Enumeration Nation: Pretests for 1970 Census

Joseph Ballegeer, NA

To prepare for the first fully mail-out/mail-in census enumeration, the Census Bureau conducted a series of experimental pretests between 1961 and 1969. The pretests and self-enumeration mark an important advance in survey methodology that produced the first version of an address register still in use today. This study, as part of a larger history of science on the 1970 census, examines the degree to which the provenance of data is contextual of scientists’ and subjects’ culture. Construction of the address list proves illustrative of this relational perspective of data. As the Bureau prepared for self-enumeration, cultural upheaval in the United States pushed federal policy to make new demands of census data. This project details the Bureau’s rigorous methods to urge present day data user to consider that the environment in which data was generated impacts inferences.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 193. Building and Interpreting Censuses III