Quantitative history encompasses many things, from basic statistical
skills to analyzing available data to collecting data. As the guide
to quantitative history tries to address these various aspects, so too
does this guide to online sources. Some of these resources offer individual
level data; others offer aggregate data. In addition, some sites provide
raw data that must be downloaded and analyzed with statistical software
while other sites offer data that are available for online manipulation.
This list is intended as a brief overview of the multitude of sources,
data, and guides available online, providing links to some of the largest
collections and most comprehensive resources on quantitative evidence.
Archives—Records and Quantitative Data
Statistical Guides
ARCHIVES—RECORDS AND QUANTITATIVE DATA
American Family Immigration History Center, Statue of Liberty-Ellis
Island Foundation
http://www.ellisisland.org/
Created by a non-profit organization to fund preservation of the Statue
of Liberty and Ellis Island, this site provides a searchable database
containing records on more than 22 million passengers and ship crewmembers
who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. In addition to
a basic passenger record (name, ethnicity, place of residence, date
of arrival, age, marital status, ship of travel, and place of departure),
users may view a copy of the original ship manifest (a text version
is also available), and a picture of the ship. If no match occurs, the
site provides information for names with close or alternate spellings.
Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce
http://www.bea.gov/
Comprehensive and summary data estimates concerning national, international,
and regional economic activity, and "statistics that influence
the decisions made by government officials, business people, households,
and individuals." Includes an overview of the economy, providing
data on production, purchases by type, price, personal income, government
finances, inventories, and balance of payments. This site also offers
news releases concerning key economic indicators, descriptions of sources
and methodologies used, and articles from the organization’s publications.
A keyword index to a 1929-2000 set of annual and quarterly national
income and product account (NIPA) tables allows users access to data
on specific product sales and ways that consumers have spent money.
Online Data Archive, University of Wisconsin, Madison
http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/archive_txt.htm
Provides 41 social science statistical data studies on a variety of
topics, including 12 studies dealing with Wisconsin-related topics,
14 studies on American subjects, and 15 studies dealing with general
or international matters. Subjects pertaining to American history include
Slave Movement during the 18th and 19th Centuries; Irish immigrants
in Boston in 1847 and 1848; Characteristics of Census Tracts in Nine
U.S. Cities, 1940-1960; the growth, consumption habits, and finances
of American families in the 1950s and 1960s; financial characteristics
of consumers in the early 1960s; premarital sexuality in 1973; Civil
Rights volunteers, 1965-1982; urban racial disorders of the 1960s; and
the role of the American family in the transmission and maintenance
of socioeconomic inequality. This Web site provides data for download;
statistical software may be required to analyze and process the data.
FRED, Economic Time-Series Database, Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis
http://www.stls.frb.org/fred/index.html
Offers national economic and financial data in 12 categories, including:
interest rates; consumer price indexes; employment and population; gross
domestic product and components; producer price indexes; trade data;
and daily/weekly financial data. Much of the data was compiled monthly.
Periods covered vary according to category, and some statistics go back
to 1901. Also provides historical and recent statistics for the states
of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and
Tennessee.
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, University of Minnesota
http://www.ipums.umn.edu/
Currently provides 22 census data samples and 65 million records from
13 federal censuses covering the period 1850-1990. These data "collectively
comprise our richest source of quantitative information on long-term
changes in the American population." The project has applied uniform
codes to previously published and newly created data samples. Rather
than offering data in aggregated tabular form, the site offers data
on individuals and households, allowing researchers to tailor tabulations
to their specific interests. Includes data on fertility, marriage, immigration,
internal migration, work, occupational structure, education, ethnicity,
and household composition. Offers extensive documentation on procedures
used to transform data and includes 13 links to other census-related
sites. This site may be somewhat challenging for novices.
Research Data on Voting and Public Opinion, National Election Studies
http://www.umich.edu/~nes/
This site contains a wealth of data from National Election Studies surveys
of the American electorate conducted in presidential and congressional
election years from 1948 to 1998. Survey information covers public opinion
and political participation on topics such as the effectiveness of major
political parties, election outcomes, interest in the campaign, and
important issues facing voters. The data files and codebooks for each
study are available for download, but these large files take considerable
time to open and provide complex and highly technical information. More
accessible are more than 200 tables and graphs that trace public opinion
from 1948 to 1998 on nine topics: Social and Religious characteristics
of the Electorate; Partisanship and Evaluation of Political Parties;
Ideological Self-Identification; Public Opinion on Public Policy Issues;
Support for the Political System; Political Involvement and Partisanship
in Politics; Evaluation of Presidential Candidates; Evaluation of Congressional
Candidates; and Vote Choice. The site also offers The NES Guide to
Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior, which offers easily digestible
data on the issues drawn from these studies. This site is somewhat difficult
to navigate.
U.S. Presidential Election Maps: 1860-1996, University of Virginia
Library
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/elections/maps/
Maps, color-coded according to presidential candidate, display percent
of popular vote the winning candidate in each state received in elections
between 1860 and 1996. Currently includes maps showing electoral vote
distributions by state for elections between 1900 and 1996. Also contains
a chart with the number and percentage of votes each candidate received
in each state in the 2000 election. Maps of Virginia show cities and
counties won by George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 election, and
the percentage of votes that Bush, Gore, Ralph Nader, and all third-party
candidates received in each county.
United States Historical Census Data Browser, University of Virginia
Library
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/
Provides data gathered by the Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research from census records and other government sources
for a study entitled "Historical Demographic, Economic, and Social
Data: The United States, 1790-1970." For each decade, users may
browse extensive population- and economic-oriented statistical information
at state and county levels, arranged according to a variety of categories,
including place of birth, age, gender, marital status, race, ethnicity,
education, illiteracy, salary levels, housing, and specifics dealing
with agriculture, labor, and manufacturing. Allows users to select up
to 15 variables when conducting searches and displays both raw data
and statistical charts.
Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War,
University of Virginia
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow
A massive, searchable archive relating to two communities, Staunton,
Virginia, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, before, during, and after
the Civil War, including church, agricultural, military, and public
records. Public records include population and agricultural censuses,
tax digests, and, for Augusta county, records about slave owners and
free blacks.
STATISTICAL
GUIDES
HyperStat
Online Textbook, David M. Lane
http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/
An 18-chapter introductory statistics textbook. Each chapter includes
links to related articles and books; some include exercises. Provides
16 links to general statistics texts and data sources.
Java Demos for Probability and Statistics
http://www.math.csusb.edu/faculty/stanton/m262/probstat.html
Statisticians, as well as students and instructors, will appreciate
this intelligible collection of Java applets. The interactive applets
clearly model probability distributions and illustrate other basic statistical
concepts. Included are applets that demonstrate hypergeometric distribution,
Poisson distribution, normal distribution, bivariate normal distribution,
proportions, confidence intervals for means, the central limit theorem,
linear regression, and Buffon’s Needle. Professor Charles Stanton
of California State University, San Bernardino, the Applet developer,
provides brief descriptions and instructions for most of the demonstrations.
