Eighteenth-Century Studies: Online Resources: Historical Statistics

The last edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States was published by the Census Bureau in 1975. When the Census Bureau decided in the early 1990's that it would not publish a new edition of Historical Statistics, a team of renowned social scientists came together with Cambridge University Press to create a new edition. More than 200 of the nation's leading economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and other scholars contributed to the Millennial Edition of Historical Statistics. This new edition adds thirty years of data and contains coverage of topics that received little or no coverage in the 1975 edition: American Indians, slavery, poverty, race, and ethnicity. The most recent scholarship has been brought to bear in every table.

The electronic edition has been designed to give users a variety of means to search and navigate the vast amount of data in the Historical Statistics. Users will be able to graph individual tables or to combine data from different tables into "custom tables" and to download tables for use in spreadsheets and other applications.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Search this site for holdings. Data downloads are free of charge by registering with an MSU email address.