Explore Historical Manufacturing Data

In this project, UChicago and NYU economists Richard Hornbeck, Anders Humlum, and Martin Rotemberg have led efforts to digitize the surviving historical records on American manufacturing establishments during the second Industrial Revolution, making it easily accessible to researchers and the general public.The underlying data comes from the Census of Manufactures in 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. As with the population and agricultural censuses, this effort relied on numerous enumerators (primarily U.S. Marshals and their assistants) who visited manufacturing establishments throughout the country. This effort resulted in establishment-level manufacturing information from an important period in American economic development.