censuses of the United States, and to fix the number of Members of the House of Representatives, and provide for their future Apportionment among the several states" approved twenty-third may eighteen hundred and fifty.
• An Act of May 6, 1870 Download PDF [1.47MB PDF]
  • Although the 1870 census was conducted under the authorization of the Census Act of 1850, this new law canceled the slave schedule, made obsolete after the 13th Amendment emancipated all slaves.
• Census Act of 1879 (March 3, 1879) Download PDF [925KB PDF]
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1880 census and subsequent censuses.
• An Act Amending the Census Act of 1879 (April 20, 1880) Download PDF [220KB PDF]
  • An act amending the act authorizing the tenth and subsequent censuses to remove a question about naturalization of foreign-born persons; add an inquiries related to the ownership of the public debt of the United States; include collection of data from railroads, express companies, insurance and telegraph companies; move Census Day to June 1; include an enumeration of Alaska, etc.
• Public Acts Pertaining to the Eleventh [1890] Census Download PDF [2.64MB PDF]
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1890 census.
• Census Act 1899 (March 3, 1899) Download PDF [2.56MB PDF]**
  • Authorizing legislation for the 1900 and subsequent censuses. Originally restricted to inquiries "relating to population, to mortality, to products of agriculture and of manufacturing and mechanical establishments." Social and vitality statistics such as a population count of the deaf, blind, and dumb were only to be completed after these five required censuses. This rule was reversed by a 1900 amendment to the act, allowing those statistics to be collected along with the rest.