Monday, October 15, 2012

1940 U.S. Census Form

This item may only be for the true Ginger Rogers enthusiast.  Above is the 1940 United States Census form with Miss Ginger Rogers listed as living at 1605 Gilcrest Drive, Los Angeles City, Los Angeles County, California.  This item is now in the public domain after being released by the U.S. government archives....
http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/press/press-releases/2012/nr12-99-photos/nr12-99-ginger-rogers-l.jpg&c=/press/press-releases/2012/nr12-99-photos/nr12-99-ginger-rogers.caption.html
The red arrow points Miss Rogers out for you.  Below is a closer view with the best that I can make out of the blurred type.
The address is 1605, I can't read what the 121 goes with but the O means the home is owned, the value of the home is $125,000, NO to it being a farm, with Rogers, Ginger as the sole name for "person whose usual place of residence" is this address,  and Rogers, Ginger is the "Head" of the house.

Next the resident identifies herself as F (female), W (white), 28 years old at last birthday, D (divorced), No to the question of whether resident was attending school as of March 1, highest level of education is listed as 8th grade (formal education anyway), with a birthplace of Missouri.  The last box asks where the resident lived April 1, 1935 and "Same Place" is written in.

Still in the Residence box, "On a farm" is answered No.  Moving on to employment questions, asked if employed - yes, (due to the yes answer, skip ahead to question 26), number of hours worked per week (I'm guessing, I really can't read much of this thing) - 44.

Occupation - Actress; Industry - Motion Picture; Class of Worker - PW (private worker); number of weeks worked 52, income 5,000.  I think the last question is about income other than wages and the answer is Yes but that is a big guess.

Ah, the Census, required by the U.S. Constitution yet so many people avoid it and here it is as history.  Too bad it is so hard to read.

Here's a picture of Miss Ginger Rogers from Photoplay magazine, June 1940:
can be found:   http://archive.org/stream/photoplayvolume554chicx#page/n501/mode/2up





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