The 1950 Census might have been the last census your grandparents filled out before moving from the city to the suburbs. Aurora, Colo., meanwhile, was a small suburb of Denver with just 11,000 people. The rankings of cities by population were considerably different in 1950 prior to the trends in regional migration and suburbanization. Its population would more than quadruple to 439,000 in the next 10 years. Only three of the country’s 10 largest cities in 1950 (Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.) were in the South or West.
These improvements reveal that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and diverse than what we measured in the past. An official website of the United States government The first link explains the methodology used for identifying and editing names data. Or it might be the first census showing an African American family from the rural South living in an urban neighborhood in the Northeast or Midwest, or a family from the rural Midwest living in California.

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From 1790 through 1820, the decennial census was conducted as of the first Monday in August. The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was filmed at the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer studios (above) in Culver City, CA, and in Liberal, KS. The Wizard of Oz remains so popular that the 2019 theatrical release of the movie commemorating its 80th anniversary grossed more than $1.2 million! Today, the movie remains a staple of the holiday television schedule with families planning to view the movie together at Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays.

  • By 2020, the share of the county’s population in Chicago had fallen to 52%.
  • L. Frank Baum’s popular children’s book The Wizard of Oz became one of the most beloved motion pictures in history thanks to a talented cast of lovable characters.
  • In 2020, the Hispanic or Latino population became the largest racial or ethnic group in California, comprising 39.4% of the total population, up from 37.6% in 2010.
  • The German alone population was the largest in 10 states, the Italian alone population in four, and the Irish alone population only in Massachusetts.
  • The story was much the same in Las Vegas, whose population ballooned from just over 24,000 people in 1950 to 642,000 in 2020.
  • In 2018, the American Community Survey reported that 285,540 people worked as librarians, curators, and archivists.

How to Access, Download and Visualize Redistricting Data

  • These families were more likely to have children under 18 present in 1950 (52%) than in 2019 (41%).
  • More than 8 decades since the movie’s release, the sparkling red shoes still attract excited crowds to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
  • In 1984, his novel The Natural was adapted to a popular movie.Thelma Strabel worked as a census taker before the Saturday Evening Post magazine serialized her 1940 novel Reap the Wild Wind.
  • We use the Diversity Index (DI) to measure the probability that two people chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups.
  • He published the first Ilocan language translation of Don Quixote, wrote novels, plays, and founded the Ilokanos Writers Association of the Philippines.Author and historian Ken Hechler worked for the Census Bureau’s population division during the 1940 Census.
  • The five occupations employing the largest number of women in 2019 were registered nurses; elementary and middle school teachers; secretaries and administrative assistants; miscellaneous managers; and customer services representatives.

He also published a series of nonfiction books containing humorous children’s phrases (Boners and More Boners) in 1931. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, MA, on March 2, 1904, a short distance away from the Mulberry Street he made famous with the publication of his first children’s storybook—And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, “Dr. Seuss” had sold more than 600 million copies of books that had been translated into dozens of languages for children around the world to enjoy. Children’s book author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote some of the most popular children’s books of all time. Theodor Seuss Geisel—better known as “Dr. Seuss”—authored some of the most popular and best-selling children’s books ever written. The whimsical world of Dr. Seuss is still so popular more than eight decades since author Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first children’s book that the U.S.
In short, the country had not yet been impacted by most of the major postwar demographic and economic trends that would greatly change the size, shape and composition of the U.S. population. In hindsight, we can now see that on many demographic fronts the U.S. population in 1950 looked more like the country in 1940 than the rapidly growing, youthful nation to come in 1960 or 1970. With little housing construction during the prior two decades, the nation’s population mostly lived in cities and rural areas, often in crowded conditions. Italian was also the largest group in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, New Haven County, Connecticut and Guaynabo Municipio, Puerto Rico.

Measuring Racial and Ethnic Diversity

Here we present highlights on racial and ethnic diversity from the 2020 Census and explain what each measure tells us about the nation’s population. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the largest — or most prevalent — racial or ethnic group for most counties in the United States. In 2020, the Hispanic or Latino population became the largest racial or ethnic group in California, comprising 39.4% of the total population, up from 37.6% in 2010. The remaining racial and ethnic groups combined to make up 11.4% of the total population, representing the diffusion score. The higher the score, the less concentrated the population is in the three largest race and ethnic groups. We also calculate the diffusion score, which measures the combined percentage of all racial and ethnic groups that are not in the first-, second- or third-largest racial and ethnic group.

Differences by Metro Area

Get an alert directly in your inbox to read, share and blog about our newest stories. For more information on how the Census Bureau collects, codes and tabulates statistics on Hispanic or Latino origin and race, explore our 2020 Census subject definitions pages and the 2020 Census Redistricting Technical Documentation. Get tips and tricks on how to access, visualize and use Census Bureau data. In contrast, the District of Columbia’s Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population was 50.0% and the White alone non-Hispanic population was 34.8% in 2010, a difference of 15.2 percentage points.

