In the following blog posts, I use United States census data to analyze patterns in U.S. history. I created these as a part of Dartmouth College’s course “U.S. History Through Census Data,” taught by Emily Merchant. The course had four main units: Race, Migration, Work, and Family. To explore these topics, the class used Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data, which are samples of individual-level data from each available census starting in 1850.

For the “Race” unit, I analyzed how Asian race categories listed in the United States census changed between 1900 and 1970, and explored how these categories reflected the caucasian American attitude toward these races. When the class discussed “Migration,” I used IPUMS data to estimate the percent of foreign-born immigrants in the United States who were born in Mexico between 1950 and 2000. I also looked at where these Mexican immigrants tended to settle, and explored what led to these immigration patterns. In the “Work” unit, I analyzed the changes in female labor force participation between 1880 and 2000. I also observed how these trends differ between white and non-white women. Finally, in the “Family” unit, I estimated the impact of divorce on children between 1940 and 2000. I performed individual-level analysis to see how the number and percent of children living with a divorced parent changes over this time period. The links to these four blog posts can be found by clicking on the unit name.