On the first of April, the handwritten records of enumeration for the 1950 census were released by the National Archives.
That conforms with the “72-year rule,” which says the census records get released 72 years after Census Day.
Here’s a few vignettes from Bloomington’s 1950 records.
At 515 N. Park St, there was a 35-year-old man working in the industry of “city government” who lived in a household with his 33-year-old wife, and their two sons, and his 19-year-old sister-in-law, and a 63-year-old housekeeper.
That was Bloomington’s mayor at the time, Thomas H. Lemon. The population that year was measured at 28,160 people, or about a third the size Bloomington is now.
Was the position of mayor of the much smaller city a “full time” job? Apparently so. The 1950 records say that in the week before the census taker knocked on his door, Lemon worked 72 hours. Continue reading “Census notebook: 1950 handwritten records released, including those for Bloomington”
