The 1960 Data Restoration Project

Kathryn M. Coursolle, University of Minnesota
Rebecca J. Vick, University of Minnesota
Ryan S. Klein, University of Minnesota

The 1960 Data Restoration Project is a collaboration between the Minnesota Population Center and the U.S. Census Bureau to prepare a 5% sample of 1960 Census data, five times denser than the currently available 1% PUMS. This new data set will open new angles of research about the American population during an important historical time point. Not only are there five-times more records than the currently available sample, but the geographic detail in the new sample is greatly improved. This project required restoration of approximately one million missing records in the Chicago area. The Minnesota Population Center recovered the original forms, scanned the missing records into digital form, and allocated missing values. In this presentation, we describe the project including methods used to recover and improve the data, publicly-available data products that will be available, and the improved geographic detail in the new 5% PUMS sample.