For the class, U.S. History Through Census Data, we used IPUMS data to answer questions about various aspects of American history.  We used IPUMS data to research how a certain governmental position or cultural phenomenon affected the population by making graphs of the data.  These graphs allowed us to observe patterns in the data that helped answer our questions.  IPUMS data is particularly helpful in this regard because they have synthesized data from all censuses beginning in 1850.

We completed four project over the course of the term on the categories of race, immigration, work and family.  While there was no requirement to relate the projects, my projects on race and family both looked at the effects of slavery on the African American population in America post-emancipation.  My first project on race researched the population distribution of the ‘black’ race category following the civil war.  Ultimately I found that the large population of African Americans living in the south after the civil war primarily stayed in the south likely due to an inability to leave.  My fourth project looked at marriage rates in the ‘black’ population compared to the ‘white’ population in America following the civil war.  I found that the institution of slavery did not have a noticeable effect on marriage rates between the two races.  My projects on immigration and work both focus on the Immigration Act of 1924.  The second project on immigration looks at the overall immigrant population before and after the Act as well as the percent of different immigrant groups in the total immigrant population.  My third project looked at the female immigrant population’s participation in the labor force during the same time period as my second project.  It looks at which occupations female immigrants are drawn to as well as the percent of each immigrant group in those occupations.