First observed in 1997, National Tartan Day celebrates the legacy and contributions of Scottish Americans.  The annual festivities are held on April 6th, the anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, the 1320 Scottish Declaration of Independence.

As George Bush’s 2008 presidential proclamation stated, Tartan Day seeks to “celebrate the spirit and character of Scottish Americans and recognize their many contributions to our culture and our way of life.”

Though Census data do not go back as far as the 14th century Declaration of Arbroath, Social Explorer’s data resources offer a glimpse into the birth and development of the Scottish community in America.  Back in 1790, the very first Census tracked the nationality of the foreign born population.

While the English and Welsh made up over four fifths of the population (81.4 percent), followed by the Germans (6.5 percent), the Scottish were the next most populous group (5.9 percent), followed by the Dutch (3.0 percent).  (Calculations based on all available county data from the 1790 Census.)

Though small in number compared to other groups, they settled in particular communities of the early colonies, which you can explore in the following map.

Scottish Americans: Census 1790

Click the map to explore.

This detailed map of American Community Survey data shows where Americans with Scottish ancestry live today.

Scottish Ancestry: American Community Survey 2006-10

Click the map to explore.

The Scottish continue to immigrate to the US, and this detailed map data shows where residents originally born in Scotland live today.

Foreign-Born Scottish Residents: American Community Survey 2006-10

Click the map to explore.

Check out Social Explorer’s map and report tools for more Tartan Day data.

This week, the Supreme Court heard two cases that could change same-sex marriage laws nationwide.  If the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 are ruled illegal, same-sex couples around the nation could rush to the altar this summer.

To help measure the impact of this ruling on the population, Social Explorer took a look at data on same-sex couples.  The Census and American Community Survey collect data on unmarried partners living together.  These numbers offer some insight into how many co-habitating same-sex partners might consider marriage if it became a legal right.

According to the 2011 American Community Survey:

• There were 605,472 same-sex unmarried partners nationwide.
• Those couples accounted for 9 percent of all unmarried partner households.
• There were 87,078 unmarried same-sex partners in California.
• California accounts for 14.4 percent of same-sex partners living together.

The New York Times household comparison tool created with Social Explorer and IPUMS data and analysis shows that unmarried same-sex partners have higher incomes than both married couples and unmarried opposite-sex partners.

You can explore a more detailed view of same-sex unmarried partners in California, your neighborhood, and elsewhere using Social Explorer’s five-year American Community Survey map.

Interactive Map of Same-Sex Unmarried Partners (American Community Survey 2006-10)

Click to Explore

Check out Social Explorer’s map and report tools to find out more about same-sex couples and other groups.

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

February is full of special occasions and holidays, and this Tuesday marks two of them–Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and Mardi Gras. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, and the famed president’s birth is celebrated every year, along with President’s Day. This year, Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday)—the day before the 40-days of Lent begin—also falls on February 12.

Social Explorer look at an intersection of these two events with related data.

One of the cities most associated with Mardi Gras is New Orleans. The city also played a significant role in the life of a young Abraham Lincoln, and might have helped set him on the path towards the Emancipation Proclamation and ending slavery.

Back in 1828, a teenaged Lincoln got a job sailing a flatboat down the Mississippi River. This was the midwesterner’s first trip down south. Three years later, he and two friends were hired for another boat trip.

The contrast between living in Springfield, Illinois, and venturing into the South was striking. According to the 1830 census, in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield (Sangamon County) had just 13 slaves (nine women and four men) out of a population of 12,960 people (0.1 percent). Meanwhile, in New Orleans, one out of every three residents was a slave (33.4 percent of the 49,826 people).

Map of 1830 Slave Population in Sangamon County, Illinois (click to explore)

Map of 1830 Slave Population in New Orleans, Louisiana (click to explore)

Map of 1830 Slave Population in the United States (click to explore)

Various accounts state that the prominent southern slave trade that the young Lincoln saw on this trip heavily influenced him. On this journey, he witnessed the horrors of a slave auction—an experience said to have prompted him to proclaim an oath to combat slavery, which he fulfilled decades later as president.

For more about the places Lincoln lived, check out Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools.

(Photo of Charles Keck young Lincoln sculpture from wiki commons.)

Every February second, people across Pennsylvania and the world look to a famous rodent to answer the question—when will spring come?

For over 120 years, Punxsutawney Phil Soweby (Punxsutawney Phil for short), has offered his predictions, based on whether he sees his shadow (more winter) or not (an early spring).

The first official Groundhog Day celebration took place in 1887, and Phil has gone on to star in a blockbuster film, dominate the early February news cycle, and even appear on Oprah.  (He also has his own Beanie Baby and his own flower.)

