The first enumeration began on Monday, August 2,1790, little more than a year after the inauguration of President Washington and shortly before the second session of the first Congress ended. The Congress assigned responsibility for the 1790 census to the marshals of the U.S. judicial districts under an act that, with minor modifications and extensions, governed census-taking through1840. The law required that every household be visited and that completed census schedules be posted in ‘‘two of the most public places within [each jurisdiction], there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...’’ and that‘ ‘the aggregate amount of each description of persons’’ for every district be transmitted to the President. The six inquiries in 1790 called for the name of the head of the family and the number of persons in each household of the following descriptions: Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s industrial and military potential), free White males under 16 years, free White females, all other free persons (by sex and color), and slaves.
| 1790 Census Information | Online | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Return of the whole number of persons within the several districts of the United States, according to "An act providing for the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States..." | PDF |
ZIP 4.55 MB |
| Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States taken in the year 1790 | ||
| Connecticut |
PDF |
ZIP 60.6 MB |
| Maine |
PDF |
ZIP 20.3 MB |
| Maryland | PDF |
ZIP 38.2 MB |
| Massachusetts | PDF |
ZIP 81.4 MB |
| New Hampshire | PDF |
ZIP 30.5 MB |
| New York | PDF |
ZIP 74.0 MB |
| North Carolina | PDF |
ZIP 107.4 MB |
| Pennsylvania | PDF |
ZIP 94.8 MB |
| Rhode Island | PDF |
ZIP 14.3 MB |
| South Carolina | PDF |
ZIP 54.2 MB |
| Vermont | PDF |
ZIP 21.9 MB |
| Virginia | PDF |
ZIP 67.7 MB |
For online viewing, each book with a total file size over 10 MB has been divided into several internally linked PDF files. These same files have also been zipped to provide users a more convenient method of transferring the files to an alternate storage device for offline viewing. The total file size of the online PDF files is similar to that of their ZIP counterparts.
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Source: U.S. Census Bureau
