Why We Search
Hi again, dear readers,
On April 1, the U.S. National Archives released the raw records from the 1950 U.S. census. It has been a whirlwind since.
There are so many people to look for and I have so much to learn about this new dataset. As I explored, I tweeted...
In 1952, Ralph Ellison published _Invisible Man_, a novel that ends with its narrator holed up underground, speaking for us "on the lower frequencies."
— Dan Bouk (@danbouk) April 6, 2022
Well...it looks like Ellison was living underground when he wrote that! (h/t @sethamgott) pic.twitter.com/hUq4mpjFdW
I tweeted enough that it wore me out, and I've taken a break. Writing is more fun.
My history lab at Colgate (4 undergrads strong at the moment) got bit by the bug of census searching. They keep sending me new discoveries. (Yesterday it was Ruth Bader--not yet Ginsburg.) I wrote, with their help, a post about why searching in census records is not, in fact, boring, but instead surprisingly fun. A partner post will drop soon expanding on these ideas and revealing many more of the lab's discoveries. (Keep an eye on the blog.)
The dream in all this work is that it brings together people to think about themselves, their kin, and their communities. I've had fun seeing others write about their 1950 census discoveries. It was a colleague from 2020 census advocacy, for instance, who shared the Ralph Ellison record above. And I've been really excited to see the fascinating work that genealogical scholars have been doing. This piece by Tammy Hepps, is hands-down one of the best census stories I've read.
Last week, Alexis Madrigal invited me on to do some live radio with KQED in San Francisco's Forum. (Listen to a recording here.) I got to talk census with Alexis and the dean of all US census historians, Margo Anderson. It was thrilling, because live radio is terrifying.
Alexis kicked off the show talking about looking to see who lived in his neighborhood in 1950. Apparently one of his neighbors like this idea too, and discovered that one of the places he had lived had once housed a Flinstones cartoonist, who (can you believe it!) kicked off his strip with a census gag.
You should also listen to that whole Forum episode because Alexis and his producer Grace Won found a wonderful recording of Langston Hughes' poem, "The Census Man."
My own fascination with the census began with a census woman: Elbertie Foudray. But when it came time to cut DEMOCRACY'S DATA down to size, I was left with a only some passing references. As a result, I was grateful when Anne Pasmanick gave me an opportunity to tell her story as part of our conversation on the PowerStation podcast. (Foudray appears at 25 minutes in, or so.) It was a fun conversation, and (thanks to the usb microphone my partner Lucas lent me, I thought I sounded pretty good).
Thanks for reading this update. If you've had enough, you can always unsubscribe here. Or, if you're feeling more expansive, you can share this with your friends.
If you have any of your own census stories or discoveries, know that I am keen to hear them!
until next time, Dan