The 1850 & 1860 US Samples

INTERNATIONAL
1

An 1850 US sample I extraced shows n= 1,901 for white males in Mississippi & an 1860 sample I extracted shows n=3,574 for white males in Mississippi. Both data sets are listed by MPC as 1% samples of the free population. Given this, it appears odd to me that the 1860 sample is nearly twice as large as the 1859 sample (a ratio of 1.88), especially since the 1850 Census Report shows 156,287 white males in MS and the 1860 Census Report shows 186,273 white males in M, which yields a ratio of only 1.19. This census count ratio is far below the 1.88 formed from the two 1850 and 1860 MPC samples for the same population. Any ideas on what is going on? Thanks.

David Swanson

UC Riverside

dswanson@ucr.edu

2

I am unable to replicate the 1850 sample size that you report. There are only 1,513 white males in the 1850 Mississippi sample. For the 1860 sample, your n=3,574 figure appears to be the entire 1860 Mississippi sample, including females and non-white persons. When restricted to white males, I get 1,860 respondents, which is only slightly higher than the 1850 sample size.

Hope this helps.

3

Thanks. I must have inadvertantly included them when I extracted the file. I though all was ok and I checked it to make sure it was what I wanted, but so it goes.