Joe Steinberg and the Census Class of 1940

• Activity Number: 40
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 3, 2014 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Gary Shapiro*+ and Fritz Scheuren
• Companies: Statistics Without Borders and NORC at the University of Chicago
• Keywords: U S Census Bureau ; survey sampling innovation ; Current Population Survey

Abstract

Great organizations have gone through many high points in their history. The cohort of statisticians that made up the "class of 1940" at the U S Census Bureau was responsible for one such high point. These were the people who came to conduct the Decennial Population Census in 1940. They gained success and changed the survey and census-going world, forever. not only as individuals; but perhaps, more importantly as a team.

This paper remembers such U S Census Bureau men and women. Many are famous in their own right (e g, Deming, Hansen, Hurwitz, and Waksberg). Many other figures, like Joe Steinberg, are less well known to history. In this paper, given on the 175th anniversary of the ASA, we think it worth recalling why this cohort made such a difference: What made them so innovative? So creative? So self-confident? So open to new ideas? Both within the Census Bureau and internationally?

This paper honors Joe Steinberg and, through him, all the other members of the "Class of 1940". The oral history is one DNA source, albeit now largely gone. Obituaries, alas, in some case are all we have. But there are many papers in journals too and in the extensive unpublished memorandum document