1900 US Population | Statistics & Facts

US Population in 1900

The turn of the twentieth century marked a transformative period in American history, and understanding the demographic landscape of that era provides crucial insights into the nation’s development. The 1900 US population stood as a testament to the rapid growth and changing character of the United States following the Civil War and during the height of the Industrial Revolution. On June 1, 1900, the United States Census Office conducted the Twelfth Census, which revealed that 76,094,000 people called America home, representing a substantial increase from previous decades and setting the stage for the nation’s emergence as a global power.

This population count, conducted before Alaska and Hawaii became states, captured America at a pivotal moment when urbanization was accelerating, immigration was reshaping communities, and the nation was transitioning from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse. The 1900 census data provides an invaluable window into understanding how Americans lived, where they settled, and the demographic composition that would influence the country’s trajectory throughout the twentieth century. The census was the last conducted before the establishment of the permanent United States Census Bureau, making it a particularly significant historical record.

Interesting Stats & Facts About the 1900 US Population

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division – Resident Population Estimates by Age, Sex, and Race: July 1, 1900

Understanding the Demographic Landscape in the United States in 1900

The demographic profile revealed by the 1900 US census illustrates a nation predominantly young and rapidly expanding. The population of 76,094,000 represented remarkable growth, with the country adding more than 13 million residents since the 1890 census. This 21.01 percent increase demonstrated the combined effects of natural population growth, high birth rates, and substantial immigration from Europe and other regions. The gender distribution showed a slight male advantage, with 38,867,000 males compared to 37,227,000 females, a pattern common in societies experiencing significant immigration, as male workers often arrived first to seek employment opportunities.

The racial composition of the United States in 1900 reflected the demographic realities of post-Civil War America. The white population numbered 66,900,000 individuals, accounting for 87.9 percent of all residents, while the nonwhite population stood at 9,194,000, representing 12.1 percent of the total. This nonwhite category primarily included African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian immigrants, though the census categorization methods of that era differed significantly from modern approaches. The age structure revealed a remarkably young population, with children under five years old comprising one of the largest cohorts at approximately 1,811,000 infants and toddlers, while those aged 75 and older numbered only 899,000, highlighting the lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates characteristic of that period.

Population by Gender Distribution in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Resident Population Estimates by Age, Sex, and Race: July 1, 1900

The gender distribution across different age cohorts in the 1900 US population reveals fascinating patterns about American society at the dawn of the twentieth century. Overall, males outnumbered females by approximately 1.64 million, with 38,867,000 men compared to 37,227,000 women, resulting in a sex ratio of approximately 104.4 males per 100 females. This male majority was particularly pronounced in the working-age population, reflecting the significant male-dominated immigration streams that characterized this period, as single men and male heads of households frequently arrived first to establish employment before bringing families to America.

Examining the age-specific distributions provides deeper insights into the demographic structure of the US in 1900. Among children aged 0-9 years, the gender split was nearly equal, with 9,037,000 boys and 8,851,000 girls, representing 50.5 percent and 49.5 percent respectively. This near-parity continued through the teenage years and twenties. However, the male advantage became more pronounced in the 30-49 age bracket, where males consistently represented over 51 percent of the population, reaching 51.7 percent among those aged 60-74. Interestingly, this pattern reversed among the elderly, with women aged 75 and older actually outnumbering men 458,000 to 441,000, representing 50.9 percent of this oldest cohort, suggesting that women who survived childhood tended to live longer than their male counterparts despite the dangers of childbirth and limited medical care available during that era.

Racial Composition of the Population in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Resident Population Estimates by Age, Sex, and Race: July 1, 1900

The racial composition of the United States in 1900 reflected the nation’s complex history and the demographic legacy of slavery, westward expansion, and immigration patterns. The white population dominated numerically, with 66,900,000 individuals comprising 87.9 percent of all Americans. This substantial majority included native-born whites as well as the massive wave of European immigrants who had arrived throughout the late nineteenth century, particularly from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe. The white population was distributed relatively evenly by gender, with 34,249,000 males and 32,651,000 females.

The nonwhite population, numbering 9,194,000, represented 12.1 percent of the US population in 1900 and encompassed primarily African Americans, who constituted the vast majority of this category, along with Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and other groups. The nonwhite population showed a more balanced gender distribution than the white population, with 4,618,000 males and 4,576,000 females, suggesting that nonwhite communities experienced less gender imbalance from immigration patterns. This demographic reflected the realities of post-Reconstruction America, where the African American population, concentrated primarily in the South, faced severe legal and social discrimination through Jim Crow laws, while other nonwhite groups experienced various forms of exclusion and marginalization, including the Chinese Exclusion Act that had been in effect since 1882.

