The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1959-11-27
NATIONS HOMES TO
BE VISITED DURINGI
THE 1850 CENSUS

WASHINGTON.-For the 1860
census an army of 100000 enum-
orators will knock on the door of
every home in the United States
and its possessions.
Mansions, huts, lighthouses,
monasteries, carnivals, households,
iails. even the White House will
be visited.
Not only will the census-takers
count 1SO,0OO,000 noses across the
Land; they will gather billions of
facts about Americans lives and
activities. The survey is a fantasia
cally big job, required by the Con-
stitution every ten years.
How the U. S. Census Bureau
goes about the task is described
in the November National Geo.
graphic Magazine in an article
entitled, Census 1860: Profile of
the Nation" by Albert w. Atwood
and Lonnelle Altman.
Advance Work Takes Three Years
Preparation for a major census
takes about three years. The Blu
reau's nerve center throbs in two
huge buildings at Suitland, Mary
land, just outside the Nations
Capital. More than 1000 men and
vices to record and analyze sta
women use the latest electronic de-
tistics. About 400 district offices
are being set up or the 1860 sur
vey.
Forms will be mailed to all
American domiciles next March.
Recipients will be asked 10 fill in
the blanks, name, address, relation
ship Ito head of household, date of
birth, race, sex, marital status, and
type of home-house, apartment,
trailer, coal barge or whatever.
Enumerators will call in person to
check and collect the answers.
At every fourth dwelling, the
census-takers will leave a more de-
tailed form to be filled out and
returned by mail. The form high
lights personal questions-educa-
ton, number of times married, oc-
cupation, income, and so on. But
the answers are strictly confiden-
hial. Not even the FBI or tax
agencies can tap census data for
their own purposes.
Once the information is collected,
it is microfilmed, converted to
electrical pulses, and processed in
Univacs universal automatic COM
puters).
"Indeed," the Geographic article
says, "without automatic equip
lnent the national head count would
have choked to death long ago on
its own undigested paper work"
The 1860 census, for example,
will fill about 100000 pages in
more than 100 bound volumes.
How Statistics Are Used
What is the value of all these
facts? Authors Atwood and Ak
man explain, "New factories,
supermarkets, and hospitals are
built because of what census fig
ures tell about concentrations of
people, their needs and wants. En-
ployment figures, housing and
health reports guide legislation.
Federal aid to States and State as
sistance to cities are based large
ly on population. Export-import
facts assembled by census shape
national trade policies. Wars
military and industrial mobiliza-
ton depends on knowing about
available people and skills."
Thanks to the Census Bureaus
years of bookkeeping, millions of
people have been supplied with the
legal proof of identity needed to
obtain pensions, passports, citizen
ship, jobs, and insurance payments.
81 could hardly believe my eyes,
wrote one grateful citizen. "The
wonder of it And thank you
again for all the work it must have
taken to dig me up"