Though I no longer live in Durham (alas!) I found myself getting sucked back in to Durham history while looking through the newly released 1940 U.S. Census schedules. The National Archives interface for using the census can be, well, difficult and I thought I'd put up my first stab at experimenting with making it easier to use. I hope other folks in the Durham mapping community will take it from here! I'd especially encourage everyone interested to attend this event at UNC on April 10th which my friend Pam Lach and the digital innovation lab are putting on for this interested in projects stemming from this new census data.
Below I've crudely overlaid the downtown Durham census enumeration map on Google Earth and provided links to one district's worth of census sheets. If you zoom in you will see tiny numbers on each block which will help navigate within each district's sheets. The enumeration district numbers are written-in more faintly in pen. For a list of all Durham county enumeration districts and further census sheet images see the National Archives site here.
Below I've crudely overlaid the downtown Durham census enumeration map on Google Earth and provided links to one district's worth of census sheets. If you zoom in you will see tiny numbers on each block which will help navigate within each district's sheets. The enumeration district numbers are written-in more faintly in pen. For a list of all Durham county enumeration districts and further census sheet images see the National Archives site here.
