The 1900 United States census, conducted by the Census Office on June 1, 1900, determined the resident population of the United States to be 76,212,168, an increase of 21.01% from the 62,979,766 persons enumerated during the 1890 census. It was the last census to be conducted before the founding of the permanent United States Census Bureau.
The census saw the nation's largest city, New York City, more than double in size due to the consolidation with Brooklyn, becoming in the process the first U.S. city to record a population growth of over three million—Brooklyn was previously the 4th largest city in the United States on its own.
Oversight of the statistics was by Frederick Howard Wines and Walter F. Willcox.
Census questions
The 1900 census collected the following information:
- address
- name
- relationship to head of family
- sex
- race (listed as "Color or race" on the census)
- age, month and year born
- marital status and, if married, number of years married
- for women, number of children born and number now living
- place of birth of person, and their parents
- if foreign born, year of immigration and whether naturalized
- occupation
- months not employed
- school
- ability to speak English
- whether on a farm
- home owned or rented, and, if owned, whether mortgaged
Full documentation for the 1900 census, including census forms and enumerator instructions, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.
Statistician Frederick Ludwig Hoffman criticized the conduct of the census.
Data availability
The original census enumeration sheets were microfilmed by the Census Bureau in the 1940s, after which the original sheets were destroyed. The microfilmed census is available in rolls from the National Archives and Records Administration. Several organizations also host images of the microfilmed census online, and digital indices.
Microdata from the 1900 census are freely available through IPUMS. Aggregate data for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System.