1860 US Census 8th United States Census

Information requested for the 1860 Census

Population:

• Number of dwelling and number of family (in order visited)
• Name
• Relationship to head of household
• Race, Sex, Age
• Marital Status
• State or country of birth
• Profession, Occupation, or Trade of each person, male and female, over 15 years of age
• Value of person's real estate
• Value of person's personal estate
• Blind, deaf or dumb?
• If over 20 can you read or write?

Population (slave inhabitants):

• Name of owner
• Number of slave (slaves were assigned numbers not names)
• Age, Sex, Color
• Blind, deaf, dumb, insane or idiotic?
• Number of uncaught escaped slaves
• Number of slaves freed from bondage

What was lost from the 1860 Census?

By the time the 1860 census data was collected for tabulation, the nation was just starting the American Civil War allowing census staff to only produce abbreviated reports. The Census staff did create a cartographic display including maps of southern states for Union troops.

1860 Census Quick Facts

• It took $1,969,000, approximately 4,417 enumerators and 3,189 published reports to complete the 1860 census
• The US population increased by 35.6 percent from the 1850 census to the 1860 census.

Historical Events Surrounding 1860 Census

• February 9, 1861: Jefferson Davis resigns from the senate and becomes the provisional president of the Confederate States of America
• June 22, 1865: The last shot of the American Civil War is fired. The last confederate general surrenders his troops on June 23, 1865
• February 28, 1854: The republican party was founded.
• January 1, 1863: Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, offering freedom to the 3.1 million slaves of the confederacy.