United States Census, 1850

The United States Census of 1850 was the seventh census of the United States. Conducted by the Bureau of the Census on June 1, 1850, it determined the resident population of the United States to be 23,191,876 &mdash; an increase of 35.9 percent over the 17,069,453 persons enumerated during the 1840 Census.

This was the first census where there was an attempt to collect information about every member of every household, including women, children, and slaves. Prior to 1850, census records had only recorded the name of the head of the household and broad statistical accounting of other household members (three children under age five, one woman between the age of 35 and 40, etc.).

Hinton Rowan Helper made extensive use of the 1850 census results in his politically notorious book The Impending Crisis of the South.