1930 Census in the News

Couple Hadn’t Spoken in 32 Years

An enumerator in the Bronx paid a call on an apartment and found that a woman of Celtic origin—while living with her husband—hadn’t spoken to him for thirty-two years. It was brought out when the census taker asked where the husband’s parents were born. She said that her husband “was lost when he was a baby” and didn’t know who his parents were, and that “I haven’t spoken to him in thirty-two years and I’m damned if I’ll speak to him now for your benefit.”

- New York Times, April 5, 1930, 21:4
 

Will Not Press Women’s Age In Taking Virginia Census

Danville, Va., March 29 - Southern gallantry will prevail during the taking of the Federal census in this district next week and women who become evasive as to their age will not be pressed. G. Howard Guerrant, district supervisor, said today that the law requires all persons to give truthful answers, but that on the delicate question of a woman’s age the enumerators have been instructed to accept what the women say unless the given age is obviously too low. Then the enumerator may make his own estimate. “We are going to let woman’s conscience be her guide” Mrs. Guerrant explained.

- New York Times, March 30, 1930, 6:5
 

Iowan, Sleeping in Two Counties, Is a Puzzle

Waterloo, Iowa, April 5 - It is the head that counts in figuring the census. The feet are immaterial. A census enumerator, visiting a farm which straddles the Black Hawk and Benton County line, found that the farmer’s bed was so placed that he slept in both counties. His head rested on a pillow in Black Hawk, but his feet projected into Benton County. The enumerator, puzzled, thumbed through his rule book until he read that heads shall be counted in their usual place of abode. The farmer was listed officially as a Black Hawk County resident.

- New York Times, April 6, 1930, II, 1:4
 

Census-Taking Pointers

A few pointers for the novice at census-taking were given by John S. Yerkes, 1438 North Fifty-ninth Street, who has worked with every census since 1900. “The work is thirty percent slower than it was ten years ago, or twenty, or thirty,” said Yerkes. “I blame the enclosed porches. You can’t get to the doorbells, and have to walk around to the back yard. “My principal bit of advice is this: Do most of your work at night. You’ll find the man of the house easier to deal with than the woman. The latter often refuse to answer doorbells in the daytime, because they think it’s a peddler. When you go there at night they think it’s a friend come to call, and admittance is easy.” Yerkes said that old hands at census staking prefer the poor district to the rich. “If you never realized it before you will realize in this game the truth of the old gag, ‘the rich get rich and the poor get children,’” he said.

- Philadelphia Inquirer, Thursday, April 3, 1930, 4:4

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© 2002 Kathleen W. Hinckley, CGRS.  Used with Permission.