A political science class has an assignment, a group assignment I believe, to find census statistics regarding poverty levels and number of foreign born nationally, and in NYC, and NYS from 1950 on. I tried to help two groups of students, each with one of the above referenced requests, while on the reference desk. They have the information that is available online from the Census Bureau and are primarily looking for 1950 census information.
I showed them how to search on CUNY+ for census and 1950 and also suggested and explained the Statistical Abstract of the United States and how they could check the index for tables. I also reminded them that it takes several years for some statistical data, particularly the census, to become available, so for 1950 they might want to start with the 1953 Statistical Abstract.
Some of the students said they had not used the library before. This is a junior level class. Some students said they were transfer students.
One student expected me to find the information to complete their chart but I explained it was their assignment. One student said that they had found some sites in which they could purchase the 1950 census information for $8. I advised against doing this.
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Finding pre 1990 census data online is tough. The census does have a page for historical data:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.html
But it does not contain the full census from each decade - just extracts.
There's also NHGIS - National Historical Geographic Information System - maintained by the University of Minnesota:
http://www.nhgis.org/
You can use their data finder to get detailed census data (and GIS boundary files for that matter) all the way back to 1790. You need to register to create an account, but it is free. However, the interface is a little clunky, and can be daunting.
We also still have much of the original paper copies of each census in the stacks, non circulating, HA 201. Navigating these can be equally daunting!
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