History

Census – Then & Now

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Enumerator interviewing a farmer
ca. 1940

The Constitution requires only that the decennial census be a population count. Since the first census in 1790, however, the need for useful information about the United States' population and economy became increasingly evident.

The decennial census steadily expanded throughout the nineteenth century. By the turn of the century, the demographic, agricultural, and economic segments of the decennial census collected information on hundreds of topics. The work of processing these data kept the temporary Census Office open for almost all the decades following the 1880 and 1890 censuses. Recognizing the growing complexity of the decennial census, President Theodore Roosevelt asked Congress to convert the temporary Census Office into a permanent agency in 1902.

This section tells the history of the Census Bureau itself, from its humble beginnings as a temporary office to its current role as the statistical clearinghouse for the federal government.