Project Summary

This project contains the largest-ever database of digitized, linked census records for people living in the United States between 1850 and 1950. It also increases the representation of women and minority groups in the data.

State-of-the-art handwriting recognition tools are used to digitize millions of census, vital statistics, and other records. The database can be used in promising research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences that would not otherwise be possible.

For example, the data allows researchers to measure the intergenerational transmission of wealth or education, and to estimate the long-term impacts of childhood circumstances.

How to cite

You can cite this work using this paper