Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790-2002 (ICPSR 2896)

1. The augmented and corrected version of HISTORICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL DATA: THE UNITED STATES, 1790-1970 (ICPSR 0003)differed from the original version of ICPSR 0003 in several respects: (a) Data were checked to ensure that county totals added up to states and that states added up to the country total. (b) This collection includes all missing territories and the District of Columbia, and the national totals were added in, including Alaska and Hawaii, when the data were available. The original dataset did not include the District of Columbia, some territories at some dates, and the national totals. (c) New variables were added. One example is the information on housing from the censuses of 1890 to 1920. An entire new dataset from the United States Census of 1930 on "Families" was added (Part 30). (d) Some regular extra variables were added, including the county and state FIPS codes, codes for census region, and a variable "level" (1 = county, 2 = state, 3 = USA) to allow for selection. Most of the published county data on population and housing were included up to the early 20th century. Some data on manufacturing and agriculture are also present. (e) Some new variables have been created. Most notably, the urban population of each county in the United States has been calculated from the original Census Bureau worksheets for the period 1790 to 1930. When urban areas cut across county boundaries, the population was allocated according to the census data. (f) Some new variables have simply been calculated from the existing data, such as total population and total population by age and sex (when not presented).

2. For Parts 44-50 most of the basic crop output data apply to the previous harvest year. Since the censuses were taken in June, this means the data refer to 1839, 1849, 1859, 1869, 1879, 1889, and 1899. Only after 1880 was a distinction made as to time period in the published data. The stock variables, such as value of farms, numbers of livestock, and acreage, apply to the time of the census.

3. For Parts 44-50 the principal investigator made several adjustments to the data files. (a) Data were checked to ensure that county totals added up to the states and that states added up to the country total whenever counts were involved. (b) Some regular extra variables were added, including the county and state FIPS codes, codes for census region, and a variable "level" (1 = county 2 = state 3 = USA) to allow for selection. (c) For 1840-1860, some additional variables were created. These involved the inclusion of prices (by state) for various commodities, the multiplication of the physical quantities by those prices to obtain value of output of those commodities, and the summing of various values to obtain different measures of the value of agricultural output. This was not done for 1870 and subsequent censuses.

4. For Parts 44-50 much of the basic information for 1840-1860 and 1880 was furnished by Lee A. Craig (North Carolina State University, Department of Economics) and Thomas Weiss (University of Kansas, Department of Economics). The price and output data for 1840-1860 were calculated by Lee Craig. Some variables were taken from ICPSR 0003. The data in this collection were compiled and corrected by Michael R. Haines (Colgate University, Department of Economics).

5. Parts 82-84 contain data from USA COUNTIES 1998. Due to the large number of variables from this source, the data were divided into three separate data files. The three parts can be merged into one large data file.

6. Part 7, 1850 Census (County and State); Parts 58-69, CITY DATA BOOKS; and Part 85, United States Census of Agriculture, in the previous version have been replaced with an updated version.

7. Parts 86-106 (all of which are derived from Censuses of Agriculture 1920-2002) have been added to the data collection.

8. This collection has been updated to now include SAS, PASW (SPSS), and Stata setup and ready-to-go files for all 106 parts.

9. Variable labels for many variables in Parts 44-50, 85-97, 99-104, and 106 are truncated; please refer to the "Variable List for Parts 44-50, 85-97, 99-104, and 106 (Provided by the Data Producer)" section of the ICPSR codebook for the full version of the variable labels. For the other parts, variable labels for some variables are truncated; however, there is no documentation available for the full version of the variable labels.

10. Parts 98 and 105 do not have documentation available in the "Data Sources" section of the codebook.

United States Bureau of Census, and United States Department of Agriculture. For further information on data sources, please refer to the "Data Sources" section of the ICPSR codebook.

• Haines, Michael R., and Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790-2002. ICPSR02896-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2010-05-21. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02896.v3

2010-05-21 Parts 7, 58 through 69, and 85 have been replaced with the updated version of the datasets. Parts 86 through 106 have been added to this version of the data collection. Also, SAS, PASW (SPSS), and Stata setup and ready-to-go files were produced for Parts 1-106.

2006-03-30 File CB2896.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-04-29 These data are currently available as Stata system files. Technical issues were discovered with the files released with the previous version of this study. Also, Part 85, 1910 Census of Agriculture (County and State) has been added to this version.