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From: "Drew Smith" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] St. Louis 1880 census re-count
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:45:11 -0400
References: <cd1.2bbce001.3518410b@aol.com><5e931bb30803231654s3a4d3673ga6d612de073b2799@mail.gmail.com><002501c88d8d$4c40a7f0$0201a8c0@YOUR58BA15CF1B>
In-Reply-To: <002501c88d8d$4c40a7f0$0201a8c0@YOUR58BA15CF1B>


On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 4:58 AM, Richard A. Pence <>
wrote:

> ... the story of St. Louis holding back its "count" until it
> heard the Chicago figures doesn't ring true. For one thing, until Herman
> Hollerith's invention, used to count the population in 1890 (the
> punch-card
> counting machine, upon which IBM was founded), it took most of the decade
> between censuses to count the previous one. The count for 1880 was still
> going on in 1887. And the sheets turned in to the census bureau spoke for
> themselves; "inflating" the figures seems unlikely.
>

Richard,

It was the 1870 census counts for St. Louis that were held back. In the
book "Before They Were Cardinals" (on page 9), the story is that the
powerful publisher of the Missouri Democrat, William McKee, was able to
prevent the federal census-takers from releasing census totals for St. Louis
until the Chicago census totals had been released. This is also discussed
on page 14 of the book "Immigrants on the Hill".

Drew Smith

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