|
Historical Statistics
This guide covers historical statistics and data, primarily before the mid-20th century. Keep in mind that the farther back you go, the more likely that the information you need may not exist, either because it was never collected, or because it has not survived. That said, there's a surprising amount of information available, and a thorough search for relevant sources can take time.
This guide focuses on sources for statistics that answer a simple question, like "how many people were living in the United States in 1820?" or "what was the average price of wheat in France in 1790?" If you are looking for downloadable data sets that can be manipulated with statistical software (such as SPSS, SAS or Stata), please see Data below and Data and Statistical Services for more help.
For current statistical information, see:
Table of contents
United States
- Historical statistics of the United States: earliest times to the present. Editors in chief, Susan B. Carter ... [et al.]. New York: Cambridge University Press, c2006.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HA202 .H57 2006
http://hsus.cambridge.org/HSUSWeb
The essential starting point for U.S. historical statistics. Covers population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, economic sectors, and governance and international relations. The introductory essays discuss the data sources and broad trends and are very valuable.
- Datapedia of the United States: American history in numbers. Edited by George Thomas Kurian and Barbara A. Chernow. Lanham, MD: Bernan Press, c2007.
Social Science Reference Center (SSRC) HA202 .K87 2007 [plus previous editions online]
Gathers together a wide range of data from government sources on demographics; the environment; industry and services; health, social welfare and law enforcement; education, society and leisure; economics; politics and defence. Although the emphasis is on the recent past, there is a substantial amount of data from the 20th century and some from earlier. The introductory essays include brief summaries of recent trends.
- Historical statistics of the states of the United States: two centuries of the census, 1790-1990. Compiled by Donald B. Dodd.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Social Science Reference Center (SSRC) HA214 .H57 1993
A compilation based on U.S. census data and arranged by state. Includes population, agriculture, and manufacturing, plus population for the 200 largest cities. Useful for understanding changes in state demographics & economics over time.
- Historical statistics of Black America. Compiled & edited by Jessie Carney Smith and Carrell Peterson Horton. New York: Gale Research, c1995.
General and Humanities Reference (DR) E185 .H543 1995
Massive 2-volume compilation arranged by topic. Includes a subject index and an index by year. Topics include: agriculture; business and economics; crime, law enforcement, and legal justics; education; family; income, spending and wealth; labor and employement; media; military and military affairs, miscellany; politics and elections; population; professions; religion; slavery and the slave trade; sports and leisure; and vital statistics. Covers 18th c. through 1975, but for many highly specific topics there is data for only one year. (For current data, see also Black Americans: a statistical sourcebook at E185.86 .B52563 -- current volume in the Trustee Reading Room; earlier years in Firestone.)
- Nations within a nation: historical statistics of American Indians. Paul Stuart. New York: Greenwood Press, c1987.
General and Humanities Reference (DR) E77 .S924 1987
Slim volume mostly based on U.S. government sources; coverage is best for the 20th century to 1980. Includes statistics for: land, population, removal/relocation, vital statistics and health, U.S. government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) activities, healthcare and education, employment and income, and economic development.
World
- International historical statistics. the Americas 1750-2005. Brian Mitchell. 6th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Social Science Reference Center (SSRC) HA175 .M55 2007
- International historical statistics. Europe, 1750-2005. B.R. Mitchell. 6th ed. Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Social Science Reference Center (SSRC) HA1107 .M5 2007
- International historical statistics: Africa, Asia & Oceania, 1750-2005. B.R. Mitchell. 5th ed. Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Social Science Reference Center (SSRC) HA4675 .M552 2007
These three volumes are the first place to look for international historical statistics. The are similarly arranged and cover: population and vital statistics, labour force, agriculture, industry, external trade, transport and communication, finance, prices, education, and national accounts.
- The world economy. [Angus Maddison]. Paris, France: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, c2006.
http://new.sourceoecd.org/9264022619
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HC21 .M285 2006
The data in this compendium were assembled "to quantify ... long term changes in world income and population" and to study the cases of differences in world development. Both the tables and the accompanying essays are concise and well documented.
