Review by Booklist Review
Reading the U.S. census is daunting, but cultural historian Bouk reveals the stories and history of the individuals, families, and communities behind these figures. In a first-person, casual style, Bouk analyzes the questions that have been asked by the Census Bureau and what they mean. He traces the institutional racism that has pervaded the census since its beginning--white men exclusively wrote the questions and performed the census taking, which led to a history of undercounting minorities. Bouk details how the Census Bureau violated the law by revealing the personal information of Japanese, Italian, and German citizens and noncitizens to the army and FBI during WWII. With pictures and discussion of actual census tracts, 50 pages of footnotes, and an extensive bibliography, Bouk brings out fascinating facts and history that cast a new slant on this government agency. Genealogists, history lovers, and anyone interested in how government works will find this a fun and revealing history of how politics, racism, and bias affect the census. A must purchase for public and academic libraries.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Historian Bouk (How Our Days Became Numbered) delivers a painstaking and penetrating analysis of the 1940 census. Uncovering "stories in the data," Bouk parses the bureaucratic processes behind the creation and execution of the census, which contained 30 questions--including, for the first time ever, a column for marking the respondent's wage income--asked by roughly 120,000 enumerators about 131 million U.S. residents. He also delves into the streamlining of responses to conform to highly specific categories of population, race, and household organization, and makes incisive connections between this mass-produced government questionnaire and the decades-long legacy of New Deal social programs, the conduct of the U.S. before and after its entry into WWII, and how the census ("the factory of American facts") has evolved through the present-day. On a darker note, Bouk contends that the 1940 census upheld white supremacy by undercounting Black residents in cities and classifying Mexican Americans as "white," and explains how it contributed to the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Combining lucid statistical analysis and empathetic profiles of enumerators and respondents, this is a rewarding deep dive into how the census works. Agent: Jane von Mehren, Aevitas Creative. (Aug.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A deep dive into the 1940 U.S. census: how it was created, completed, deployed, and even weaponized and what it can teach us about American democracy. "I hope that this book will help people hear data speak in new ways," writes Bouk, a professor of history at Colgate. "I hope readers will develop an admiration for data's depths, for the ways that sweat and blood suffuse a data set. Some people fall in love with the appearance of data as a thing more or less certain, simple, and precise. I think there is more beauty and also more truth in acknowledging and even appreciating the roots of data in the uncertain, complicated, and often hazy spaces of life." The author provides a meticulous examination of the mechanics of the census, a complex topic that includes the design of the questions, training of the enumerators, public promotion across the country, and how it affects political representation and opposition. Bouk's study of the 1940 census shows how data can be manipulated, leading to such lamentable actions as the internment of Japanese Americans during and after World War II. Using photographed examples, including the census data on a variety of significant historical figures, Bouk shines a bright light on the power of the data to be used as a tool to promote or silence the voices of certain demographics. Throughout the text, the author clearly demonstrates the importance of understanding the context of census development: what it can tell us about what was important at the time a particular census was executed as well as the often far-reaching effects on all elements of society. As Bouk argues convincingly, "looking squarely at complicated data-making processes is becoming an essential activity for all those who wish to have a say in shaping our world, from activists to policy makers, and for every person striving to remain an informed citizen." A page-turning examination of why we need to understand the census and its wide-ranging effects. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
