Today in 1891, the US Census Bureau announced the results of the 1890 census.
On July 1, 1890, two thousand clerks began processing the results of the 1890 U.S. Census, employing ninety-six of Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machines, using a punched card system where a hole punched in a specific place on the card signified a fact about an individual. The information on the population of the United States was processed in one year, compared to the eight years it took to process the 1880 Census.
The Electrical Engineer reported:
The statement by Mr. Porter [the head of the Census Bureau, announcing the initial count of the 1890 census] that the population of this great republic was only 62,622,250 sent into spasms of indignation a great many people who had made up their minds that the dignity of the republic could only be supported on a total of 75,000,000. Hence there was a howl, not of ‘deep-mouthed welcome,’ but of frantic disappointment. And then the publication of the figures for New York! Rachel weeping for her lost children and refusing to be comforted was a mere puppet-show compared with some of our New York politicians over the strayed and stolen Manhattan Island citizens.