- State, economy, and society in Western Europe, 1815-1975: a data handbook in two volumes. Peter Flora; and Jens Alber ... [et al.]. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag; Chicago: St. James Press, 1983-1987.
General and Humanities Reference (DR) HA1107 .F46
This 2-volume set is the result of an effort to collect comparable data on politics and society in modern Western Europe after the Congress of Vienna. Vol. I covers nation states; the practice of democracy; government revenue, expenditure and bureaucracy; and welfare and education. Vol. II covers population and families; urbanization and housing; economic growth; labor and income distributions; and trade unions and strikes. Economic data (below the level of the GNP) is mostly excluded; for this see Mitchell's work above. Check the end of Vol. II for notes about sources, which are not given in the main body of the handbook. This is now being superseded by a new series published by Palgrave Macmillan, "Societies of Europe," which currently includes four volumes (not all of which are available at Princeton) accompanied by data on CDROM:
- The European population since 1945. Franz Rothenbacher. Houndmills [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Donald E. Stokes Library (SPR) HB3581.A3 R684 2005
- The European population, 1850-1945. Franz Rothenbacher. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Donald E. Stokes Library (SPR) HB3581.A3 R68 2002
- Oxford Latin American Economic History Database (1900-2000)
Statistical series for economic and social indicators covering 20 Latin American countries
- East European and Soviet data handbook: political, social, and developmental indicators, 1945-1975. Paul S. Shoup. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press; Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1981.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) Oversize HA1446 .S5q
Sections include population, party membership, national and religious affiliation, education, classes, party leaders, occupations, and developmental indicators/GNP. In English.
- Historical statistics of Canada. 2nd ed. F.H. Leacy, editor. [Ottawa]: Statistics Canada, c1983.
General and Humanities Ref. (DR): Ready Reference Oversize HA745 .H57 1983q http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-516-XIE/sectiona/toc.htm
Good coverage for the 20th century; much less material from earlier.
- British historical statistics. B.R. Mitchell. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
General and Humanities Ref. (DR): Ready Reference HA1134 .M58 1988
Excellent for the 19th & 20th centuries; some data for the 18th and 17th.
- Historical statistics of Japan. New edition.
East Asian Library (Gest): Reference Oversize HC462.7 .N475 2006q (covers 1868-1985)
League of Nations & United Nations
For the 20th century, the League of Nations and the United Nations, plus some nongovernmental organizations, are an essential source of international statistical information. See http://firestone.princeton.edu/econlib/history1.htm for the start dates of many UN bodies and other international organizations that collect and distribute statistics.
- Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations (1926-1944)
- Statistical yearbook [United Nations]
Firestone Library (F) Oversize HA41 .U59q (1948-present)
- Demographic yearbook [United Nations]
Firestone Library (F) HA41 .U58 (1948-present)
Prices, wages, and exchange rates
- The value of a dollar: colonial era to the Civil War, 1600-1865. Scott Derks and Tony Smith. Millerton, N.Y.: Grey House Pub., 2005.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HB235.U6 V358 2005
- The value of a dollar: prices and incomes in the United States, 1860-2004. Scott Derks. Millerton, NY: Grey House Pub., c2004.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HB235.U6 V35 2004
These two volumes provide essential context for discussing prices and wages in the U.S. and is aimed at a general audience.
- The value of a pound: prices and incomes in Britain 1900-1993. Compiled by Oksana Newman and Allan Foster. New York ; London: Gale Research International, c1995.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HB235.G7 V348 1995
Covers both the individual and the government: earnings and employment, consumer expenditure, prices, and finance and economic data. Arranged more or less by decade. Provides a balanced perspective on the "value" of money in a particular time and place.
