Massachusetts. Bureau of Statistics

Census information for Concord was taken by Massachusetts authorities in 1765, 1778, 1865, and 1875 and by federal authorities every tenth year from 1790. The census act of 1870 contained a provision whereby the federal government undertook the compilation of the returns of all states making a midway enumeration on the federal blanks. Several states compiled and forwarded their schedules to Washington. As there was then no permanent census office, the results were never tabulated. Alfred B. Warren (1822-1881) of Concord was enumerator for the 1875 state census.

From the description of Taxable property in Concord, Massachusetts, May 1, 1875 : manuscript, 1875. (Concord Public Library). WorldCat record id: 32592798

The Bureau of Statistics of Labor, established in 1869, was renamed the Bureau of Statistics in 1909, and abolished in 1919.

From the description of Annual reports, 1870-1919. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122412393

The Bureau of Statistics of Labor was created in 1869 (Resolves 1869, c 102) to collect statistical data and to publish an annual report for the state legislature. The bureau was to report on all aspects of labor in Massachusetts, including the "commercial, industrial, social, educational, and sanitary conditions of the laboring classes and on the permanent prosperity of the productive industry of the Commonwealth." The chief and deputy of the bureau were to be appointed by the governor.

The bureau was the first permanent state board of labor in the United States and became a model agency on the national and international level. In 1873, amid controversy that the bureau was biased toward labor, Carroll D. Wright was appointed chief and began to reorganize the bureau and collect information for an impartial presentation of the facts relating to hours of labor, wages, profits, child labor, women in the labor force, strikes, and conditions of the working class, including housing, education, poverty, divorce, and crime. Beginning in 1875 the bureau assumed responsibility for the decennial census of population (in which the secretary of the Commonwealth remained involved however) as well as for the decennial census of industries (St 1874, c 386). A combined 1885 census dealt with the number of inhabitants and registered voters, manufactures, mining, agriculture, fisheries, commerce, libraries, and schools (St 1884, c 181). Provision for separate annual collection, tabulation, and publication of statistics of manufactures was made by St 1886, c 174, which required standarized information from manufacturers including statistics on raw materials, goods manufactured, number of stockholders, capital invested, numbers of workers employed, and total wages paid. In 1909 legislation shortened the agency's name to Bureau of Statistics and further expanded its duties to include the maintenance of free employment offices (St 1909, c 371).

The agency as a matter of policy refrained from directly advocating legislation, but its work affected the course of labor law pertaining to the education of children employed in manufacturing establishments (Resolves 1874, c 62), establishment of the State Board of Arbitration and Conciliation (St 1886, c 263), the ten-hour work day limit for minors and women (St 1887, c 280), and employers' liability (St 1887, c 270), as well as the codification of labor law in 1909 (St 1909, c 514).

In 1919 the Bureau of Statistics was abolished in the general reorganization of the executive branch (St 1919, c 350, s 25). Its duties and responsibilities were divided between the department of the secretary of the Commonwealth, which took over the supervision of the decennial census, relating to population only (s 26), and the Division of Statistics in the new Department of Labor and Industries, now responsible for industrial and commercial statistics (s 69).

From the description of Agency history record. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145429246