The original census included only three questions: color, free or slave status and the sex of free white persons, the United States census (http://www.census.gov/) has evolved to encompass data on other characteristics about population and housing. Census surveys have also been developed to monitor economic activities. There are census surveys of agriculture, wholesale and retail trade, services industries, construction industries, manufacturers, mineral industries, and transportation. Public and private agencies and corporations use census data for such diverse purposes as marketing, analysis of social and economic trends and estimating the magnitude of the target population size for program planning.
The Census Bureau was established in 1902 to oversee the census. Bureau staff generate questions that are reviewed by the Bureau Director and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Congress must be advised of proposed topics to the Census three years prior to the actual enumeration. Two years prior to the enumeration Congress must be provided with the wording of the proposed questions. The Bureau solicits input for questions by conducting local public meetings throughout the United States. Ethnic groups and minority populations are consulted about question content and wording. The Bureau also solicits information on the level of aggregation of various data that should be made available. In addition to defining what information is to be collected, the Bureau also defines what information may not be collected on the country's population. Religious affiliation and Social Security Numbers are two examples of such taboo variables. Though standards exist to maintain the privacy of those being enumerated, data from the census can be and has been misused. Most notably, census data was used during the Civil War to identify the number of free and slave African-Americans prior to General Sherman's March to the Sea campaign and during World War II to identify the location of Japanese-Americans in the United States.
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