- How much is that in real money?: a historical commodity price index for use as a deflator of money values in the economy of the United States. John J. McCusker. 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 2001.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HB235.U6 M39 2001
Provides a composite commodity price index that covers 1665-2000 for the U.S. The first chapter is a lucid discussion of the construction and use of price indexes, and the footnotes are a rich source of references to earlier work on historical price indexes.
- Measuring Worth
If you know the cost of something in one year, and you want to know what the equivalent is in another year, this site will help. It provides calculators for relative worth of the U.S. dollar, British pound, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen; purchasing power in dollars and pounds; savings growth; and inflation rates. Read the user guide and the introductory material, which explains the methodology for each calculator.
- Currency conversion tables: a hundred years of change. R. L. Bidwell. London, Rex Collings Ltd., 1970.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HG219 .B5
Compact tables giving the conversion rates for many European (and a few non-European) countries to U.S. dollars and to U.K. pounds, starting with WWI. No references.
- Handbook of medieval exchange. Peter Spufford with the assistance of Wendy Wilkinson and Sarah Tolley. London: Royal Historical Society; Woodbridge, Suffolk; Wolfeboro, N.H.: Distributed by Boydell & Brewer, 1986.
General and Humanities Reference (DR) HG3811 .S68
Thorough compilation of medieval exchange rates. Online version: http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/search_form_spuf.php (but you need to know what you are doing to make good use of this version.)
- Money and exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: a handbook. John J. McCusker. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., by the University of North Carolina Press, c1978.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HG219.M33
Covers exchange rates in the Atlantic world before the American Revolution. Especially useful for exchange between the colonies (Dutch, French, English, Spanish, Danish, Portuguese) in North and South America (including the Caribbean), and Europe.
The introductory essays and notes are valuable for understanding local conditions.
- International Scientific Committee on Price History publications:
- Prices and wages in England from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. Vol. I, Price tables, mercantile era [ca. 1550-1830]. Beveridge, William Henry, with the collaboration of L. Liepmann [and others]. London, New York, Longmans, Green [1939].
Firestone Library (F) HB235.G8B4
- Wholesale prices for 213 years, 1720 to 1932. G.F. Warren and F.A. Pearson. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1932.
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF) HB235.U5 W2
A composite index of wholesale prices. Extensive discussion of methods and many supplementary
tables. Assumes that the reader already has a solid grounding in economic statistics.
- Wholesale commodity prices in the United States, 1700-1861. Arthur Harrison Cole ... Published under the auspices of the International Scientific Committee on Price History. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, 1938.
Firestone HB235.U5 C6
Provides both an index and prices for individual commodities in six American cities. Good information about sources.
- Recherches et documents sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800. Henri Hauser. Paris, Les Presses modernes, 1936
Firestone Library (F) HB235.F8 H2
Time series of prices for commodities in eight cities or regions of France. In French.
- Inquiry into the history of prices in Holland, 1880-1960. Posthumus, N. W. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1946-64.
Annex A HB235.N2 P81
- Banks Cross National Time Series
- See http://firestone.princeton.edu/econlib/Banks.htm and Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive
- To use the online version, select the variables & countries/dates of interest. Some data is available back to 1815. The selected data will be delivered to you via email.
- This is an updated digital version of Cross-polity time-series data. Assembled by Arthur S. Banks and the staff of the Center for Comparative Political Research, State University of New York at Binghamton. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press [1971].
- EH.net
- "EH" is short for "economic history" and this site is sponsored by several scholarly associations. Besides "Measuring Worth" (see above), this site has archived data from a number of scholars. Most data sets are about America or Europe in the 19th & 20th centuries. There is also a list of ongoing projects and data sets archived elsewhere.
- Global Financial Data
- Historical data on bonds, commodities, interest rates, stock markets and indices, futures, exchange rates, GDP, prices, and unemployment. Includes economic data: 1624+; stock market data: 1693+; real estate data 1830+.