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The story was much the same in Las Vegas, whose population ballooned from just over 24,000 people in 1950 to 642,000 in 2020. By 2020 Phoenix’s population would reach 1.6 million, making it the country’s fifth largest city. Phoenix had just over 100,000 people in 1950 and ranked 99th in population among cities. By 2020, the share of the county’s population in Chicago had fallen to 52%. By 1970, as suburbanization boomed, that share had slipped to 61% and Chicago’s population had declined somewhat.
Studio executives worried that the film would be a box office flop, so they decided to “quietly” premiered the movie at theaters in Oconomowoc, WI, Kenosha, WI, and Dennis, MA. Movie audiences watched as a farm girl played by Judy Garland is swept away by a tornado from the black and white plains of Kansas to dazzling color in the Land of Oz. Frank Baum’s popular 1900 children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Much to their delight, the film was a hit as moviegoers packed theaters.
Home movie audiences had an opportunity to purchase the movie on video tape for the first time in 1980. Frank Baum’s Oz-themed novels have sold since the 1939 premier, and the books and movie remains very popular as new generations are introduced to the story. The Wizard of Oz faced fierce competition at the box office and awards ceremonies, as 1939 is considered to be one of the finest years for movies. Much to their relief, the movie studio executives were able to incorporate these audiences’ reactions into the movie’s worldwide advertising.
Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction. On August 11–12, 1939, the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in Dennis, MA, Kenosha, WI, and Oconomowoc, WI. In 2021, spending at movie theaters and streaming content at home and on mobile devices reached $36.8 billion. When the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in August 1939, 85 million Americans watched movies in theaters and spent $659 million every week. Education is one of many topics covered by the survey and the data are not designed to provide a highly detailed look at the many different types of educational arrangements and innovations pursued by households in this unusual school year. Among the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), for example, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA, went from 0.9% in the spring of 2020 to 8.9% by the fall.
In 2018, the American Community Survey reported that 285,540 people worked as librarians, curators, and archivists. Library employees not only maintain the books and cataloging systems, but also host story time, meet the author, and literacy events to encourage children to develop a life-long love for reading. American libraries are home to thousands of books written for children. In the years to come, moviegoers can look forward to even more Dr. Seuss-inspired movies, including a film adaptation of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Census Records: A Window to History

The 2020 Census used the required two separate questions (one for Hispanic or Latino origin and one for race) to collect the races and ethnicities of the U.S. population — following the standards wino casino set by the U.S. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. A decennial census is, after all, a collection of data on every individual in the United States. By 2020, Aurora’s population had skyrocketed to around 386,000, making it the 51st largest city in the country surpassing Cleveland (population around 373,000), then ranked 54th. For instance, Cleveland in 1950 had about 915,000 people and was the nation’s seventh-largest city.
There is more variation in the map for the second-most prevalent racial or ethnic group. Figures 2 and 3 show the most and second-most prevalent racial or ethnic groups by county in 2020. In West Virginia, the Multiracial non-Hispanic population (4.0%) became the second-most prevalent group, surpassing the Black or African American alone non-Hispanic population (3.6%). This calculation tells us how diverse and “diffused” the population is relative to the largest groups.
The addition of a new write-in area for collecting detailed White responses was one of the improvements made to the 2020 Census race question design. Among those who identified as White alone or in combination, English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) were the largest groups. Together, the English (46.6 million), German (45 million), and Irish (38.6 million) alone or in any combination populations made up over half of the White alone or in combination population in 2020. For the first time ever, respondents to the 2020 Census who reported White as a race could write in more details such as Italian, Palestinian or Cajun. Reimbursable surveys conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics—like the National Teacher and Principal Survey—collect data on the number of schools with libraries and media centers. For example, the Surveys for the Institute of Museum and Library Services collected data from more than 9,000 libraries in 2022.
The 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures found that American footwear manufacturing establishments (NAICS 3162) had annual sales, value of shipments, or revenues of more than $1.6 billion and employed 10,379 people nationwide. Today, thousands of people in the United States continue to produce footwear for stage, screen, sports, the office, and outdoor adventures. More recently, Nike’s “Cortez” sneakers played a “supporting role” in 1994’s Academy Award-winning movie Forest Gump. More than 8 decades since the movie’s release, the sparkling red shoes still attract excited crowds to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The red sequined “ruby slippers” Judy Garland wore in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz are perhaps the most famous footwear in American popular culture.
In a 1975 episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Hamilton said of the Wicked Witch, “Sometimes, Mister Rogers, I’m a little unhappy because lots of children are quite scared by her.” Another of the films stars was often recognized by children who ran away crying! The movie stars Grand Rapids, MN, native Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, a Kansas farm girl who is transported to the Land of Oz by a tornado. L. Frank Baum’s popular children’s book The Wizard of Oz became one of the most beloved motion pictures in history thanks to a talented cast of lovable characters.
In Hawaii County, Hawaii, there was a 77.7% chance that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. Again, the way to interpret the DI is that there was a 73.7% chance in Prince William County, Virginia, that two people chosen at random were from different racial or ethnic groups. We explored using alternative racial and ethnic categories for our analysis but found that they did not have a substantial impact on the overall results. The most prevalent racial or ethnic group for the United States was the White alone non-Hispanic population at 57.8%. In data tables, such as the 2020 Census redistricting data tables that provide Hispanic origin by race statistics, we often cross-tabulate the race and Hispanic origin categories to display Hispanic as a single category and the non-Hispanic race groups as categories summing up to the total population. Expectations of what it means for a population to be racially and ethnically diverse may differ.