the census department has done an incredible thing by digitizing the entire 1940 census. the whole thing! every page! 132 million people! and you can download individual pages for free! it is not searchable by name, so you have to know what town your relative was living in...and if you know what part of town that's even better. my grandma is from a small town, but even her small town had 80 pages of census data, and you have to look through each page for the names you're looking for - unless you have a better idea of address, part of town, etc.
it was the depression so she couldn't afford to go to college right out of high school. my sweet grandma worked 48 hours per week, 50 weeks a year for an annual salary of $400 in 1940.
finding my grandma on the census was AMAZING. of course she's there...but look: THERE SHE IS. on this page, in this line, is everything the us government knew about her in 1940. it's looking back at history. a census worker came to her house, spoke to her father, wrote on this page. AND NOW (72 years later) IT'S ON THE INTERNET.
[speaking of which - why do they release this data 72 years after it was collected? average life expectancy? this feels like a random number...]
go here to start your own research!
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