Avery M. Guest

This paper analyzes a five percent systematic sample of households from the manuscripts of the New York State Census of 1865, the first in the United States to ask a question on children ever born. The sample of seven counties (Allegany, Dutchess, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Steuben, Tompkins, and Warren) was selected to provide a diversity of locations, settlement dates, and types of agricultural economy. The parity data indicate a strong decline in marital fertility during the first part of the 19th Century; little evidence of fertility control within marriage is found for the oldest women in the sample, but analysis of parity progression ratios indicates that control had emerged by the midpoint of the 19th Century. Fertility decline was initially most evident in the urban, more economical...

This paper analyzes a five percent systematic sample of households from the manuscripts of the New York State Census of 1865 for seven counties (Allegany, Dutchess, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Steuben, Tompkins, and Warren). The sample was selected to provide a diversity of locations, settlement dates, and types of agricultural economy. Two substantial urban areas (the cities of Troy and Poughkeepsie) are in the sample. This census was the first in the United States to ask a question on children ever born. These parity data, along with own-children estimates of age-specific overall and marital fertility rates, are used to examine the relation of fertility with rural-urban residence, occupation, ethnicity, literacy, and location within the state. Singulate mean ages at first marriage and o...