August 2023: The Wizard of Oz

There was an average of 3.51 people per household in 1950, substantially higher than the average of 2.61 in 2019. The population under age 18 was 31.0% of the total population in 1950 and would grow to 34.3% in 1970. In some of these cities, the population began climbing again in recent decades. In some cases, the population losses were sizeable, amounting to one half or more of the cities’ 1950 populations. The other eight (Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, St Louis, Washington, D.C., and Boston) all saw their decennial populations peak in 1950 and fall in the coming decades. A number of large industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest hit their peak decennial populations in 1950 and would experience population declines in subsequent decades in both relative and absolute terms.
In addition, we decided to continue using this racial and ethnic cross-tabulation because it is commonly used by the Census Bureau and other data users. These diversity calculations require the use of mutually exclusive racial and ethnic (nonoverlapping) categories. The overall racial and ethnic diversity of the country has increased since 2010, according to U.S. Today’s companion America Counts story on the overview of race and ethnicity explains that differences in overall racial distributions are largely due to design improvements in the two separate questions for race data collection and processing, as well as some demographic changes over the past 10 years.

County-Level Findings

Italian was the largest group in several counties in New Jersey and the Long Island area of New York. German was the largest group in over 1,000 counties, particularly in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, and parts of Texas, including the Texas Hill Country. The English population was the most prevalent group in northern New England, the South, and throughout the West, as well as in Puerto Rico (Figure 4).
In 2018, the American Community Survey reported that 285,540 people worked as librarians, curators, and archivists. Library employees not only maintain the books and cataloging systems, but also host story time, meet the author, and literacy events to encourage children to develop a life-long love for reading. American libraries are home to thousands of books written for children. In the years to come, moviegoers can look forward to even more Dr. Seuss-inspired movies, including a film adaptation of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

• More than 8 decades later, movie critics, adults, and children still consider The Wizard of Oz to be one of the greatest movies in film history.
• The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz was filmed at the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer studios (above) in Culver City, CA, and in Liberal, KS.
• Today, thousands of people in the United States continue to produce footwear for stage, screen, sports, the office, and outdoor adventures.
• The English alone population was the largest detailed White group nationally, in 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
• His 1957 book The Bridge at Remagen was made into a movie in 1969.
• The share of the population in metro areas was 56.1% in 1950, with 32.8% in central cities and 23.3% living in suburbs.
• More racial or ethnic groups are represented and the patterns are not as tightly clustered in specific regions.

English alone or in any combination was the largest detailed White group in approximately two-thirds (2,050) of the counties in the United States and Puerto Rico. The Italian alone population was concentrated in New York and New Jersey. The next largest groups were Pennsylvania German, Cajun, and Australian (Figure 2). An additional 11 detailed White alone or in any combination groups had at least 1 million people, including Swedish (3.8 million), Norwegian (3.8 million), and Dutch (3.6 million) (Figure 1). Middle Eastern and North African responses, such as Lebanese, Iranian, and Egyptian, represented over 1% of the White alone and White alone or in combination populations.

Related America Counts Stories

The 2021 Annual Survey of Manufactures found that American footwear manufacturing establishments (NAICS 3162) had annual sales, value of shipments, or revenues of more than $1.6 billion and employed 10,379 people nationwide. Today, thousands of people in the United States continue to produce footwear for stage, screen, sports, the office, and outdoor adventures. More recently, Nike’s “Cortez” sneakers played a “supporting role” in 1994’s Academy Award-winning movie Forest Gump. More than 8 decades since the movie’s release, the sparkling red shoes still attract excited crowds to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The red sequined “ruby slippers” Judy Garland wore in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz are perhaps the most famous footwear in American popular culture.
As our country’s demographics change and the nation becomes more multiracial, it’s important to understand the composition of the race alone and race alone or in any combination populations. These multiple measures of diversity complement the 2020 Census redistricting data release and enable us to explore the richness and complexity of our nation’s population in a new light. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the most prevalent racial or ethnic group for all states except California (Hispanic or Latino), Hawaii (Asian alone non-Hispanic), New Mexico (Hispanic or Latino), and the District of Columbia, a state equivalent (Black or African American alone non-Hispanic).
Here, we see results that are not as impacted by the race reporting patterns of Hispanic or Latino respondents. Building upon our research over the past decade, we improved the design of the two separate questions and updated our data processing and coding procedures for the 2020 Census. Visit the Census Bureau’s Genealogy page to see frequently occurring surnames from previous censuses. The graphics show the top 15 most popular surnames and those with the largest increase and rank.

