ABSTRACT
By the mid-19th century, many countries (Denmark, Belgium, Britain, the US, France) took nominative censuses. The main reason for allocating the resources needed for individual level censuses was to gain control over the enumeration details. The statisticians could interpret the questionnaires more consistently, and they got a basis for source criticism, quality controls and requesting extra information. The nominative census gave the state control over the citizens’ identities, while at the same time transferring control over census categories to the people. The added costs were compensated with self-enumeration, by keeping the salaries low and by introducing novel technology.
It is likely that Quetelet built on the Danish model from 1801 in his Belgian censuses. The nominative method spread from Brussels to Britain in 1841 and the US in 1850. In the independent German states, from 1864 nominative lists became obligatory in the Customs Union, but most old census manuscripts were destroyed. Norway lagged behind until 1865 since the nominative expertise from 1801 remained in Copenhagen, and the Norwegian Parliament was anti-bureaucratic and parsimonious. In this period of nation building, international statistical cooperation often stranded where national priorities came in the way of international cooperation.
