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Previous Director William Lane Austin
Previous Director William Lane Austin
U.S. Census Bureau Director: 1933-1941
William Lane Austin rose through the ranks at the Census Bureau, climbing from clerk to director, over the course of his career. Born in Mississippi in 1871, he graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1897, earning his law degree a year later. However, Austin chose to become a teacher rather than pursue a career in law. In 1900, he accepted an appointment as a clerk for the Census Office, staying with the agency when it became the permanent Census Bureau in 1902.
From 1913 until 1917, Austin was chief clerk of the Census Bureau; from 1917 to 1932, he was chief statistician for agriculture, as well as chief statistician for cotton and tobacco statistics. For the first half of 1933, he was assistant director of the Census Bureau. In April of that year, after William Mott Steuart retired, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Austin director. As director, Austin oversaw eight years of experimentation and change in census and survey work, including the introduction of statistical sampling in the 1940 census. He died in Mississippi in 1949.
Page Last Revised - April 28, 2023
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