Most U.S. White Respondents Reported a Detailed European Response

In short, the country had not yet been impacted by most of the major postwar demographic and economic trends that would greatly change the size, shape and composition of the U.S. population. In hindsight, we can now see that on many demographic fronts the U.S. population in 1950 looked more like the country in 1940 than the rapidly growing, youthful nation to come in 1960 or 1970. With little housing construction during the prior two decades, the nation’s population mostly lived in cities and rural areas, often in crowded conditions. Italian was also the largest group in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, New Haven County, Connecticut and Guaynabo Municipio, Puerto Rico.
The Census Bureau acts as the collection agent for these surveys, but the data themselves are available through the sponsoring agency. The Census Bureau collected data about libraries—like the public library in Universal City, Texas (pictured above)—as reimbursable projects for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). He also edited President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s official papers, served as West Virginia’s secretary of state, and served in the U.S. His 1957 book The Bridge at Remagen was made into a movie in 1969. He published the first Ilocan language translation of Don Quixote, wrote novels, plays, and founded the Ilokanos Writers Association of the Philippines.Author and historian Ken Hechler worked for the wino casino Census Bureau’s population division during the 1940 Census.
He also published a series of nonfiction books containing humorous children’s phrases (Boners and More Boners) in 1931. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, MA, on March 2, 1904, a short distance away from the Mulberry Street he made famous with the publication of his first children’s storybook—And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, “Dr. Seuss” had sold more than 600 million copies of books that had been translated into dozens of languages for children around the world to enjoy. Children’s book author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote some of the most popular children’s books of all time. Theodor Seuss Geisel—better known as “Dr. Seuss”—authored some of the most popular and best-selling children’s books ever written. The whimsical world of Dr. Seuss is still so popular more than eight decades since author Theodor Seuss Geisel published his first children’s book that the U.S.
But in the coming decades, nearly all increases in the metropolitan share of the population would stem from growth in the suburbs. The share of the population in metro areas was 56.1% in 1950, with 32.8% in central cities and 23.3% living in suburbs. Of the nation’s 10 largest cities in 1950, only New York and Los Angeles would have bigger populations in 2020. The Technical Documentation PDF 10.6 MB provides more information on data quality and how the Census Bureau collects, codes and tabulates statistics on race and Hispanic or Latino origin. Although there is a great deal of diversity in the detailed White groups, many of the largest groups are also broadly distributed across the United States. The county with the largest Norwegian population (135,077) was Hennepin, Minnesota, which includes Minneapolis.
The largest Italian population (360,345) was in Suffolk County, New York on Long Island. The largest Irish population (567,668) was in Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago. Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, had the largest English and German populations of all counties in the nation (620,199 and 639,586 respectively). Louisiana had the largest French alone population (136,390), or 5.1% of its total White alone population, followed closely by California (127,756), Massachusetts (111,502), Florida (107,687) and Texas (105,770). Illinois had the largest number of people who identified as Polish alone (352,882), followed by New York (274,580), Michigan (256,398), Pennsylvania (206,264), and Florida (160,119). California had the largest Irish alone population (803,899), followed by New York (730,165) and Florida (692,142).

• We also calculate the diffusion score, which measures the combined percentage of all racial and ethnic groups that are not in the first-, second- or third-largest racial and ethnic group.
• The addition of a new write-in area for collecting detailed White responses was one of the improvements made to the 2020 Census race question design.
• Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction.
• American libraries are home to thousands of books written for children.
• Italian was also the largest group in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, New Haven County, Connecticut and Guaynabo Municipio, Puerto Rico.

During the same period, the largest racial or ethnic group has changed for some states and counties, and local level results illuminate new areas of diversity across the country. Using the same Diversity Index calculation for 2020 and 2010 redistricting data, the chance that two people chosen at random will be from different racial or ethnic groups has increased to 61.1% in 2020 from 54.9% in 2010. In this format, the DI tells us the chance that two people chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups. A value close to 1 indicates that almost everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics. A value of 0 indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. We use the Diversity Index (DI) to measure the probability that two people chosen at random will be from different racial and ethnic groups.

How to Access, Download and Visualize Redistricting Data

Here we present highlights on racial and ethnic diversity from the 2020 Census and explain what each measure tells us about the nation’s population. The White alone non-Hispanic population was the largest — or most prevalent — racial or ethnic group for most counties in the United States. In 2020, the Hispanic or Latino population became the largest racial or ethnic group in California, comprising 39.4% of the total population, up from 37.6% in 2010. The remaining racial and ethnic groups combined to make up 11.4% of the total population, representing the diffusion score. The higher the score, the less concentrated the population is in the three largest race and ethnic groups. We also calculate the diffusion score, which measures the combined percentage of all racial and ethnic groups that are not in the first-, second- or third-largest racial and ethnic group.

In the 2020 Census, over 235 million people reported they were White alone or in combination with another race group, such as Black or African American. The alone or in any combination population includes those who reported one or more responses to the race question such as only Austrian or Austrian and German or Austrian and Asian. The alone population includes those who reported only one response to the race question, such as Austrian. As a result, data are now available from the decennial census for 104 detailed White groups, including Lithuanian, Irish, Libyan, Syrian, Pennsylvania Dutch and Australian.

Fearing the film would be unpopular, movie studio executives chose these cities to debut the movie to better gauge audience reaction. On August 11–12, 1939, the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in Dennis, MA, Kenosha, WI, and Oconomowoc, WI. In 2021, spending at movie theaters and streaming content at home and on mobile devices reached $36.8 billion. When the movie The Wizard of Oz premiered in August 1939, 85 million Americans watched movies in theaters and spent $659 million every week. Education is one of many topics covered by the survey and the data are not designed to provide a highly detailed look at the many different types of educational arrangements and innovations pursued by households in this unusual school year. Among the 15 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA), for example, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH MSA, went from 0.9% in the spring of 2020 to 8.9% by the fall.
These improvements reveal that the U.S. population is much more multiracial and diverse than what we measured in the past. An official website of the United States government The first link explains the methodology used for identifying and editing names data. Or it might be the first census showing an African American family from the rural South living in an urban neighborhood in the Northeast or Midwest, or a family from the rural Midwest living in California.