Urban History Template

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History has an excellent series of essays about immigration and migration to the Cleveland region, some of which contain data. CSU's The Northern Ohio Data and Information Service or NODIS, has information on the region's population in 1990 and 2000, as does the Mandel School at CWRU, which has a "Can Do" database that possesses much information on Cuyahoga County by neighborhood from 1980 through 2000.

The United States Census Bureau also includes historical data on its website, see for example:
The United States Census Bureau, "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990"
The United States Census Bureau, Selected Historical Decennial Census
Population and Housing Counts

For more data on the population of small areas within Cleveland from 1930 to the present, use the census materials available at the reference desk in CSU's library. Making sense of tract and block level data can be difficult, and the University of North Carolina libraries has a primer on using these guides. SEE http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/govinfo/census/smallhist.html

For a more exhaustive list of documents and materials related to the census, including many online sources, see American Library Association Government Documents Round Table, Government Information Technology Committee's report on the Historical Census. (They also have a "Census 2000 Toolkit".)

1 Prepare for Class Discussion; be prepared to answer the following questions:

Use the Historical United States Census Data Browser to consider the issues involved in using the census as a source in your projects; also begin think about what these numbers tell you and do not tell you.
What are the challenges of using this website? What other information do you need to know in order to make the census useful to your study? What sorts of things might you ask? What strategies should you adopt in using census data?
Finally, be prepared to discuss the census as a historical source.

2 Prepare a data table (in excel is preferable) of population that helps to understand migration and immgration to Cleveland of a particular ethnic group. You should prepare the data to reflect your topic/site selection. (If you do not have a migrant group, then contact me or choose one of the following: Polish, Hungarian, Yugoslavian, Italian, or African American.)

3. Create a table of population for the following years: 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930, 1950, 1970; determine the following:

Total Population;
Total Population, foreign born;
Total Population of an ethnic group associated with your site.
Figure percentages of the total for each of those groups.

4. Procedure

Create a base table for the state of Ohio
Create a comparative table for Cuyahoga County
Create another comparative table of the population of Cleveland, using the printed census for the same years

5. Print out a copy of your table and make a photocopy. Hand your copy to Prof. Tebeau prior to the start of class.

®Tebeau