At one in the afternoon on April 1st, 2021, the United States Federal Census for the year 1950 will officially be released to the public through NARA, the National Archives of the United States. This census will have special counts for babies, for transients, for Native Americans (Indians) and will be an exciting way to find the history of your family, while also better understanding American society and culture at that time.
This census reflects the 'after World War II boom' in the economy. In my opinion, the questions the census takers had to ask show the concern the government had that a family have a breadwinner. Men will be asked what their education is and what their employment is. Those who served in the armed forces during World War II and were honorably discharged could get GI loans to buy houses and enroll in special education programs.
The Hungarian families who had immigrated to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's and started out in ethnic ghettos were now into a second or third, maybe even fourth or fitth,generation and moving into affordable suburban houses. The suburbs were being built, as were roadways to accommodate the commuter. Most everyone could afford a mortgage and a car. As a result of all that building, entirely new neighborhood of single family dwellings had to be counted. (Today housing affordability is a major issue through much of the United States. Gas for cars is at an all-time high, making the days for average folk just cruising in a car for fun quite over. Our President Joseph Biden wants us to shore up that infrastructure.)
Women who had worked during the war in factories, and as some thought, had taken over jobs for men during those years, were now encouraged to be stay at home wives and mothers and let the men support them. Many children were born; this was the Baby Boomers generation. Women will be asked about their education but not their employment. I suppose women who went to college went thinking this was where they would find a good, educated, husband. Women were also asked how many times they have given birth while married, separated, or divorced.
I know that many of you are eager to get started on finding your family circa 1950.
NARA has, during the Covid shut down, continued to work on the release of this census remotely. Thousands of employees got it to where it will be on April 1st. ENUMERATION DISTRICTS and maps have been defined. INDEXING will be done by artificial intelligence machines, with humans able to make corrections. Some of the pages will really need some work since the originals are dull or frayed. Some of the big database companies say they will have indexing done by sometime this summer. The endeavor is considerably more expansive than the work on the 1940 census.
Most likely the NARA site will all be jammed up for the first days or weeks as people go on the site to search. So what you can do right now is find the likely ED district for your family. One way to do this is, providing the family has not moved between 1940 and 1950 is to use the ED and street information for 1940 to see what ED it is in 1950. For some, it will be fun to see parents or grandparents who are in college, staying at the Y, or in the military, living on their own.
I'm linking to the NARA 1950 census main page here: NATIONAL ARCHIVES GOV - RESEARCH CENSUS 1950
Check out the YouTube NARA series about this census as well!
C 2022 Magyar American BlogSPot
