US Religion by County, 1950 Census

[Antonio the Sixth]

I perfectly understand the idea that it's inappropriate for the State to be asking people about their religion: in France it would be absolutely unacceptable. But the thing is that the French census also doesn't ask any question about ethnicity (and in fact it's illegal even for private surveys to do so). It's considered inherently racist to do so.

I'm not interested in debating who is right (fwiw, I still feel somewhat closer to the French view, though I understand that there are valid reasons why the US does it), but I just find the contrast with religion interesting.

[Brittain33]

Hamilton County, NY has 13 churches and I'd guess a minimum of 6 are Methodist.

http://newyork.hometownlocator.com/features/cultural,class,church,scfips,36041.cfm

[DC Al Fine]

I noticed that Baptists seemed to overtake Methodists in many parts of the South from 1890-1950. Any reasons for this?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I can make guesses. The primary one is that because the Southern Baptists remained a distinct body, they were not as influenced by the theological liberalism that affected the Methodist Episcopal Church even before the northern and southern wings (as well as the Methodist Protestant Church) formally reunited in 1939 as the Methodist Church. The South being theologically conservative is not a new phenomenon.

[jimrtex]

I can make guesses. The primary one is that because the Southern Baptists remained a distinct body, they were not as influenced by the theological liberalism that affected the Methodist Episcopal Church even before the northern and southern wings (as well as the Methodist Protestant Church) formally reunited in 1939 as the Methodist Church. The South being theologically conservative is not a new phenomenon.

It might be worthwhile to see how the different bodies were aggregated. The 1952 survey doesn't appear to include the AME Church or National Baptist Convention.

Maybe the 1906-1936 data sets should be mapped to see if a trend can be identified, or there are differences between 1952 data set and those generated by the Census Bureau.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

What's with all these Catholics in the Mountain West?

The US Census has never asked individuals about their religion, and it is now illegal to do so. Since answering the census is mandatory, it is felt that it would violate freedom of conscience to ask the question.

In the the latter part of 19th Century, there was a separate questionnaire for churches which would be conducted at the same time as the census. In 1890, for the first time, it included a question about church membership. Every 10 years, from 1906-1946, there was a separate census of religious bodies, though the results from 1946 were not published.

In 1890, Montana had 142K, Arizona 88K, Idaho 88K, and Wyoming 62K. By comparison, Colorado had 413K. Notice how huge the counties in Montana were.

Because it is more centrally organized, it is easier for the Catholic church to organize parishes. It might be possible because priests are single, that it would be easier to send a young priest off to a rough frontier town. It might be hard to recruit a minister and his wife and young children. Catholics may have better record keeping, and may record "members" differently. Churches might be less likely to be skipped. Each protestant body would have to organize separately. If there were 100 Catholics, and 200 protestants in a town, the 200 protestants might be divided among 10 denominations, so they would be faced with organizing a church for a couple dozen members. There might be a Methodist church in one town, and a Lutheran in the next, and so on. Methodists might not go to the Lutheran church and vice versa.

So in other words, the 1890 map shows percentage of members of religious bodies, not of population as a whole. Is the same true of the 1950 map?

[TJ in Oregon]

Interesting to see how lots of Catholic counties in the Midwest are ancestrally Democratic and still elect county level Democrats even in like Marshall County KS.

That tends to be true across the industrialized parts of the Midwest, and in general, except for the heavily German Catholic areas. Thus in Wisconsin and Minnesota the Catholic areas on these maps are generally more Republican.

Also, the Green Bay metro area has always been fairly Republican even though it isn't very German.