Re: Job of Census enumerators in the 19th century - not much has
- From: Stanmapstone@xxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 11:19:53 +0000 (UTC)
In a message dated 04/01/2006 10:36:43 GMT Standard Time,
tulse04-news@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
As for the census being the first where machines were first used, I had
certainly seen mention that it was the first where punched cards were used.
Apparently this was first done by Hollerith in the 1890 US Census where the
count took 3 months rather than the expected two years if it had been done
manually.
_____________________________________________________________________
Hollerith estimated that if the data for the United States census of 1890
was processed by hand it would take 20 years to complete!
The 1911 census was collected on April 3rd. and a preliminary report was
issued on June 10th.
The Census was the first in which machines were used for purposes of
tabulation in Great Britain. From 1841 to 1901 it had been part of the duties of
each enumerator to copy the replies to the questions on the house holder's
schedules into his Enumeration Book from which the census tables were then
prepared. The introduction of machine tabulation made it necessary to code most of
the particulars and this was done direct from the schedules themselves; the
process of copying was omitted and the chances of error therefore lessened. On
completion of the coding, the schedules passed into the hands of machine
operators who recorded the coded information on special cards by punching holes
in appropriate numbered positions. Particulars relating to any one individual
were recorded on 'personal cards' and material needed for the fertility
analysis was recorded on a second set. A third set was used to assemble, from
summaries made by the numerators, details of population and buildings in each
enumeration district. This process was followed by machine tabulation carried out
in two stages by means of two other machines which (i) sorted all the cards
with holes in certain identical positions and (ii) counted the cards thus
sorted. A full description of these processes was given in Appendix B to the
1911 General Report.
The enumerators were paid a minimum fee of 21 shillings, and 3s 6d for every
100 persons enumerated after the first 400.
Regards Stan Mapstone
www.mapstone.org
.
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