In addition to weather predictions, Phil also loves data, and while people think he is hibernating, he is actually conducting demographic analysis.  As a Social Explorer subscriber, he used the site’s mapping and reporting tools to look at the composition of his hometown.

Click for Groundhog Day movie trailer

Punxsutawney, PA, located outside of Pittsburgh, is part of Jefferson County.  Examining Census data from 1890, Phil learned that the population was 44,405 around the time of his first predictions.  While the rest of the nation was becoming more urban, Jefferson County remained more rural with only one eighth of the population living in places with 2,500 people or more (compared to nearly half statewide and more than a third in the US).

Many Jefferson residents worked in the farming industry.  Back then, there were 3.2 families for every farm in Jefferson County–higher than the rest of the state with 5.0 families per farm.

Less than three decades after the Civil War, the county (located in a northern state) was 99.9 percent white, which was a little higher than statewide (97.9 percent) and also higher than nationwide 87.8 percent.  (The Census also noted that there was one Chinese resident of Jefferson County in 1890.)

Groundhog Day was originally called Candlemas, a day that Germans said the hibernating groundhog took  a break from slumbering to check the weather.  (According to the Oxford Companion to the Year.)  If the creature sees its shadow, and is frightened, winter will hold on and hibernating will continue, but if not, the groundhog will stay awake and spring will come early.  Back in 1890, there were 703 Germans living in Jefferson County (representing 1.6 percent of the county population and 11.3 percent of the foreign born), making Germany the fourth most common foreign born place of birth behind England, Scotland and Austria.  Groundhog Day is also said to be Celtic in its roots, so perhaps the 623 Irish residents (representing 1.4 percent of the county population and 10.1 percent of the foreign born) helped to establish the tradition in Pennsylvania.

Looking to today’s numbers, Phil was astonished to learn from the 2010 Census that Jefferson County has just 795 more people than it did 120 years ago.  While Jefferson grew by 1.8 percent, the state grew by 141.6 percent and the nation grew by 393.0 percent.

2010 Census Jefferson County, PA, Population Density (click to explore)

Phil dug deeper.  The 2008-10 American Community Survey data reveal that the once-prominent farming industry had shrunk considerably.  (Because it is a small group, “agriculture” is now grouped with other industries including forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining.)  While Jefferson residents are more likely to work in the industry than other Pennsylvanians, that share represents just 4.4 percent of the employed civilian workforce.

According to the Census, Jefferson is still predominately white (98.3 percent), while the rest of the state and nation have become somewhat more diverse (81.9 percent white in Pennsylvania and 72.4 percent nationwide).  Today there are 24 Chinese residents (out of a total of 92 Asian residents).

As Phil rises from his burrow this February second, he will survey the shadows with new insight into his community and audience.  To learn more about Punxsutawney Phil’s hometown burrow (and your own borough), please visit our mapping and reporting tools.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the legendary civil rights leader whose strong calls to end racial segregation and discrimination were central to many of the victories of the Civil Rights movement.  Every January, the United States celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day to honor the activist who made so many strides towards equality.

Social Explorer takes a look at the demographics of the legendary activist’s hometown then and now to see how it has (and has not) changed.  King was born in 1929, so we will examine Census data from 1930, 1940, and the latest Census and American Community Survey data.

His boyhood home is now a historic site, situated at 450 Auburn Avenue Northeast, in Fulton County (part of Atlanta).   In 1930, Fulton County had a population of 318,587 residents.  A little over two thirds of the population was white (68.1 percent) and almost one third of the population was African American (31.9 percent).  Today, the 920,581-member population split is nearly even at 44.5 percent white and 44.1 percent African American, according to 2010 Census data.  Fulton’s population is more African American than the United States as a whole (12.6 percent), but not as as much as Atlanta (54.0 percent).

A closer look at 1940s Census data of the Atlanta area offers more detail about where the black and white populations lived.  The following map shows the distribution of the black population in the Atlanta of King’s youth.  Plainly, African Americans lived together, largely apart from whites.

African American Population in Fulton County, GA, and Surroundings, 1940 (click map to explore)

For comparison, the following map shows where the black population lives today.  Now the black population has expanded in the metro area, but still seems to be quite segregated.

African American Population in Fulton County, GA, and Surroundings, 2010 (click map to explore)

Reflecting on a century after the end of slavery, King said in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963:

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

The quest for equal rights and freedoms made up part of a larger vision.  In 1967, he spoke of aspiring for full equality at a speech at the Victory Baptist Church in Los Angeles:

Our struggle in the first phase was a struggle for decency.  Now we are in the phase where there is a struggle for genuine equality.  This is much more difficult.  We aren’t merely struggling to integrate the lunch counter now. We’re struggling to get some money to be able to buy a hamburger or a steak when we get to the counter…

He went on to say that this would require a commitment of not only political initiative but also money,  “It didn’t cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch counters. It didn’t cost the nation one penny to guarantee the right to vote. The problems that we are facing today will cost the nation billions of dollars.”

