Your Guide to the 2020 Census Questionnaire (Interviewed by Aviva Rutkin)

2020
The Conversation, May 1.

So, you’ve likely received your census questionnaire in the mail by now. But you might be wondering: Why these questions? Who came up with this list?

The questionnaire has changed a lot over time. In the first census, in 1790, U.S. marshals posed just a handful of questions to each head of household: their name; the number of free white males under and over 16; the number of free white females; the number of other free persons; and the number of slaves. Since then, the census has added and removed questions, as well as changed around the format – for example, by giving some households longer, more detailed questionnaires, or by splitting questions into separate forms.

I called up Emily Klancher Merchant, a historian of science and technology at the University of California at Davis, and asked her to walk us through the 2020 questionnaire.