1940 Census draws historians and genealogist

By Carol Morello, Tuesday, May 22, 6:13 PM

A small clue to Bernice Bennett’s past leapt out at her from the computer screen, on a scanned ledger filled with addresses entered with the precision penmanship that is a lost art.

It was 72 years ago that census workers fanned out across the country, visiting houses to personally count the 132 million people living in the United States in 1940. And now the National Archives has opened up the once-confidential details of daily life in a nation living in the vise of economic collapse and impending war.

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