The Census Project

Section I
Note: Students and Teachers have the options to use the original manuscript version of the census or the transcription.
Students will be given access, via computer or hard copy, the census pages that cover Elfreth's Alley in 1880. Dividing the students into small groups, one page of census per group, will streamline the task and allow the groups to come together to share the information they found. Teacher will pose the following questions/scenarios to the students.

• Find the head of each household, reminding students that a house is not necessarily limited to one family or head of household. How are the heads of household employed? Do you think they are skilled labor? Do you think they are artisans? Is the head of household always a male?
• Is the female, if married, employed outside the home? If she is not employed outside the home, what might she do to bring in money to the family?
• Are the children employed or in school? At what age do they seem to leave school?
• Who else lives in that household? Who else lives at that address?
• Where were they born?
• The houses on Elfreth's Alley are about 15' wide. Number 126, for instance, had 9 rooms in 1880. This house will be a good gauge for judging the number of rooms vs. the number of people. What do you think the living conditions would have been like? Look at house #117. How many people lived in #117?

When the groups come together, have them begin to hypothesize about life on Elfreth's Alley in 1880.

Section II
Students will be given access, via computer or hard copy, the 1880 census pages that cover Elfreth's Alley and the pages that cover one block of Adams Street in Lowell, MA.
Students will be divided into small groups to look at the raw data of both censuses. The same questions as above may be used for the Lowell portion of the census. They will compare the size of households, the ages at which children are working, the employment of the head of household, and the country of origin of the residents.

• What are the similarities between the two populations?
• Are there any obvious differences between the two populations?
• What can you hypothesize about the life in Lowell and the available employment in Lowell?
• Are the heads of households in Lowell artisans or unskilled labor?
• The street in Lowell is in a neighborhood called ìThe Acre.î What can you guess about the Acre from who lives there and who does not?