first proposed including additional questions in the U.S. Decennial Census to "enable them to adapt the public measures to the particular circumstances of the community". Such knowledge collected with each census, President Madison argued, "would give them an opportunity of marking the progress of the society". The questions included in censuses since 1790 have reflected American understandings of and concerns about societal trends and the growing nation's expanded data needs.

By 130 years later in 1940, advancements in statistical methods