During the Great Depression, men waited in Bread Lines for soup and bread – food was generally donated by charities to help those without jobs.(Agencies) |
It was a decade when tens of millions of people in the US experienced mass unemployment and social upheaval as the nation clawed its way out of the Great Depression and rumblings of global war were heard from abroad. Now, intimate details of 132 million people who lived through the 1930s will be disclosed as the US government releases the 1940 census on April 2 to the public for the first time after 72 years of privacy protection lapses. Access to the records will be free and open to anyone on the Internet — but they will not be immediately name searchable. For genealogists and family historians, the 1940 census release is the most important disclosure of ancestral secrets in a decade and could shake the branches of many family trees. Scholars expect the records to help draw a more pointillistic portrait of a transformative decade in American life. More than 120,000 enumerators surveyed 132 million people for the Sixteenth Decennial Census — 21 million of whom are alive today in the US and Puerto Rico, according to the US Census Bureau. The survey contained 34 questions directed at all households, plus 16 supplemental questions asked of 5 percent of the population. New questions reflected the government's intent on documenting the turbulent decade, by generating data on homelessness, migration, widespread unemployment, irregular salaries and fertility decline. Some of the most contentious questions focused on personal income and were deemed so sensitive they were placed at the end of the survey. Less than 300,000 people opted to have their income responses sealed. (Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
上世紀(jì)經(jīng)濟(jì)大蕭條時(shí)期,美國(guó)深陷其中,數(shù)百萬(wàn)美國(guó)人經(jīng)歷了大規(guī)模的失業(yè)來(lái)襲和社會(huì)動(dòng)亂,而且從全球來(lái)看,一戰(zhàn)的陰霾還在持續(xù)。 如今,生活在20世紀(jì)30年代大蕭條期間的1.32億人的私密詳情將被公開(kāi)。在72年的隱私保護(hù)到期后,美國(guó)政府將于4月2日向公眾公布1940年的人口普查結(jié)果。 人們可以在網(wǎng)上免費(fèi)查閱這些記錄,但不會(huì)立刻搜索到姓名。 對(duì)系譜學(xué)家和家庭史專(zhuān)家來(lái)說(shuō),公布上世紀(jì)40年代的普查結(jié)果是十年來(lái)最重要的上代信息披露,可能會(huì)動(dòng)搖很多家譜的分支。學(xué)者希望這份記錄能夠更生動(dòng)地描繪出美國(guó)生活史上這一動(dòng)蕩年代。 根據(jù)美國(guó)人口普查局的數(shù)據(jù),超過(guò)12萬(wàn)普查人員當(dāng)年對(duì)1.32億人進(jìn)行了第16次人口普查,人口普查每十年進(jìn)行一次。如今,參與普查的其中2100萬(wàn)人仍在世,生活在美國(guó)和波多黎各。 此次人口普查包括34個(gè)問(wèn)題,用于所有家庭回答,還有16個(gè)補(bǔ)充問(wèn)題,由其中5%的人口回答。新增問(wèn)題反映出政府意圖通過(guò)生成流浪、遷移、大規(guī)模失業(yè)、不固定工資、和生育率的下降等數(shù)據(jù),來(lái)記錄動(dòng)蕩的年代。 一些最有爭(zhēng)議的問(wèn)題集中在個(gè)人收入,被認(rèn)為非常敏感,因此列在調(diào)查的最末。不到30萬(wàn)人選擇不予回答。 相關(guān)閱讀 研究:鞋跟高低反應(yīng)經(jīng)濟(jì)形勢(shì) 英國(guó):經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退導(dǎo)致離婚率上升 美國(guó)極貧人口創(chuàng)歷史新高占十五分之一 “占領(lǐng)華爾街”示威者轉(zhuǎn)戰(zhàn)富豪大宅 (中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 Julie 編輯:陳丹妮) |
Vocabulary: genealogist: 系譜學(xué)家 family tree: 家譜 contentious: 有爭(zhēng)議的 |