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1940 Census: Conducting the Count at Railroad Yards

An enumerator for the 1940 census, left, interviews a family outside the rail car where they were living.

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1940 Census Occupied-Dwelling Schedule - Characteristics Detail

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1940 Census Population Schedule

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1940 Census Occupied-Dwelling Schedule

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1940 Census Population Schedule

A portion of the 1940 Population schedule.

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1940 Census Population Schedule - Employment Status Detail

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1940 Reviewing an Occupied Dwelling Schedule

Census Bureau employee reviewing a 1940 Census Occupied Dwelling Schedule. Year: 1940.

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1940 Census Poster

Records from the 1940 census are still protected by the "72-Year Rule." The National Archives released them on April 2, 2012.

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1940 Census

One of the fifty questions the enumerators asked Americans in 1940 was "Does the person's household live on a farm?"

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1940 Sorting Farm and Ranch Punch Cards

A battery of mechanical sorters prepare punch cards containing data from the 1940 Farm and Ranch Census for tabulation. Year: 1940

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1940 Inspecting Punch Cards

Census Bureau Machine Tabulation Division. Year: 1940

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Past Census Facilities 8

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1940 Processing the Questionnaires

Mechanically Sorting and Tabulating Punch Cards. Year: 1940

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1940 Creating Farm and Ranch Punch Cards

Census Bureau employees create thousands of punch cards containing the data supplied on the 1940 Farm and Ranch census questionnaire. Year: 1940

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1940 Mechanically Sorting Punch Cards for Tabulation

A Census Bureau employee operates a sorter to prepare punch cards containing vital statistics and mortality data for tabulation. Year: 1940

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1940 Processing the Questionnaires

A battery of mechanical sorters prepare punch cards containing 1940 census data for tabulation. Year: 1940

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1940 Hand Punch Machine

Hand punch machine used in 1940. Year: 1940

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1940 Card Punch

A Census Bureau employee demonstrates the use of a "pantograph" card punch used in earlier censuses. Year: 1940

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1940 Preparing Census Data for Publication

Preparing 1940 Census Data for Publication. Census Bureau employees proofread and edit tabulations using mechanical calculators prior to publication. Year: 1940

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Notable Alumni Bernard Malamud

A novelist and short-story writer, Malamud won two national Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.

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Notable Alumni Leslie Kish

In his 1965 book Survey Sampling, Kish summarized and developed the current theory of sampling and survey design.

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Punch Card Sorters

Census Bureau technicians building sorters to process the thousands of punch cards a survey or census generates in the 1940s.