On April 2, 2013 the government was to release the census from 1940, which had not been public for the last 72 years. Historians and geneologists will be interested in what will be found there. Some areas of interest will be, a) info on refugees from wars in Europe in the 1930's, b) info on the 100,000 Japanese Americans who were later relocated to internment camps after Pearl Harbor attack, c) info on the large migration of black Americans from the rural south to northern cities in search of jobs and a better life. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr of Harvard University has prepared a documentary for PBS entitled "Finding Your Roots" which was to air March 2, 2012. In the case of Japanese Americans the census will paint a clearer picture of the extent of the groups community and the amount of loss suffered by those interned. A topic interest will be the level of income of ordinary Americans at the time. A picture printed with the article noted below shows a census worker interviewing a family of four outside a railroad car that was converted in a home. I note this because it seems to me to be a novel way of providing housing for some in need. The "house cars" were part of the Mohawk and Hudson RR line and the NY Central. (could this be a method of housing the homeless today?)
The web site that provide these census records "will be free and open to anyone on the Internet" but these records are not "name-searchable".
http://1940census.archives.gov/1940 and www.the1940census.com.
(Source: "Details of daily life from the Great Depression" by Cristian Salazar and Randy Herschaft of the AP. In The Virginian Pilot on 3/19/12)
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