October 23, 2002

2:17 PM

The First Measured Centurycontains quite a bit of information about American society; population, work, education, religion, health, money, politics, crime and more. Everything from the median marriage age to the percentage of Americans who believe it is wrong to go to the movies on Sundays (13%).
posted by edlundart (5 comments total)

the percentage of Americans who believe it is wrong to go to the movies on Sundays (13%).

Geez, for a caucasian male, I sure find myself in a lot of minorities....
posted by oissubke at 2:32 PM on October 23, 2002

Very cool, elundart. Thanks. The chapter on politics, based solely on the two graphs shown (Popular Vote in Presidential Elections, percentage of votes cast And Percentage of eligible voters in presidential elections) are enough to make me buy this book.
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:33 PM on October 23, 2002

The chapter on politics, based solely on the two graphs shown (Popular Vote in Presidential Elections, percentage of votes cast And Percentage of eligible voters in presidential elections) are enough to make me buy this book.

You might enjoy this site I recently came across as well.
posted by oissubke at 2:43 PM on October 23, 2002

hey cool quote in the preface!

The developments of statistics are causing history to be rewritten. Till recently, the historian studied nations in the aggregate, and gave us only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges, and battles....

Now, statistical inquiry leads him into the hovels, homes, workshops, mines, fields, prisons, hospitals, and all other places where human nature displays its weakness and its strength. In these explorations he discovers the seeds of national growth and decay, and thus becomes the prophet of his generation. --james garfield, 1869 :D

altho it wasn't until WWII when john maynard keynes thought up national product and income accounting (to better mobilize for war!) and which we of course still use today :D
posted by kliuless at 3:02 PM on October 23, 2002

There's lots of interesting perspective on society when you look at trends on the scale of a century. On lots of those graphs I can see social changes I remember from my lifetime, embedded in history. Great link, thanks!
posted by fuzz at 6:11 PM on October 23, 2002