OCR Text |
Show UNCLE SAM SHOWS HOW HIS FAMILIES DECREASE The size of the average family in the United States has decreased from 5.8 persons iu 1790, the date of the first census,- to 4.6 in the same area in 1000, according to a volume being prepared by the census bureau. Of especial interest from a sociological point are statistics of family life. In 1790 families composed com-posed of no more than three persons represented only one-fourth of the entire number of families, while in 1900 families of similar size made up nearly near-ly 40 per cent of all families. Families composed of six or more persons represented in 1790 more than one-half, but in 1900 scarcely more than one-fourth one-fourth of the families enumerated. On the basis of the proportion shown in 1790, there would have been in continental United States in 1900, 39,500,000 children, whereas there were less than 24,000,000. The number of children under 16 years of age to each white family was 2.8 in 1790. as compared with 3.5 in 1900. The ratio in 1790 of two children under 36 years of age to each white female 16 years of age and over, declined to one in 1900. Of C, 171. 000 white persons enumerated in 1790, approximately 2,000,000 survived thirty years later, 11,500 in 1880, while in 1900 there were twenty-three persons who reported their ages as 110 years and j over, so that at the census of 1900 it is possible that there were still living persons enumerated iii the first census, taken 110 years before. In 1790 the Smiths led all the rest, there being 35.245 of that family. Other families followed in the sequence given: Brown, Davis, Jones, Johnson, Clark, Williams, Miller and Wilson. These nine names represented about 4 per cent of the total white population of 1790. |