544 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



in this way we are able to compare the productive power of the 

 various nationalities, to discover where they go and what occu- 

 pations they engage in. To some degree also we may be able to 

 trace the movement of emigration across the continent by the" 

 birth i:>laces of the various members of a family who in the end 

 settle in this state. In one of the theses the studv was carried 

 to the political conditions and the various nationalities were 

 considered not only as immigrants and producers of wealth, but 

 also as voters. One not unimportant result of the study so far 

 as carried on, is the means it has afforded for the correction or 

 verification of the published census records of the state and 

 United States. The count of the actual population for 1850, 

 1860 and 1870 has enabled the students to discover substantial 

 erroi-^ in the published reports. 



It is my purpose in the end to use this work of the seminary 

 for a series of years as the foundation and starting point for an 

 economic history of Wisconsin. The great problems of immi- 

 gration, of industrial change and development, and of the influ- 

 ence of foreigners on our social, economic and political life can 

 never be fairly discussed without some such careful study as is 

 indicated above. It is no sli2:ht task to undertake the exam- 

 ination and arrangement of the hitherto unpublished records of 

 the state. But the task has been attempted with the hope that 

 tlie results obtained will be of pennanent value to the student 

 of statistics and political economy, as well as to the student of 

 sociology and of history. 



I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Secretary of 

 State for his courtesy in loaning to the State Historical So- 

 ciety, at my request, the copies of the original United States 

 census returns for 1850, 1860 and 1870, on file in his office. 

 This rendered these Yery valuable unpublished materials more 

 accessible to the students of my seminary for the present year 

 and made the labor of compiling statistical tables less burden- 

 some. These census reports seem to have been entirely ignored 

 heretofore by students of Wisconsin history and it is to be hoped 

 that they will not again be lost sight of by students of local his- 

 tory in the state. 



O. G. LiBBY. 



University of Wisconsin, Novemher 28, 1901. 



