219 rows · The list below is transcribed directly from the 1860 Census of Population and Housing, and includes every occupation claimed by a free North Carolinian that year. Although most North Carolinians were farmers or farm workers, the state's citizens worked at a wide variety of occupations on the eve of the Civil War.
Occupations in 1860 BY DAVID WALBERT By the middle of the 1800s, the U.S. Census Bureau was asking more information about the people of each state and their economic production. Beginning in 1840, census takers asked people their occupations. The lists below show the occupations that free North Carolinians reported in the Census of 1860. Short list
List of occupations from the 1860 census can be difficult to figure with abbreviations. There was the occupation ‘chip’ – that referred to a carpenter in 1860. The term for a miner was ‘groover’. So it can be hard unless you use a 1860 guide. Here is …
The question of occupations was one of the 21 items of inquiry included in the population schedule to be answered, as far as applicable, for each person enumer ated in the census. The occupation returns, therefore,. 2 Philippine Islands, Porto Rico, and Guam added by treaty between the United States and Spain, proclaimed April 11 1899
By 1860, there were a total of thirty-three states in the Union, with Minnesota and Oregon being the latest editions. There were no substantial state- or district-wide losses. Taken from Szucs, Loretto Dennis, "Research in Census Records.".
The United States was the first country to call for a regularly held census. The Constitution required that a census of all "Persons...excluding Indians not taxed" be performed to determine the collection of taxes and the appropriation of seats in the House of Representatives.
The population schedules are successive "snapshots" of Americans that depict where and how they were living at particular periods in the past. Because of this, the census is often the best starting point for genealogical research after home sources have been exhausted.
Name index and images of population schedules listing inhabitants of the United States in 1860. This was the eighth census conducted since 1790.
"United States Census, 1860." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 4 March 2021. From "1860 U.S. Federal Census - Population." Database. Fold3.com. http://www.fold3.com : n.d. Citing NARA microfilm publication M653. Washington, D.C.:National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.