mpcblog 
NHGIS recently launched a pair of web maps highlighting the available GIS files and striking changes in boundaries over time for two popular geographic levels. The ‘Census Tract’ map displays data for years 1910 to 2014, and the ‘Place’ map depicts data for 1980 to 2014. With each year listed as a separate layer, users can easily toggle specific years on and off to visualize the data.
Historical demographic data has been a big part of the Minnesota Population Center’s history. The MPC can trace its own lineage to the Social History Research Laboratory in the University of Minnesota’s History Department. Current MPC Director Steven Ruggles, and one of the MPC’s founding faculty members, Rus Menard, led a project to create a 1% sample of the United States’ 1880 census. Starting in 1988 the data was entered by professional data entry personnel reading microfilm. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the 1880 census was the first complete-count census that the historical census team at MPC worked on. The complete-count 1880 census was entered by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints volunteers, introducing us to the challenges of working with data sources created by enthusiastic people around the world.
Associate Professor of History and MPC Faculty Member J. David Hacker made headlines in 2011 when he published a groundbreaking study of the total number of U.S. Civil War dead. Hacker argued that the widely-accepted figure of 620,000 was far too low. Using IPUMS, Hacker showed that the number of dead was at least 750,000—if not more. His article, “A Census-Based Count of the Civil War,” published in Civil War History, was introduced by the editors in the issue as “among the most consequential pieces ever to appear in this journal’s pages.”
Few demographic historians expect attention from mainstream press when they publish their research, but Hacker’s study attracted national interest, including interviews with the New York Times and National Public Radio.
How and to what extent do our leaders and decision-makers need to address migration as a climate change issue? This issue was at the forefront of our minds recently when we had the unique opportunity to attend the 21st annual climate talks, known as the Conference of the Partners (COP21), in Paris, France in November and December of last year.
We participated in COP21 as part of a wider delegation from Minnesota that included past and current Minnesota state representatives, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, and several other representatives from government and non-governmental organizations. Like previous meetings, the goal of COP21 was to convene a meeting of world leaders and to negotiate a global climate treaty, laying the groundwork for preventing global average temperatures from rising no further than a maximum of two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
The TerraPop team is excited to announce the launch of a new, completely redesigned user interface. TerraPop enables research, learning, and policy analysis by providing integrated spatio-temporal data describing people and their environment. The new interface is more intuitive and easier to use. Choosing data and creating an extract are structured as a step-by-step process. You are guided through the workflow, seeing the information you need to make selections at each step. Throughout the process, you have access to complete metadata describing available variables, datasets, and geographic levels. Give the new extract builder a try at https://data.terrapop.org.
The Minnesota Population Center has released a new data project: IPUMS Higher Ed. IPUMS Higher Ed is composed of three National Science Foundation surveys of college degree holders in the United States: the National Survey of College Graduates, the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the National Survey of Recent College Graduates. Only the respondents who have a degree in science or engineering (or related fields) or work in a science or engineering occupation are included in the SESTAT file for that year. The first version of IPUMS Higher Ed website will provide integrated SESTAT and SDR files from 1993 to 2013.
When Human Resources Associate Mia Riza and Research Associate David Haynes took on the task of creating a diversity program for the MPC in 2015, they looked to their pasts. “I thought of experiences that would have helped me as a student,” says Haynes.
As an undergraduate student, Riza had participated in a diversity program with the Minnesota Historical Society run by Chris Taylor. That program provided a model for fostering professional growth within an academic environment. Haynes and Riza then designed a program that suited the needs of the projects at the MPC. “We thought that a summer opportunity would work best for the Center and also matched students’ needs as they looked for summer internships,” explains Riza, “We want to develop a talent pipeline so that when we have openings later, we have qualified diverse applicants to fill those roles.”