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Audiences and Publics: The Census, Art and Science. Margo Anderson Presidential Address Social Science History Association November 3, 2006. The West Wing Takes the 2000 Census. Liverpool Creamware Pitchers. 1790 Census Liverpool Creamware Pitcher.
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Audiences and Publics: The Census, Art and Science Margo Anderson Presidential Address Social Science History Association November 3, 2006
Francis Edmonds, The Bashful Cousin, c. 1841-1842, The New Bonnet, 1858
Michael Casey, “Taking the Census” by John Kaiser, Edison Records, 1905
Casey Taking the Census • CASEY: And here am I. I don’t like this job of taking the census. Everywhere I go they think I’m a bugler [burglar] and I’m trying to swipe something. My God, I have sores on me hands and blisters on me feet from going up and down up stairs and ringing doorbells. Ah, here am I. I’ll try this place anyway • Knock, Knock • CASEY: By Golly, look at the face on this coming to the door. Face to face to ya to like [unintelligible]... • MRS MULCAHY: Well? • CASEY: Well? • MRS MULCAHY: Well? • CASEY: Well?
Casey Taking the Census • MRS MULCAHY: Well? Whatya want? • CASEY: I don’t want anything. I’m taking the census, do ya mind. • MRS MULCAHY: Look here, if you take anything around here I’ll have you arrested. • CASEY: Never mind now, don’t get excitement. I’m going to ask you a few questions. And, if you don’t answer them right, I’m gonna have you pinched. Do you mind that? Now what’s your name? • MRS MULCAHY: Castoria Mulcahy • CASEY: Mmmmm, Castoria Mulcahy, hey. How do you spell it? • MRS MULCAHY: What? • CASEY: Mulcahy. • MRS MULCAHY: Mu... Mu... Mu... • CASEY: M U D, Mud, can’t you spell your own name? Mind ya, what are ya? Are ya French or German?
Casey Taking the Census • MRS MULCAHY: I’m neither, I’m Irish. • CASEY: Are you, by golly. Are ya married? • MRS MULCAHY: Yes. • CASEY: What for? • MRS MULCAHY: I dunno. • CASEY: I guess you don’t know anything, do ya. Look here. Have you made any donations to the matrimonial fruit basket? • MRS MULCAHY: What...? [unintelligible] • CASEY: I mean to say have you any children? • ……………….
Michael Casey, “Taking the Census” by John Kaiser, Edison Records, 1905
“The Census Taker,” Robert Frost • Icame an errand one cloud-blowing eveningTo a slab-built, black-paper-covered houseOf one room and one window and one door,The only dwelling in a waste cut overA hundred square miles round it in the mountains:And that not dwelt in now by men or women.(It never had been dwelt in, though, by women,So what is this I make a sorrow of?)I came as census-taker to the wasteTo count the people in it and found none…
“The Census Taker,” Robert Frost • …The melancholy of having to count soulsWhere they grow fewer and fewer every yearIs extreme where they shrink to none at all.It must be I want life to go on living.
Explaining the Census…. • CJ: Explain it to me. • Sam: The Constitution mandates that every ten years, we count everybody. • CJ: Why? • Sam: Because representation at the various levels of the government -- federal, state, and municipal -- is based on population. The only way to find out how many Congressmen California gets is to count the people in California. Got it? • CJ: Can I just say that if the briefing book had been written that clearly, I would have easily understood. • Sam: We're not done yet…..
But I am for this Evening… • Thank you….and on to our reception…. • You’ll have to read more in Social Science History . . . • About our audiences and publics….
“My daddy says grandma is in the census, but I am sure mummy said she is in Iowa.”