This is the eighth volume of the 11 final reports of the Fourteenth Census, taken in the year 1920. The statistics and other materials found in these volumes are based upon data originally issued as advance bulletins for population, agriculture, irrigation, drainage, manufactures, and mines and quarries.

Volume VIII, the first of three volumes on Manufactures, contains a summary of the statistics of manufacturers as a whole, for the separate industries, and for the states, counties, and principal cities. Some of the data collected in 1920 are for the reference year 1919. The volume is separated into 10 sections as follows:

• Persons engaged in manufacturing industries
• Prevailing hours of labor
• Size of establishment
• Power used in manufacturing
• Fuel consumed
• United States by industries and geographic divisions and States (Preliminary totals subject to correction.)
• Comparative summary for cities having 10,000 inhabitants or more, by States: 1919, 1914, and 1909
• Summary for counties by States: 1919
• Detailed statement for the United States by geographic divisions and States: 1919
• Detailed statement for all industries, by States: 1919