A New Prosopography: The Enumerators of the 1891 Census in Ontario

Abstract

Who were the enumerators and to what degree were they representative of the wider Ontario population in 1891? What potential influence did the selection of enumerators have on the accuracy and bias of the census returns? We address these questions by considering the residence and socioeconomic characteristics of Ontario enumerators, as identified in their own census returns, in relation to a new 5 percent sample of the entire Ontario population. We found that the census commissioners were largely successful in finding men they deemed trustworthy and reliable to serve as enumerators: married, middle-aged heads of household with ties to their communities. These men were broadly representative of the rest of 1891 Ontario, especially the large class of independent farmers and tradesmen in the countryside and the growing middle class in the towns and cities. However, communities composed of ethnic or religious minorities including French-Canadian Catholics and Lutherans often had an enumerator who shared their language and culture. The 1891 census was not objective and was certainly not perfect, but the Dominion was successful in improving and standardizing pre-Confederation census-taking practices. The selection of more competent, knowledgeable, and representative enumerators was a key component of that success.

Keywords:

• 1891
• census
• enumerator
• population

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A New Prosopography: The Enumerators of the 1891 Census in Ontario

Notes

1. A benchmark collection of papers based in the Canadian census is Household Counts: Canadian Households and Families in 1901 (ed. Eric W. Sager and Peter Baskerville. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).

2. More information about the 1891 Canadian census sample can be found at www.1891census.ca. From June 2011, the data will be accessible to the public through the North Atlantic Population Project as well as Canadian data distributors. The authors would like to thank Chelsea Jack for her help in designing the enumerator database, as well as Danielle Van Wagner and Jennifer Kennedy for their assistance in populating it.

3. For this section we excluded the medium matches, many of which were influenced by individuals living in the same subdistrict as the enumeration. This left a data set of 1,119 high matches, in which only one possible match for each enumerator was discovered. For more information on high and medium matches and the selection criteria, see the appendix.

4. John Lowe, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Memorandum 28 May 1892, NA MG 29 E18 Vol. 7, 1891-1906 file; Federal Government Orders-in-Council 1891-1090, 26 May 1891, NA RG2, Privy Council Office, Series A-1-a.

5. For the other regions outside Quebec, see Betsy Beattie's Obligation and Opportunity: Single Maritime Women in Boston, 1870–1930 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998); and Randy Widdis's With Scarcely a Ripple: Anglo-Canadian Migration in the United States and Western Canada, 1880–1920 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998).

6. Eric Sager (2007) argues that between 1871 and 1901, a transition was occurring that saw the employers of domestic servants in urban Canada become wealthier and more demonstrably elite, such as professionals, merchants and government officials. See “The Transformation of the Canadian Domestic Servant, 1871–1931.” Social Science History 31: 521.

7. Peter Baskerville (2001) suggests that many urban families sought potential lodgers with similar ethnic and religious backgrounds, in “Familiar Strangers: Urban Families with Boarders, Canada, 1901.” Social Science History 25:321–346.

8. For more on the Irish experience in Ontario and particularly the presence and success of both Irish Catholics and Protestants in the countryside, see Donald Akenson's The Irish in Ontario: a Study in Rural History (Kingston and Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1984; 346–349).

9. Susan Carter and Richard Sutch, “Fixing the Facts: Editing of the 1880 United States Census of Occupations with Implications for Long-Term Labor Force Trends and the Sociology of Official Statistics,” Historical Methods 29(1996): 5-24; Margot Conk, “Accuracy, Efficiency and Bias: the Interpretation of Women's Work in the U.S. Statistics of Occupation, 1890-1960,” Historical Methods 14(1981): 65–72; Nancy Folbre and Marjorie Abel, “Women's Work and Women's Households: Gender Bias in the U.S. Census,” Social Research 56(1989): 545–569; Edward Higgs, “Women, Occupations and Work in the Nineteenth-Century Censuses,” History Workshop Journal 1987(1987): 59–71; Kris Inwood and Richard Reid, “Gender and Occupational Identity in a Canadian Census,” Historical Methods 32(2001): 57–70.