United States Census of 1850 - IPUMS Subset

United States, 1850

Get Microdata

Reference ID

USA_1850_PHC_v01_M_v7.5_A_IPUMS

Producer(s)

Department of the Interior, IPUMS

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Study website

Created on

Sep 03, 2025

Last modified

Sep 03, 2025

Page views

3304

Crime (US1850A_CRIME)

Data file: USA1850_PHC-P-H

Overview

Type: Discrete

Start: 465

End: 465

Width: 1

Range: -

Format: Numeric

Questions and instructions

Literal question

<svar a="all" v="US50A451 US50A452 US50A453 US50A454">13. ____ Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict.<br /></svar>

Categories

Value	Category
1	Drunk or disorderly
2	Theft, burglary, larceny
3	Assault
4	Rape
5	Murder, manslaughter
6	Miscellaneous
7	Convict or in jail
8	Unknown
9	Blank

Warning: these figures indicate the number of cases found in the data file. They cannot be interpreted as summary statistics of the population of interest.

Description

Definition

This variable indicates if the person had been convicted of a crime in the previous year, even if they were not in jail, or was an incarcerated criminal. The nature of the person's offense is noted. The instructions to enumerators urged reliance on county records and the enumerator's "own knowledge" to identify non-institutionalized criminals, since questioning families directly "might give offense."

Universe

United States 1850 (100%): All persons

concept

Concept

Back to Catalog