The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA

Our Valley

Discussion

January 29, 2013

The 1790 Census: What It Says and What It Doesn’t

The Daily Item

LEWISBURG — Historian Bruce Teeple will speak at 2 p.m. Feb. 10 at the 1793 Dale/Engle/Walker House, 1471 Strawbridge Road, Lewisburg. The program, “The 1790 Census: What It Says and What It Doesn’t” is free and open to the public. This presentation is the first of two offered by the Union County Historical Society for its Black History Month programming.

Bruce Teeple is a local historian and writer. A graduate of Penn State in history and political science, he has served on committees for the American Association for State and Local History, and the grant review committee for the History Channel’s Save Our History program. Teeple was curator of the Aaronsburg Historical Museum for 20 years, co-edited Glimpses of the Past and In Schadde vun Rundkopp, and wrote As Good As A Handshake: The Farringtons and the Political Culture of Moonshine in Central Pennsylvania. Teeple has presented programs to the Society on the Farringtons and on the Underground Railroad in Central Pennsylvania.

The 1790 Census, our nation’s first, is not only a gold mine of information, it provides a snapshot of reality on the Susquehanna frontier. But this snapshot has some self-imposed limitations. This presentation will cover the reasons for these decisions as well as the social conditions and political atmosphere surrounding the people who collected this information.

There is also an exhibit, “The War to End Slavery,” focusing on the Civil War holdings of the Union County Historical Society. This is the first program of the Society for Union County’s Bicentennial.

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