The Great 1890 Headcount
Federal agents prepare to survey Washington's rapidly growing population, bringing new jobs and a complex pay scale to the frontier.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The census bureau is making swift arrangements for counting the people in this country. General Porter, the superintendent, and a dozen chiefs of bureau are working like bees, ready to start the work on the first of June. The whole census must be taken between June 1 and July 1. Because Washington has grown so rapidly, the census bureau is having trouble getting satisfactory estimates. It has divided the state into two districts with supervisors appointed: Will D. Jenkins of Whatcom for the first, and J. M. Hill of Pullman for the second. The bureau expects to employ one enumerator for every 1,000 people. Enumerators will be paid based on density: two cents per name in cities, or a sliding scale up to five cents for special categories like old soldiers and their widows. For the Yakima and other Indian reservations, the superintendent will send out special agents. Enumerators must work every day, Sundays excepted, with no excuses for weather. Failure to work daily is sufficient cause for removal.
“The enumerators will have no particularly easy task. They must complete the task within thirty days... There will be no postponement on account of the weather.”
The 1890 census was a snapshot of a state in the middle of a massive boom, just one year after Washington attained statehood. Today, the census remains a critical (and often politically contentious) tool for determining representation, mirroring the anxiety felt by the 1890 bureau about correctly counting a transient and expanding population.
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