Secrets of the Census, Part 3

The first of June 1860––The United States was less than a year away from four years of Civil War when the 1860 federal census enumerators fanned out across the country to collect data. There were more than thirty-one million people in the U.S. by then, and the enumerators had just five months to complete their task. Although quite similar to the census that preceded it, the 1860 federal census had some striking features, and this week, we’ll take a look at them.