In 1968, King and other activists launched the Poor People’s Campaign, advocating for economic justice to address these imbalances in opportunity and resources.  A few months later, he was assassinated.

We can look at different socioeconomic indicators to measure the country’s progress towards equality.  According to 1940 Census data, more than a third (36.5 percent) of housing units in Fulton County where whites lived were owner occupied, compared to less than a seventh (14.0 percent) of the housing units where African Americans lived.

Today, home ownership increased for both groups, but the gap remains.  Two thirds (66.6 percent) of white households are owner-occupied, compared to two fifths (41.7 percent) of all black households.

Home Ownership Comparison in Fulton, GA, by Race

We will now examine other measures of equality to see examples of additional gaps.

The unemployment rate is nearly twice as high among African Americans (17.9 percent) compared to among whites nationwide (9.5 percent).  That gap is even more pronounced in Fulton County, where the unemployment rate for whites is 7.7 percent, while the unemployment rate for African Americans is 20.4 percent.

The percent of those living below poverty is also higher in the black community (27.2 percent) than in the white community (12.5 percent).  While both groups are better off in Fulton County than the rest of the US, the poverty rate gap is even larger (8.2 percent among whites and 26.6 percent among African Americans in Fulton).

Similarly, while both groups are better educated in Fulton County compared to the rest of the US, nearly two thirds (62.4 percent) of white adults in the county have BA degrees or more, while just one quarter (25.3 percent) of the black population have the same level of education.  The college attainment gap is 11.6 percentage points nationwide, but 37.1 percentage points in Fulton County.

While much progress towards freedom and equality has been made since King’s time, chronic gaps persist, even in his own backyard.  The data show that 50 years after the “I Have a Dream Speech,”equal opportunity and socioeconomic status continue to lag behind equal rights.

You can use Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools to investigate dreams, freedoms, and equality further.

Producer and director Frank Capra set the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life in the fictional small town of Bedford Falls, NY.  The actual town of Seneca Falls, NY, claims to be Capra’s inspiration.   The town hosts the annual It’s a Wonderful Life Festival and visitors can explore the history at the museum dedicated to the legend.

Using Social Explorer, you can explore data on Seneca County from 1940 (around the time Capra is said to have visited the town) and today, using the 2008-10 American Community Survey (ACS) data, unless otherwise noted.

Back in 1940, Seneca County had 25,732 residents, of whom 99.5 percent were white and 0.5 percent were black.  Nearly a third of the county’s foreign born population (32.0 percent) hailed from Italy, more than both statewide (one fifth) and nationwide (one seventh).  Many foreign born residents also came from Germany (10.2 percent) and England and Wales (9.1 percent).

Today, Seneca County has grown 37.1 percent to 35,285 residents, while the state grew 43.2 percent and the nation grew 133.0 percent.  Seneca County remains predominately white (92.9 percent) with a small but growing black population (4.3 percent).  According to 2006-10 ACS data, today 4.6 percent of the foreign born population comes from Italy.  Larger shares of newcomers come from other countries including Canada (17.4 percent), India (11.2 percent), Laos (6.1 percent), Ukraine (5.1 percent), and Poland (3.6 percent).

The top occupations in 1940 were:

• Proprietors/Managers/Official (20.9 percent)
• Craftmen/Foremen/Kindred Workers (16.4 percent)
• Operatives/Kindred Workers (15.0 percent)
• Laborers (13.9 percent)

Of the adult residents, 18.2 percent had completed high school (or more) and 3.0 percent had graduated from college, which were both smaller percentages than in the state (22.9 percent and 5.5 percent) and nation (24.1 percent and 4.6 percent).

Today, Seneca County outpaces the nation and state in high school graduates with 35.7 percent (compared to 27.6 percent for the state and 28.4 percent for the nation), but still lags behind in college graduates with 11.2 percent of adults having a college degree or more, compared to 18.4 percent for the state and 17.7 percent for the nation.

Map of Seneca County (1940 Census)

The unemployment rate was 6.5 percent, which was notably lower than for both the US 10.1 percent and the state 14.1 percent.  At 5.7 percent, unemployment in Seneca remains lower than elsewhere in the state (8.3 percent) and nation (9.0 percent).  So, by saving the bank, perhaps George Bailey really did save the town.

You can explore Seneca more using Social Explorer’s mapping and reporting tools, and every time you click a map, an angel gets its wings.

