Here is a typical example:
"Martha Earle is my name, Hackensack is my
station / Heaven is my dwelling place and Christ is
my salvation / When I am dead and in my grave and
all my bones are rotten / For this you shall
remember me that I are not forgottin.
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She was
born August 1 AD 1781."
Census records
provide a decade-by-decade illustration of social
and economic issues the government considers most
relevant. The first census in 1790 asks for numbers
of household members in these categories: free white
males under 16 and over 16; free white females;
other free persons, and slaves. The questions
reflect the fledgling government's concern in
assessing America's military potential in light
of Great Britain's continuing presence in North
America.
By 1859, the emphasis shifts to social
statistics, probing taxes, crime, education, and
"pauperism." As the population grows and
each 10-year survey expands, the government record
system grows increasingly sclerotic from
informational overload. The 1930 census is the last
to burden every household with a detailed
questionnaire. That year, questions ask about
ownership of a farm and a radio set, languages
spoken, employment, veteran status, and whether
there is a designated "homemaker."
These official records illuminate, in often
fascinating detail, the everyday lives and times of
people, some of whom graduate to fame or notoriety.
A 1931 jury verdict form convicts Alphonse Capone of
five counts of tax evasion, finally nailing the
Chicago mobster and mocking his famous contention:
"The income tax law is a lot of bunk. The
government can't collect legal taxes from
illegal money." And the voluminous files on
Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz made famous
in Burt Lancaster's 1962 movie, provide a dash
of reality for those who remember the movie's
empathetic treatment.
The archives documents
Stroud as a vicious, unrepentant killer, and his
file photographs show a cold-eyed, bullet-headed
visage that bears scant resemblance to the gentle
and avuncular inmate portrayed by Lancaster. Writes
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alton H. Skinner to the
federal parole board, weighing Stroud's release
in 1922: "The only time that he will cease to
be a menace to those who must of necessity come in
contact with him, is when he comes to the end of his
life." That, according to the National
Archives, was Nov. 21, 1963, of natural causes in a
federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo.
The movie fiction, deservedly, is for the birds.
