For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I will be posting an event for that date involving someone in my family tree. Of course it will also involve the letter of the day. It may be a birth, a death, a christening, a journal entry, a letter or a newspaper article. If the entry is a news item, it will be transcribed immediately below. Click on photographs to enlarge in another window.
My grandmother Fannie M. Turner was an enumerator for the 1910 US Census in Montgomery, Alabama. She was 22 and lived with her mother and younger sisters in Montgomery, although not in the district she enumerated. Her grandmother Eliza Allen lived in that district. I was looking at the entry for Eliza when I first noticed that my grandmother was the enumerator. I found a newspaper article online about the appointed census takers.
APPOINT CENSUS TAKERS
ENUMERATORS. FOR MONTGOMERY ARE NAMED.
Supervisor At Washington Approves Designations Made By Director Swanson of Second District After Examinations Are Undergone.
The directors of the census at Washington has provided additional designations by Dr. C. Swanson, the supervisor of the Second Alabama District of the following named persons to act as enumerators in the counties mentioned:
Baldwin- Stanley M. Waters, W. D. Durant, Nell G. McKenzie, Cornelius A. Gaston, Jay B. McGrew.
Conecuh- Henry W. Pruett.
Covington- S. P. Barron, Rochford S. Parks, W. O. Searcy, Will C. Grant, J. Herbert Jones, Benjamin F. Parker, Gordon M. Brown, William B. Combs, David A. Beasley, John R. Cravey, Hilary D. Childre, John F. Phillips.
Montgomery- City – Whites: Albert S. Ashley, E. F. Davis, James C. Westbrook, Leopold Loeb, Thomas Robinson, R. Brownlee Centerfit, Charles S. Spann, Louis Lyons, Edgar W. Smith, Mrs. Fannie B. Wilson, Handy H. McLemore. Thomas M. Westcott, Alto Deal, Miss Gene Finch, Frank G. Browder.
Negroes- To enumerate negro (sic) population only – Gertrude V. Wilson, Ell W. Buchannan, Fannie M. Turner, David R. Dorsey.
Montgomery county- outside city – Whites: William F. Allen, Frank McLean, William T. Davis, William Tankersley, James F. Robertson, James A. Stowers, Charles A. Goodwyn, William C. Ozier, O. P. Davis, Miss Oralee Naftel, Ansley L. Stough, Henderson H. Norman, Joseph K. McClurkin, William A. Johnson, John H. Kennedy, J. W. Martin, Thornton E. Gilmer, Thomas B. Barnett, William D. Calloway.
Wilcox county- -Leonard L. Godbold, Fair J. Bryant, John H. Malone, John W. Pharr, W. E. Dilger, D. C. Murphy, James D. McCall, H. C. Pearson, R. L. Vaughn, R. H. G. Gaines, Danuel G. Cook, Joseph R. Harper, Joseph R. Harper, J. F. Fore, Leonard W. Hardy, Arthur Lee, William A. McLean, B. F. Watts, Jr. E. F. Spencer, Emmett L. Gaston, John C. Seltzer, F. R. Albritton, Eugene E. Williams, William J. Sessions.
Wilcox county- William J. Edwards.
For a very few districts in Montgomery and Wilcox counties Anal action has not yet been taken on the selection of enumerators, but will be in time for the enumeration.
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Fannie M. Turner began work April 15, 1910 and enumerated her Aunt Abbie and her Grandmother Eliza on pg 2. She finished on April 26. Mrs. Fannie B. Wilson (white) completed the enumeration of Montgomery, Ward 4 by counting the white residents on several pages after that. As noted in the newspaper article, Negro enumerators could only count Negroes. I wonder how that worked. Did my grandmother go to the door, note that they were white and tell them someone else would return to count them later? Did the neighbors alert her? Since she was already familiar with the neighborhood, did she already know where the white people lived or did all the white residences live in the same area?
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Fannie Turner was my maternal grandmother. She managed her Uncle Victor Tulane’s grocery store in Montgomery, Alabama from the time she graduated from State Normal School until she married my grandfather in 1919. I wish I knew the stories she could have told about that two weeks of counting the citizens in Ward 4.
Interesting. The last census, they just sent out notices with a link and we did them online.
Yes, here too. And there were no interesting questions. It will not do our descendants a bit of good! The old censuses had many interesting questions that help round out our knowledge a bit.
what are some of the interesting questions you’ve found in previous censuses?
What grade did you complete? How many children did you birth? How many are living? Your birthplace, your parents birthplace, occupation, can you read and/or write, attended school in the last year, income, owned home, maritial status, how many years have you been married?
These are helpful if you are trying to figure out the life of people you never knew.
yep those seem like the exact questions a census should be asking… wonder why/when they shifted away from it
I agree completely and intend to make a few notes in my family history journal about some of my close kin in relation to the many details that were lacking in the 2020 Census. It won’t help the larger population, but maybe it can help future descendants.
