Don't fill out 2010 Census forms drunk
This year is when we will get the 2010 Census in the mail or if you don't get it or fill it out, census takers will come to your door. Anyway, my cousin has completed the 1900 census for the Truxton Circle area and I still got to mash the data up, clear out the non-addresses, and decide what kind of paper I want to write. The last enumeration district she had to do, was ED 63, and according to her complaint, the dude who was the census taker must have been drunk. Since it is 1900 I will concur on the drunk part, and not chalk it up to crack. The census taker's work was sloppy, disjointed, and simply disorganized. We imagine that he was staggering around eastern Mt. Vernon Square area asking random passersby where they lived.Maybe he kept stopping by bars. I don't know about the number of saloons or bars in the TC area circa 1900 but apparently a lot of the Irish that were captured in our study were barkeeps. Yes, I know that just goes right into a stereotype. What can I say, our data has stereotypes. Don't blame us, blame the occupational landscape for Irish, and African Americans for 1900.
Back to our drunken census taker, he has made trying to clean up the data hard, and there will probably be some holes. So for the sake of any future researcher in 2090, please write clearly with a clear head, when you fill out your 2010 census form.
Thank you.
Labels: data/demographics, history
posted by Mari @ 6.1.10
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