- Title Pages
- Frontispiece
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Illustrations
- List of tables
- Note on Terminology
- Introduction
- Part I The Origins of the US Census: From Enumeration of Voters and Taxpayers to “Social Statistics,” 1790–1840
- 1 The Creation of the Federal Census by the Constitution of the United States
- 2 The First Developments of the National Census (1800–1830)
- 3 The Census of 1840
- Part II Slaves, Former Slaves, Blacks, and Mulattoes: Identification of the Individual and the Statistical Segregation of Populations (1850–1865)
- 4 Whether to Name or Count Slaves
- 5 Color, Race, and Origin of Slaves and Free Persons
- 6 Color and Status of Slaves
- 7 Census Data for 1850 and 1860 and the Defeat of the South
- Part III The Rise of Immigration and the Racialization of Society: The Adaptation of the Census to the Diversity of the American Population (1850–1900)
- 8 Modernization, Standardization, and Internationalization
- 9 From Slavery to Freedom
- 10 From “Mulatto” to the “One Drop Rule” (1870–1900)
- 11 The Slow Integration of Indians into US Population Statistics in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 The Chinese and Japanese in the Census
- 13 Immigration, Nativism, and Statistics (1850–1900)
- Part IV Apogee and Decline of Ethnic Statistics (1900–1940)
- 14 The Disappearance of the “Mulatto” as the End of Inquiry into the Composition of the Black Population of the United States
- 15 The Question of Racial Mixing in the American Possessions
- 16 New Asian Races, New Mixtures, and the “Mexican” Race
- 17 From Statistics by Country of Birth to the System of National Origins
- Part V The Population and the Census: Representation, Negotiation, and Segmentation (1900–1940)
- 18 The Census and African Americans Within and Outside the Bureau
- 19 Women as Census Workers and as Relays in the Field
- 20 Ethnic Marketing of Population Statistics
- Epilogue
- Conclusion
- Abbreviations
- Sources and Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion
Conclusion
- Chapter:
- (p.274) Conclusion
- Source:
- Counting Americans
- Author(s):
Paul Schor
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that while this study takes up the last half-century only marginally, it should be read as an implicit comparison with the present, since reflection on racial and ethnic categories is so much a historical focus of today. In showing that a certain number of attributes of modernity can be traced back through archival evidence, this study tried at once to historicize the categories of today and show the contribution of an approach that, if it takes concepts as the main object of analysis, assumes empiricism as its principle, staying as close as possible to the past meaning of the concepts, when they were clear as well as when they were muddled. It argues in favor of a longue durée approach. It concludes that this history of categories is specifically American.
Keywords: US census, history, race, racial categories, ethnic categories, racism, longue durée
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- Title Pages
- Frontispiece
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Illustrations
- List of tables
- Note on Terminology
- Introduction
- Part I The Origins of the US Census: From Enumeration of Voters and Taxpayers to “Social Statistics,” 1790–1840
- 1 The Creation of the Federal Census by the Constitution of the United States
- 2 The First Developments of the National Census (1800–1830)
- 3 The Census of 1840
- Part II Slaves, Former Slaves, Blacks, and Mulattoes: Identification of the Individual and the Statistical Segregation of Populations (1850–1865)
- 4 Whether to Name or Count Slaves
- 5 Color, Race, and Origin of Slaves and Free Persons
- 6 Color and Status of Slaves
- 7 Census Data for 1850 and 1860 and the Defeat of the South
- Part III The Rise of Immigration and the Racialization of Society: The Adaptation of the Census to the Diversity of the American Population (1850–1900)
- 8 Modernization, Standardization, and Internationalization
- 9 From Slavery to Freedom
- 10 From “Mulatto” to the “One Drop Rule” (1870–1900)
- 11 The Slow Integration of Indians into US Population Statistics in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 The Chinese and Japanese in the Census
- 13 Immigration, Nativism, and Statistics (1850–1900)
- Part IV Apogee and Decline of Ethnic Statistics (1900–1940)
- 14 The Disappearance of the “Mulatto” as the End of Inquiry into the Composition of the Black Population of the United States
- 15 The Question of Racial Mixing in the American Possessions
- 16 New Asian Races, New Mixtures, and the “Mexican” Race
- 17 From Statistics by Country of Birth to the System of National Origins
- Part V The Population and the Census: Representation, Negotiation, and Segmentation (1900–1940)
- 18 The Census and African Americans Within and Outside the Bureau
- 19 Women as Census Workers and as Relays in the Field
- 20 Ethnic Marketing of Population Statistics
- Epilogue
- Conclusion
- Abbreviations
- Sources and Bibliography
- Index
