Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1900-09-20
AMERICAN CENSUS METHODS.
About the Work Now About
Finished.

The work of the twelfth census now
in progress may be divided into three
main stages % the preliminary
work, lasting from the organization Of
| the Office until the time when the field
work begins; CD the field work; and
(3) the tabulation, Interpretation, and
publication of the results.
The preliminary work organized the
four primary lines of inquiry ordered
! by congress, and requiring for their
completion the aid of the army Of
enumeratOrs. They have to do with
the population. with deaths, with agri-
culture, and with manufacturers. This
work eliminated when the schedules
and pamphlet of instructions were sent
from the central Office at Washington
to the three hundred local supervisors
for the fifty-twO thousand enumerators
charged with the hOuse-tO-house WISH
tation. The amount of material sent
out to the field from the central office
is perhaps made most clear by the
statement that through a period ex-
tending over more than two months
there were shipped about two carloads
a day. In all, three hundred tons were
sent out by registered mail.
The field work done by the army Of
cnumerators, designated by, and work.
ing under the direction Of, the super
vsors, consisted in filing the sched-
ules in accordance with the printed
instructions given them. These sched-
ules were large sheets, partly printed,
and with blank spaces for the answers
to the series of questions asked about
every resident, every death during the
preceding year, every farm, and every
manufacturing and mechanical estaD-
lishment. The enumerators before APP
pOintment were required to do
sample piece Of work, by transferring
the information contained in a MARIA
tive to blank schedules identical with
the population schedules to be filed
for the census. In doing so, they were
to follow the printed instructions with
which they were supplied The sched-
ues thus filled were corrected by the
supervisors in accordance with key
furnished them by the census office,
and were then sent to the Washington
office for examination. If the sched-
ules were found satisfactory, the su
peryisor's designation was approved
by the director. In this way a super
visor could protect himself against in
competent men who had been recon-
mended to him for appointment, and
the office could assure itself that the
instructions to enumerators had been
examined and understood.
Each enumerator was given an ac-
curate description Of the metes and
bounds of the destrict in which he was
to work In cities he was also given
map of his district from a plan Of the
city and with the boundaries of his
district heavily marked. The emu
meration district was usually cOtermi-
nous with the election district, in case
that gave promise Of having enough
residents to occupy the average emu
mcrator about the time allowed him by
law; namely, two weeks in the cities,
or a month elsewhere. With the re-
turn Of the schedules to the central
Office and the payment of the enumer-
ators-at the date of writing they are
being paid at the rate of about one
thousand a day-the field work of the
census comes to an end.-Prof. w. f.
Wilcox in the Forum.