# Has the US Census ever been carried out late or skipped entirely? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 4, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489 "2019-07-04T00:55:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/1 "2019-07-04T00:55:07Z")
I searched quickly on the internet and found [this nifty history of US Census Tabulation and Processing](https://www.census.gov/history/www/innovations/technology/tabulation_and_processing.html), but it focuses on the mechanical aspects of it is all. The Constitution mandates a census every 10 years. The 1880 census took 7 years to tally, but AFAIK it was just the laborious process that delayed the results; the numbers still accurately reflected the country as it was in 1880. Has a war or anything else ever kept the census from taking place as mandated? ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/2 "2019-07-04T01:28:40Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Has a war or anything else ever kept the census from taking place as mandated? U.S. census, no. Some of the state censuses that used to be taken have been delayed. For example, regarding the 1895 Kansas state census: > [@Kansas State Board of Agriculture from their 1895-96 biennial report](#): > > Owing to delay by the legislature in the appropriation of funds for printing the necessary blanks for use of assessors, these could not be delivered to them until two or three weeks later than the law requires assessment and enumeration to begin, and this fact resulted in much of the detailed information being hurriedly or carelessly collected, and in some cases entirely omitted. > > The assessors of Comanche, Finney, Saline and Seward counties, countenanced by their county commissioners in so doing, used the unfortunate delay as a pretext for refusing to make any enumeration whatever, and the returns from portions of Atchison, Cherokee, Gove, Lyon and Marion counties especially, and various others in some respects and to some extent, are for the same reasons so incomplete as to make their showing, not only for their respective counties but for the state as a whole, very unsatisfactory to this office … ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/3 "2019-07-04T19:12:17Z")
Awesome; thanks for the confirmation **slash2k**. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/4 "2019-07-04T19:57:48Z")
The 1890 Census was lost to a fire and extreme mismanagement on the part of Congress and the Census Bureau > **[“First in the Path of the Firemen”](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/spring/1890-census-1)** > > The Fate of the 1890 Population Census Spring 1996, Vol. 28, No. 1 | Genealogy Notes By Kellee Blake Enlarge The 1890 census was the first to use punchcards and an electrical tabulation system. (Courtesy Bureau of the Census) Of the decennial... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/5 "2019-07-05T00:27:13Z")
The census has always been held. However, the reapportionment of Congress that should follow was skipped in the 1920s [because of politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Membership_cap). ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/6 "2019-07-05T17:56:24Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > The 1890 Census was lost to a fire and extreme mismanagement on the part of Congress and the Census Bureau > > [“First in the Path of the Firemen” | National Archives](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1996/spring/1890-census-1.html) Thank you. Your cite says it wasn’t the whole census, just parts of it. > [@](#): > > Enumerators generally completed their counting by July 1 of 1890, and the U.S. population was returned at nearly 63 million (62,979,766). > [@](#): > > In March 1896, before final publication of all general statistics volumes, the original 1890 special schedules for mortality, crime, pauperism and benevolence, special classes (e.g., deaf, dumb, blind, insane), and portions of the transportation and insurance schedules were badly damaged by fire and destroyed by Department of the Interior order.(6) No damage to the general population schedules was reported at that time. In fact, a 1903 census clerk found them to be in “fairly good condition.” ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/7 "2019-07-05T18:09:27Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Thank you. Your cite says it wasn’t the whole census, just parts of it. It was the 1921 fire that damaged most of the general schedules, with the then-director of the census estimating 25 percent destroyed and half of the remainder damaged, especially by water poured on the fire. No real effort was made to salvage the fire-damaged volumes, and in 1932 they were listed for destruction as part of a larger request to Congress to destroy papers no longer needed for current business. Apparently nobody recognized the historical significance, and Congress duly approved the list. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/8 "2019-07-05T23:34:19Z")
slash2k, is it known whether the information, or at least some of it, had been copied anywhere else? ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/9 "2019-07-06T02:26:12Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > slash2k, is it known whether the information, or at least some of it, had been copied anywhere else? The statistical summaries and tabulations had been published years earlier, but no, the actual lists of names are not known to have been copied. Only about one-hundredth of one percent (6,160 names out of 69,979,755 originally enumerated) survive for the general population schedules, although about half of the veterans’ schedules are still extant. Ironically, 1890 was the first year in some decades which local government did NOT receive their own copy. In 1880, one copy went to the Census Bureau and another was prepared for the local courthouse; in 1850, 1860, and 1870, the state, the county, and the feds all received copies. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/10 "2019-07-06T13:30:27Z")
Thanks, slash2k. Yes, that was really bad timing for the year to choose not to provide local copies, wasn’t it? though of course they couldn’t know that that was the year it would matter. It’s much easier to do so now, of course; I presume that the whole thing is now stored in multiple computers, and hope there are hardcopies in multiple places. (I was going to say that I presumed the whole thing’s available online, but of course not all of it’s supposed to be publicly available for some time due to privacy issues – is it 99 years?) ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-us-census-ever-been-carried-out-late-or-skipped-entirely/836489/11 "2019-07-06T18:30:46Z")
Seventy-two years: the 1940 census was released in April 2012, and the National Archives is already making plans to release the 1950 census in April 2022. I’m not sure what paper copies have been retained of recent censuses. The 1940 census, for example, is available [digitally](https://1940census.archives.gov/), but this was prepared from the microfilm, and I know the other mid-century censuses (1950, 60, 70) were all microfilmed for permanent preservation quite early, so I suspect the paper returns were discarded long ago, but I don’t know that for sure. Probably the more recent ones such as 2010 were scanned upon receipt.