It's time once again to clean up my "blog about this" list with a shovel rather than a spoon. Here are some treasures scooped up from various places.
Comments on the economic crisis by a small business owner, at East of Eden.
It’s all about the banks. We have business acquaintances that’ve had their banks call in loans that are not currently due, we have ridiculously qualified clients that can’t get financing, we get nothing but smoke and mirrors from the banks we deal with. “Oh, yes, we have money to loan,” they say, but the money never materializes for these client’s loans.
Growing problems with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, reported at Studeo, via Percival Blakeney Academy. Illegal books?
No, they're not illegal to own, but a new law that many people haven't heard about yet has recently made it illegal to buy, sell or barter books published before 1985 for children ages 12 and under, because of concerns about lead content in the ink.
In spite of what Snopes.com says (which is uncharacteristically myopic about a very far-reaching law - and doesn't even get into the consequences for used children's books), it is quite clear that children's books published before 1985 are in danger. I've heard reliable reports that some used book stores are trashing all of their pre-1985 children's books.
We don't need yet another excuse for bookstores and libraries to trash good books. Contrary to what I believe should be one of the primary purposes for the existence of libraries, many such institutions deliberately cull their shelves of older books to make room for whatever is currently popular.
Here's a fun site from the U.S. Census Bureau, in which you can find out what kinds of questions the government was interested in asking of its people, and how they have changed over the years. For example:
1820 - Not much besides a breakdown by age range, color, slave/free/citizenship status, and whether in agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing.
1830 - Was anyone in the household blind?
1850 - A big year for genealogists—the first time everyone was listed by name, rather than merely by head-of-household. Place of birth was also added. Other questions concerned value of real estate owned, school attendance, literacy, and whether or not the person was "deaf, dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict?"
1870 - Were the person's parents of foreign birth?
1880 - Another good one for genealogists, as they started asking where the person's parents were born, and also marital status. The sick/disabled status was expanded and broken down instead of being lumped together.
1890 - Lots of great data for genealogists here; unfortunately all but a very small number of these records were destroyed in a fire. The racial breakdown for this census was "White, Black, Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian."
1900 - How many years married, how many children born to mothers, how many of those still living—through this census I found my grandfather's sister. Lots of questions about employment and living situations. Also year of immigration, and naturalization status.
1910 - Mother tongue of person and his parents; number of years of present marriage, and whether the marriage is first or subsequent. Is the person an employee, employer, or self-employed?
1930 - The race question gets more specific: Enumerators were to enter "W" for white, "Neg" for black, "Mex" for Mexican, "In" for American Indian, "Ch" for Chinese, "Jp" for Japanese, "Fil" for Filipino, "Hin" for Hindu, and "Kor" for Korean. All other races were to be written out in full.
1940 - April 1, 2012 is the date genealogists are waiting for: the 1940 census data will finally be released. (There's a 72-year wait for reasons of privacy.) It should be fascinating, as it includes many detailed questions about the family's housing situation, including lighting, sanitary facilities, heating, number of rooms, and much more. Unfortunately, these detailed questions were only asked of five percent of the population.
1950 - This is getting closer to home, but we won't see it till 2022. I wonder what they had to say about our house, if we were lucky enough to win the 5% sample lottery.
1960 - I'll be in this one! I hope I live to see it. Alas, for most of us this will be a really dull census, as most households were only asked for age, sex, race, and marital status data. B-O-R-I-N-G!
