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Article ID: CBB000773206

Institutionalizing the Statistics of Nationality in Prussia in the 19th Century (From Local Bureaucracy to State-Level Census of Population) (2007)

Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 49
Pages: 289--306
Publication date: 2007
Language: English

Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Part of the special issue: “The Statistical Office as a Social Observatory”

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Social sciences Demography; population research Census tabulation National identity Science and government Applied statistics 19th century Prussia (Germany)

By the end of the 19th century, the Prussian censuses registered regularly the nationality of the population according to a standard criterion: the mother tongue. The background to this institutionalization could be mapped out in terms of the early creation of the statistical office, the reform of the bureaucracy, and the political challenge following the annexation of the western part of the former Polish state. However, this paper gives a different account of that goes beyond a state-level history of a statistical institution. At the beginning of the 19th century, nationality was already registered in some localities. The purpose was to measure the use of German in schools and churches and hence the effectiveness of the Germanization of the Poles. Although the statistical office was in existence, it had little influence on these local practices, and their heterogeneity prevailed for decades. This situation was modified by the centralization of the census in the 1860s in the hands of the statistical office, and the emergence of a demographic approach. This change occurred in the context of discussions with local authorities regarding their use of language statistics. The census has to be seen therefore as an integration on multiple levels of statistical practices.

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Article Porter, Theodore M. (2007) Introduction. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (p. 258). unapi

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