US Federal Census Non-Population Schedules- The Manufacturing Schedule

Note: All examples in this post have been randomly selected from Ancestry. There are no client or personal ancestors in this post.

    Welcome back to my series on US Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, a group of special records gathered by census takers to provide information about the state of the nation beyond the scope of the regular census. This post will guide you through the Manufacturing Schedule of the census, what information was taken when, and how to use these schedules to further tell the stories of your ancestors.

Manufacturing Schedule from Antelope Co., NE, 1880

   

The Manufacturing Schedule was the first non-population schedule taken, beginning with a clumsy and uncoordinated effort in 1810. US Federal Marshals were tasked as census takers for almost the entire 19th century, and in 1810 their instructions were vague and unclear, so very little of their work from 1810 is actually useful. In the case of the 1810 information, it was simply integrated into the main body of the census, as opposed to appearing in a separate schedule, which makes it far harder to use. The exception to this is in the state of New York, where the schedules for a few counties were taken separately. 

    Beginning in 1820, the Manufacturing Schedule was separated out into its own schedule, and this makes it much easier to use. As with the Mortality Schedule, the data collected depends on the year of the schedule. Starting in 1820, and continuing in the 1850, 1860, and 1870 schedules the basic list of information stayed the same:

1. Name of the Manufacturer
2. Type of Business or Product
3. Amount of Capital Invested in the Business
4. Quantities, Kinds, and Value of Raw Materials present on the day of Enumeration
5. Quantities of Product Produced and the Value
6. Kind of Power and Machinery Used
7. Number of Employees
8. Average Monthly Labor Costs for Male Employees and Female Employees

Ancestry only has select non-population schedules, and none before 1850, so be aware of this in your research. Further, the schedule did not count small manufacturing companies or individuals that produced less than $500 in goods; if you can't find an ancestor where you believe he or she should be, this might be why.

    This schedule from Andover in Essex County, Massachusetts is a good example of how the schedules between 1850-1870 should look:

Here, you can see the manufacturing details for two producers of flannel cloth in Andover, Nathaniel Stevenson and a company called North Andover Mills. The first thing listed under the amounts of raw materials is wool, so we know these two mills were producing woolen cloth as opposed to cotton or linen, and given the quantities of raw wool, they were producing an awful lot of it- 150,00 and 200,00 pounds respectively.  The last columns tell us exactly how much wool flannel cloth they were producing; Nathaniel Stevenson produced 380,00 yards of cloth in the previous year, and the North Andover Mills produced 600,000 yards. This company from the same schedule was not only producing flannel fabric, they were also producing some garments made from flannel, including shawls:

Note that this company also has a small stock of cotton among its raw materials. In addition to the wool flannel, this company may also have been producing a small amount of mixed fiber cloth. 

    Now, take a look at this schedule from Sacramento, California from 1850:

Every single person on this sheet is listed as a blacksmith, producing mining implements. Remember those 49'ers who went to look for gold in northern and central California? The men on this sheet followed along to supply those miners. They may also have been miners themselves, but they also earned a living making tools for miners. In fact, everyone on this particular schedule for this area are blacksmiths, with the exception of three men on the next page who are listed as "lumber" but these men are from Santa Cruz County, about 146 miles from Sacramento:

In short, keep an eye on the top of the page, and make sure you know where you are looking at; this applies regardless of what schedule you're looking at! 

    In 1880 the schedules changed somewhat. The items mentioned above were still enumerated, but the 1880 and 1885 (in certain states, see my previous posts on special censuses in some states) manufacturing schedules asked about specific industries:

1. Boot and Shoe Making
2. Lumber and Saw Mills
3. Flour and Grist Mills
4. Cheese, Butter, and Condensed Milk Factories
5. Agricultural Equipment Manufacturies
6. Slaughtering and Meat Packing
7. Salt Works

 In some states, the schedule was taken twice, once in 1880, and then again in 1885: Dakota Territory (which would be broken up into the states of South and North Dakota), Florida, and Nebraska. In New Mexico and Colorado manufacturing censuses were only taken in 1885. 

Take a look at this schedule from the 1880 Census:

This is the schedule from Plattesmouth, Cass County, Nebraska from 1880. As you can see this is for the flour and grist mills and the dairy factories. Here in Plattesmouth, there are no dairy industries, but there is a flour mill. This makes sense; industry in this part of Nebraska is skewed heavily to wheat and corn farming and some meat cattle, but not dairy cattle, even to this day. Mr. Conrad Heisel, the owner of the mill, states that about one half of his business comes from custom orders, in other words, people bringing their own grain for their own use at home. The other half, presumably, comes from commercial dealers in flour and cornmeal. The continued portion of the schedule tells us that he wasn't just grinding wheat:

He also had orders for a small amount of rye flour, a lot of cornmeal, and a great deal of feed. In fact, his the bulk of his business seems to have been in cornmeal and feed; he only produced 4200 barrels of flour and 50 of rye, but 60,000 pounds of cornmeal and 59,800 of animal feed. From this we can deduce that he was probably producing the flour, wheat and rye, for local consumption on a small scale, but cornmeal and feed were his mainstays and probably provided the majority of his income. 

This gentleman, Jacob Wick, was tanning hides in Petaluma, Marin County, California:

This schedule from the 1880 Clinch County, Georgia census has the Hout Dussell Company, sawing lumber:

    So what do these schedules have to offer us, the genealogist? For starters, it helps us get a fuller picture of our ancestors who appear here. We know what they were doing for a living and how successful they were at it. We get a detailed picture of their daily work and their relative success compared to neighbors. Even without ancestors on the schedule, we can see what the economic makeup of the places they were living was. Despite having been to Cass County, Nebraska many times, I had no idea that they grew rye there! Even a small amount of it! Knowing that many of the local farmers were German and Scandinavian immigrants, however, it makes complete sense that they were growing small amounts of rye for their own use. It gives us valuable insight as to what the community was doing, and the economic health of the area. Back to Cass County, lots of feed corn is still grown there, and there are several feed mills in the area. 

The fact that there was only one grist mill there tells me that they were just beginning the process of building those mills and growing corn specifically for animal feed. Cross-checking it with the 1885 schedule might give us a better idea if the area was growing or stagnating economically. 

    The US Federal Manufacturing schedules are very valuable to genealogists and family historians, and learning how to use them effectively will give you a leg up on your own research. If the mortality schedule told us about the literal medical condition of our ancestors and the communities they lived in, the manufacturing schedule tells us something about the economic health of our ancestors and their neighbors. Next up are the US Agricultural census schedules, and how to read them for maximum information. As always, I welcome comments and questions!