Question: Why is There No 1890 Census?
Answer: A federal census was taken in the United States in 1890, but a large percentage of the records were destroyed by a January 1921 fire at the Commerce Building in Washington, DC. Many organizations, including the National Genealogical Society and Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned that the remaining damaged and waterlogged volumes be preserved. Despite this public outcry, however, thirteen years later the Census Bureau destroyed the remaining 1890 schedules. In the 1940s and 1950s a few bundles of surviving census schedules from 1890 were discovered and moved to the National Archives. A devastating tragedy for U.S. genealogists, just 6,160 names were recovered from these surviving fragments of a census which originally counted nearly 63 million Americans.
For a list of communities covered by these surviving 1890 census fragments, as well as details on the surviving remnants of the 1890 special Union Veterans & Widows schedule, see Research Guide to the 1890 Census.