Happy Holidays from Social Explorer!

This morning, a gunman killed at least 20 children and six adults before shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  Speculation about the crime swirls as details about this tragedy continue to emerge.

Using detailed American Community Survey data from 2006-10, Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in Newtown. We also compared the area with Columbine, Colorado, the site of a tragic high school shooting in 1999, and Aurora, Colorado, where a movie theater shooting took place earlier this year.

Map of Newtown, CT (click to explore)

Newtown, is a small borough 65 miles northeast of New York City. Of the 1,998 residents, there were 246 children under the age of 10.

Residents are well off, with median household incomes of $106,141 (over twice the national median income), and median owner-occupied home values of $459,800 (compared to $188,400 for the nation, and $296,500 for Connecticut).

The top industries include:

• Educational services, and health care and social assistance (20.2 percent)
• Retail trade (12.9 percent)
• Manufacturing (12.8 percent)
• Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (11.6 percent)

And top occupations include:

• Professional and related occupations (25.0 percent)
• Management, business, and financial operations occupations (21.9 percent)
• Sales and related occupations (15.3 percent)
• Transportation and material moving occupations (9.5 percent)

The following charts compare a few demographic traits of Newtown, Aurora (population 314,092), Columbine (population 23,972), and the entire US, based on 2006-10 ACS data.  For more on the data and to create your own reports, visit Social Explorer’s reports tool.

Today, Tuesday, November 6th, voters will determine political contests around the nation.  In honor of Election Day,  Social Explorer takes a closer look at one of the key swing states in the presidential race–Ohio. 

With 11,536,504 residents, Ohio represents 3.7 percent of the U.S. population.

You can create an Ohio map to explore the state’s population (from 2010 census data).  Click around to explore more.

Using the 2010 Census and the 2010 American Community Survey,  you can learn more about this pivotal state.   Here are a few quick facts.

Visit Social Explorer to create your own maps and reports for places in and out of Ohio.

As hurricane Sandy stormed through New York, a crane dangled from atop a luxury condo construction site at 157 West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan.  The storm has passed, but the crane still hangs as plans to secure it are put in place before construction on the 90-story $90 million per unit building can resume.

Social Explorer takes a look at who lives in the shadow of the crane using data from the 2006-10 American Community Survey.

• Over 6,200 people live in census tract 137, many of whom are barricaded out of their apartments to prevent injury.
• The area is dense (72,200.7 people per square mile), even for Manhattan (69,357.7 people per square mile), and especially when compared to the state and country (408 and 86.1 people per square mile, respectively).
• The area is predominately non-Hispanic white (78.9 percent).  The next most populous group is non-Hispanic Asian (9.8 percent), whilenon-Hispanic African Americans represent less than one percent of residents (0.9 percent).
• With a median age of 42.9, residents tend to be older than other Manhattanites (median age 36.3).
• A large share of residents are employed in finance and insurance, and real estate and rental  and leasing (25.3 percent), as well as professional, scientific, and management, and  administrative and waste management services (20.6%)
• The median household income ($117,242) is nearly twice that for other Manhattanites ($64,971), and the poverty rate is less than half for the rest of Manhattan (7.0 percent compared to 14.5 percent).
• Home values and rents are high as well ($879,400 for owner-occupied units, and $2,001 for median gross rent).

In the Shadow of the Crane: Census Tract 137 Population Map

Find out more about the area by clicking on the map or creating your own Social Explorer report.

This week is Unmarried and Single Americans Week.  Initially dubbed National Singles Week, the occasion was expanded to accommodate other un-partnered populations as well.  For over three decades, single Americans have been recognized with their own week.  The rise of living alone is also much-discussed topic, and  some notable singles have also earned recognition on this blog.

In 1980 when the week was first instituted, unmarried and single Americans made up 42.7 percent of the adult population (all single, separated, widowed and divorced Americans over the age of 15 counted by the Census Bureau).  By 2010, the unmarried and single population had become the majority, with 51.2 percent of Americans (according to the 2010 American Community Survey).  So, unmarried and single Americans should celebrate the week alone together.

Using Social Explorer, you can learn more about where single Americans live and how the population has shifted over the decades through maps.  (Click around the maps to explore more.)

Map of Never Married Americans (2010 American Community Survey)

And compare it with the population in 1980.

Map of Never Married Americans (1980 Census)

And, you can zoom in on any area, such as Ohio, where the celebratory week originated.

Map of Never Married Ohioans (2010 American Community Survey)

Map of Never Married Americans (1980 Census)

To get the full picture of the unmarried population, you can also explore where the divorced, widowed, and separated populations live using the mapping tools.