I have had a chance to peek at the census sheets for California and Hawaii. As with previous censuses, a different sheet was used for Hawaii than the rest of the United States.
Here are some of the differences:
The first columns pertaining to residency are the same, but in a different order.
Race or Color: While this column is the same, the abbreviations are different. W is used for people of European descent in California, but Cau (caucasian) is used in Hawaii. (At the bottom is a guide to which codes to use. The groups listed vary from the Hawaii sheet to the California sheet.)
In the column that asks about highest grade of education, enumators noted high school differently. In Hawaii, they only noted the amount of years (i.e. 12). In California, they noted H-1, H-2, H-3, H-4 for high school years. I don’t know if the Hawaii school system was set up differently. Was their high school in 1940?
The citizenship section is different. On the California sheet it asks for the “Citizenship of the Foreign Born”. On the Hawaii sheet it asks “US Citizenship Status of the Foreign Born”. I’m guessing that because people in Hawaii could have gained citizenship prior to annexation that would not count as US Citizenship, hence, the different wording. I’m only guessing here! A second question asks “Territorial Citizenship Yes or No”. I’m not sure why after noting the citizenship in the first column, one also had to further declare it in the second.
The section that pertains to where you lived in 1935 is non-existent on the Hawaii census sheet. I guess they didn’t expect the Hawaii folks to move around much.
The occupation section varies. On the Hawaii sheet there are 3 questions versus the 5 on the California sheet. There is no question about whether the individual was employed in government work on the Hawaii sheet. That makes me wonder if those programs were not extended to the territories. Also missing in this section is the question that asks why a person was not working.
There are more questions in the last section about wages on the Hawaii sheet. There is an extra question that asks whether the person was a wage or salary earner. This column is missing on the California sheet.
The Hawaii census sheet is missing the supplemental questions at the bottom of the sheet that were asked of two people questioned.
In all the Hawaii census sheet has 28 columns and the California sheet has 34 (not counting the supplemental) This includes code columns.
I find it interesting that they chose to create two different sheets. I wonder if all the US territories used a similar census sheet to Hawaii or if they designed a different one for each territory.
