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.
An act to extend the time marshals had to conduct the 1830 census.
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.
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 "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.
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.
Authorizing legislation for the 1880 census and subsequent censuses.
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.
Authorizing legislation for the 1890 census.
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.