- Historical Census Data Browser
- ICPSR
- The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research is the world's largest archive of digital social science data. Princeton is a member of the consortium. Users must create a MyData login before downloading datasets. Most of the data is from the U.S. in the 20th century, but there is some data for other times and places. To get a sense of what's available, Browse by Subject, http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/access/subject.html.
- IISH List of Datafiles of Historical Prices and Wages
- From the International Institute of Social History. Provides both datafiles archived by the IISH (mostly as spreadsheets) and an index of datafiles archived elsewhere. Especially useful for non-U.S. data.
- Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank
- Consists of a handful of datasets created by individual scholars. The data include exchange rates, prices, and wages.
- UK Data Archive
- Houses the data previously provided by the Arts and Humanities Data Service. To find historical data, Browse by Subject and then choose "History" or one of the subcategories. A list of data sets will be displayed. To access the data, users must apply directly to the UKDA -- see http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/aandp/access/login.asp for information.
- GESIS: Studies and Data of Historical Social Research
- Archive of social science data from the Leibnitz Institute for the Social Sciences (Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften). In German and English. Free, but you must register to access the historical data.
Most countries publish an annual statistical compilation; some began as early as the mid-19th century. Princeton University Library has a very large collection of statistical yearbooks for many countries. In general, the current volumes can be found in SSRC on the shelves adjacent to the reference desk. Older volumes are in the Firestone stacks and/or on microfiche. To find statistical yearbooks for countries not listed in this guide, do a Subject search in the Main Catalog for [name of country] statistics periodicals.
- Bibliography of official statistical yearbooks and bulletins. Gloria Westfall. Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1986.
Social Sci. Ref. Center (SSRC): Ready Reference Z7551 .W47 1986
- Statistical abstract of the United States
Pliny Fisk Library (SXF). Firestone HA202 .U58 1st no. (1878-present)
- Statistical abstract for the United Kingdom which becomes Annual abstract of statistics
Firestone Library (F) HA1121 .A2 (1871-present)
- The statesman’s year-book [United Kingdom]
Firestone Library (F) JA51 .S7 (first published 1864; we have 1876-present)
- Annuaire statistique de la France
Firestone Library (F) HA1211 .A2 (1878-present)
- Statistisches Jahrbuch ... für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Firestone Library (F) HA1231 .A6 (1952-present)
- USSR facts & figures annual which in 1993 becomes Russia & Eurasia facts & figures annual
Firestone Library (F) HA1446 .U17 (1977-2002)
- Statistical abstract of Latin America
Firestone Library (F) HA931 .C12 (1955-present)
- African statistical yearbook
United Nations Collection (UN) HA1955 .U5 (1970-2004)
- Statistical yearbook for Asia and the Pacific
United Nations Collection (UN) HA1665 .S73 (1973-2007)
For the United States and Great Britain, it is also worth checking for statistics in other government documents. The convenient starting points are:
- Lexis Nexis U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection
- Collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the directive of Congress. Includes Congressional reports and documents as well as executive agency and departmental reports ordered to be printed by Congress. Covers 1789-1969.
- House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
- Digital edition of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Covers 1688-2003 (or thereabouts).
These are places to look if none of the sources listed above had the information you need:
- Statistics sources: a subject guide to data on industrial, business, social, educational, financial, and other topics for the United States and internationally. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1962-
Current volume: General and Humanities Reference (DR)
Next to current volume: Pliny Fisk Library (SXF)
Older volumes: Firestone Z7551 .S85
- LexisNexis Statistical
Indexes statistical publications issued by (1) the U.S. government (American Statistics Index; 2004+ full text); (2) international and intergovernmental sources (Index to International Statistics; 2007+ select full text); and state governments and private sources (Statistical Reference Index). Most sources are available in microfiche.
- Basic Sources of United States Economic Statistics: Source Indexes
Note: For a good discussion of the history of the collection of statistical information in Western Europe, see Current Sociology vol. 23 no. 2 (1975).
Thanks to Bobray Bordelon and Susan White, whose earlier guides on this topic were the inspiration and source for this guide.
|
