Census Report
From Ross Publishing Inc.

15th Census Reprint is Finally Finished

The publisher takes this opportunity to once again thank Peter Allison (not his real name) at the University of Connecticut, for making the original suggestion for this series. But we cannot thank him-nor blame him-for the long delay in our publication of the 15th Census. We have only ourselves to blame, hence our apologies to those of you who were kept waiting.

Nevertheless, we are pleased to announce that the 15th Decennial Census, comprising more than 31,000 pages, is now available in 36 beautiful volumes on acid-free paper. For full details on the contents, prices on individual volumes, etc., please click here.

New Name, Same Jokes
      If you’ve noticed something different, yes, our name has changed. As you probably know, Norman Ross Publishing was acquired by ProQuest in November, 2002 and has been absorbed into the UMI Division. However ProQuest preferred not to acquire any of NRP’s reference books (except those that are guides to microfilm sets). It was therefore left to Norman Ross (his real name) to start a new company to continue with these efforts. The new company is Ross Publishing Inc., at almost the same address as NRP. See above.

      The transition clearly slowed us down. We’ve gone from 25 people to two people! Ramsey Hinkle is the Production Manager for the reprint series–but he does the work of at least 20!

      During 2003, in addition to publishing the 1930 census, we also published the Abstracts and Compendia of the Census series that we announced several years ago. We undertook this project at the request of several customers, whom we thank for their encouragement and their orders. We hope that those of you who purchased these volumes will tell your friends about them, because we have lots of copies left in the warehouse!

      What's next? Next we are working on continuing our reprint series of The Statistical Abstract of the United States. A couple of years ago we published the first volume, 1878 through 1890 (12 volumes in total). Right now Ramsey is checking the proofs for 1891-1900. We are pleased to report that we've already sold 3-4 copies of this set, and it will hopefully be off the press some time in early April. In fact, two optimistic customers have ordered 1927! I guess we have to keep going. You can save $3,000,000 by ordering now (if you believe our price list).

     When we started on the census reprint project we thought that 1920 was the limit. But quite a few of our customers told us they needed reprints for 1930, so we extended the run (like a Broadway show; our office is a block from Broadway). But I must admit I was surprised when several customers asked us to reprint the 16th Census-1940. It's enormous! About four thousand volumes! Well, not really, but it's big. We estimate it would take 71 bindings just for the regular volumes; vastly more if we include the "supplemental" volumes. However, the 16th is extremely complicated. Please see below for a detailed discussion.

     In addition, Peter Allison has also suggested a whole list of other reprints beyond the decennial census. Here are some of Peter’s suggestions. Peter’s a great guy! We plan to start at the top of this list very shortly and to work our way down as long as it seems to make sense to our customers:

• U.S. Department of Labor. Report on Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence Massachusetts in 1912, (Senate Document 870, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session [Serial Set 6170]), Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office 1912.) 511 pp.
• Statistical Review of Immigration 1820-1910 and Distribution of Immigrants 1850-1900. (Senate Document 756, 61st Congress 3rd Session [Serial Set 5878]). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1911.) 587 pp.
• Census of Electrical Industries, Central Electric Light and Power Stations, 1902, 1907, 1912, 1917, 1922, 1927, 1932 & 1937, 26 volumes, 4,300 pp.
• Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration. (Senate Report 689, 44th Congress 2nd Session [Serial Set 1734., Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1877). 1281 pp.
• Negro Statistics (4 vols.): 1900. Negroes in the United States. 333pp.; 1910. Negroes in the United States. 207pp.; 1918. Negro Population, 1790-1915. 844pp; 1935. Negroes in the United States, 1920-1932. 845pp.
• Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909, 1911, xxi + 1707 p., & A Comprehensive Index to the Publications of the United States Government, 1881-1893, by John G. Ames, 1905, 2 v., 1509 p.
• U.S. Department of Labor. Report on condition of women and child wage earners in the United States, 19 vols. (Senate Document 645, 61st Congress 2nd Session [Serial Set 5685- 5703]) Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.) Average of 420 pp./vol.

* Any feedback on establishing priorities for these titles would be greatly appreciated.

16th Census, 1940
     As mentioned above, we are now looking into reprinting the 16th. On the one hand, the Population volumes seem to be the ones most heavily used, so we thought we would start there. However, according to Dubester, and recently confirmed by a very helpful gov docs librarian, portions of the 16th were never bound by GPO.

     If you look at Dubester, p. 105, you find a reference to this. According to the note, "The following final reports [1112-1128] were to have been published in a single bound volume... [on] Territories and Possessions, but never were."

     Dubester Nos. 953-1111, were issued in bound, numbered volumes. However, 1129-1301 were not issued in numbered volumes and also were never bound or never bound properly.

     Dubester # 1159, Statistics for Census Tracts, includes 58 pamphlets covering 60 cities. "These bulletins were not incorporated into the final reports." The librarian we spoke with said that her library bound them in alphabetical order, but now wishes they had organized them by state. Ergo, we plan to do that. We would greatly appreciate your comments on this and in general about the 16th Census.

Full Color Reprints Coming of Two Statistical Atlases
     Thanks to recent advances in printing technology, we will soon be able to commence production on the following two atlases, which will be printed in full color on acid-free paper in library bindings:

• Ninth Census, 1870, published in 1874. 174 p., 41 color plates
• Eleventh Census, 1890, published in 1898. 220 p., 69 color plates

     Be the first on your block to let us know you would like a copy: norman@rosspub.com.