That’s cool to see your grandmother as the enumerator instead of one of the counted people on a census form. My mother did that work in 1970.
It is interesting. Did your mother enumerate your household?
We had a friend who enumerated us in 1990, I think or maybe 2000. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to see those census forms. I could go ahead and fill them out now, just so the information would be available earlier than 70 years from.
That’s so interesting about your grandmother only being allowed to enumerate people of color. I do believe that whites and POC lived in different neighborhoods at the time.
Yes, but there were areas where the two came together. Edges
I worked on the census here in Australia in 2016. I was a “Special Area Supervisor” and was involved in “enumerating large and complex non-private dwellings (NPDs). These are places where people may be staying on Census night that are not private dwellings; examples of this are large hotels, resorts, hospitals, tertiary colleges and halls of residence, large boarding schools and nursing homes.”
It was interesting to see it from the other side.
I am amazed that the enumeration was done by race – lots of grey areas I would have thought and it would have added complexity.
Censuses are very useful for family history. Sadly in Australia historic censuses are destroyed so we do not have them for research. I get a lot out of UK and US censuses.
No complexity about race in those days in the USA. They went by the one drop theory – one drop of African blood and you were black or mulatto, depending on what the enumerator decided you were by looking at you.
That’s too bad about the Australia historic censuses being destroyed. Why did they do that?
Apparently “government policy to destroy census forms after statistical analysis was completed”. Such a shame.
I agree. Such a loss.
That would have been an interesting job Anne offering great insights.
I wonder why she signed up for this job. If she wanted to do it because she found something about it interesting? Did they get paid?
AI says “In the 1910 US Census, enumerators were paid 2.5 cents for each name for which all answers were obtained. Estimates suggest they could earn $4-5 per day.”
Average wage was 22 cents per hour. I don’t know how much my grandmother earned managing her uncle’s grocery store.
I’m pretty sure she did it for the pay.
It is fascinating that not only was the enumeration done in person but with all those more interesting questions, people were obliged to disclose answers in person – compare that to today’s privacy-obsessed world…
It would have had to be done in person. So many people were not able to read or write. It’s only been recently that people were asked to mail in replies or do it online. I remember in 1990 a man coming to my house, sitting in my living room and asking me all the questions for that year. By 2000 we could mail in the answers but if they didn’t arrive by a certain date, someone came out and asked you the questions in person. I did mail our form in that year. Since then – 2010 and 2020 – nobody has come out and I mailed in the forms.
Newspapers also printed much more information about people. People also knew more about their neighbors in previous days.
I can’t recall a census enumerator coming to the house, even when I was young. I’d imagine some lies would be told for the sake of privacy.
I know that some people did not age 10 years between census forms. There were also some differences between answers that may have been due to misunderstanding the question. For instance in 1900 and in 1910 there was a question of how many children a women had birthed. Sometimes in 1900 they would give the number of children living in the house while in 1910 they would give the actual number of children born.
This is very interesting! Did you have a writing sample for her before this find? My paternal Grandma was an enumerator for the 1950 Census and I was thrilled to see her handwriting for the first time.
I did. I have several letters she wrote my grandfather, a poem she wrote and an entry in her mothers “memory book” when she was about 12. I also have many samples as she wrote in the margins in family photos.
What a great discovery! As I read, I pondered the same questions you had. Given the extreme attitude to race I doubt just knocking on the wrong door would have been welcome. My mind struggles with that kind of division yet Australia isn’t immune either.
In the last few census that we’ve had here, there’s been an option to mark that you want it saved. I wonder if that will happen. Our electoral rolls serve as alternatives as voting is compulsory, but obviously give far less detail.
I wonder how many people will even check that they wnat it saved.
I’ve used British and American census records but I mourn the loss of Irish ones far more than I do Australian. Apart from some earlier fragments, all that is available to date are 1901 and 1911. The loss of the 1841 and 1851 records hides the impact of the Famine on the people. I’ve used the statistical data effectively but that doesn’t help with personal information.
Those would have been very interesting to see. Our 1890 census is missing and that was the year my grandparents would have been small children and I would have really liked to see their households at that point.
That’s insane that they color-coded the enumerators. I mean, everything about segregation is insane, but this is just bizarre.
The idea of the enumerator makes me think of the search for the young woman who would fit Cinderella’s glass slipper, going door to door asking to see all the women… I guess every household is their own enumerator now.
https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com
I guess if you think you shouldn’t drink the same water, eat in the same places etc, it’s not surprising that you wouldn’t want the same people coming to your house, sitting in the parlor or kitchen and asking about your business. Once you think you’re superior and the others aren’t people like you, the rest is easy to fit in.