Age Structure and Distribution in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Resident Population Estimates by Age, Sex, and Race: July 1, 1900

The age structure of the 1900 US population reveals a classic expanding population pyramid characteristic of high-fertility societies. Nearly 12 percent of all Americans were children under the age of five, with 9,078,000 infants and toddlers representing the youngest cohort. This substantial base reflected the high birth rates common in the era, averaging between four and five children per woman. When combined with the 5-14 age group, which included 16,663,000 children, young people under 15 years old comprised approximately 33.8 percent of the entire population, demonstrating that America was fundamentally a young nation with families raising large numbers of children to work on farms and contribute to household economies.

The working-age population, those between 15 and 64 years, dominated the demographic landscape with approximately 48.1 million people, representing 63.2 percent of all Americans. The largest single cohort was the 25-44 age bracket, which included 22,647,000 individuals or nearly 30 percent of the population. This productive age group drove the nation’s industrial expansion and agricultural output. In stark contrast, the elderly population remained remarkably small, with only 2,076,000 Americans aged 65 and older, representing just 2.7 percent of the total. This tiny proportion of senior citizens reflected the harsh realities of life expectancy in 1900, when the average American could expect to live only into their late forties or early fifties, with infectious diseases, workplace accidents, and limited medical care claiming lives that today would be considered premature deaths.

Geographic and Settlement Patterns in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census Volume I Population Reports and Historical Urban-Rural Classifications

The geographic distribution of the population in the US in 1900 illustrated a nation in transition from its rural agricultural roots toward urban industrialization. Despite rapid urban growth, 60.4 percent of Americans, approximately 45.9 million people, still lived in rural areas, working primarily in agriculture and related occupations. Farming remained the dominant occupation, with millions of families operating small farms throughout the Midwest, South, and agricultural regions of the Northeast and West. Rural communities maintained traditional patterns of life, with limited access to modern conveniences like electricity, indoor plumbing, and telephone service that were beginning to appear in cities.

However, the urban population was expanding rapidly, with 39.6 percent of Americans, totaling approximately 30.2 million, residing in urban areas defined as places with 2,500 or more inhabitants. Major cities were experiencing explosive growth driven by industrialization and immigration. New York City had recently consolidated the five boroughs and emerged as the nation’s first city to exceed 3 million residents, while other major urban centers like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and St. Louis were rapidly expanding. The Northeast region contained the highest concentration of urban development and the most densely populated areas, housing approximately 27.6 percent of the national population despite its smaller geographic size. Meanwhile, the South remained the largest region by population with 32.2 percent, though it was predominantly rural and agricultural. The Midwest, with 34.6 percent of Americans, was emerging as both an agricultural powerhouse and an industrial center, while the West, with only 5.6 percent of the population, remained sparsely settled but was experiencing rapid development following the closing of the frontier just a decade earlier.

Immigration and Foreign-Born Population in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census Reports on Nativity and Parentage

Immigration profoundly shaped the demographic composition of the US in 1900, with the foreign-born population reaching approximately 10.3 million, representing 13.5 percent of all Americans. This substantial immigrant presence reflected decades of mass migration, particularly from Europe, where economic hardship, political upheaval, and limited opportunities drove millions to seek better lives in America. The largest immigrant groups included Germans, who had been arriving steadily throughout the nineteenth century, Irish immigrants who had fled famine and poverty, and growing numbers of Italians, Jews from Eastern Europe, and immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These new arrivals concentrated primarily in urban areas, where they found employment in factories, mines, and construction, fundamentally transforming American cities and labor markets.

Beyond the foreign-born themselves, an additional 15.6 million Americans, constituting 20.5 percent of the population, were native-born children of foreign-born parents, representing the first generation born in America. Combined, these two groups meant that approximately 34 percent of all Americans in 1900 were either immigrants themselves or first-generation Americans, giving the nation a distinctly multicultural character, particularly in major cities. The decade from 1890 to 1900 alone had witnessed the arrival of approximately 3.7 million new immigrants, with the character of immigration shifting from Northwestern Europe toward Southern and Eastern Europe, a change that would spark nativist reactions and eventually lead to immigration restrictions in the 1920s. Meanwhile, 50.2 million Americans, representing 66 percent of the population, were native-born of native-born parents, maintaining the Anglo-American cultural traditions that had dominated since colonial times while adapting to the increasingly diverse society emerging around them.

Urban Centers and Major Cities in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census Reports on Cities and Urban Places

The urban landscape of the United States in 1900 was dominated by a handful of massive cities that served as engines of economic growth and destinations for immigrants and rural migrants alike. New York City stood alone at the pinnacle of American urbanism, having recently consolidated Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island into a single municipality with over 3.4 million residents, making it larger than the next three cities combined. The consolidation had created the world’s second-largest city after London, and New York functioned as America’s financial capital, primary port of entry for immigrants, and the nation’s cultural and commercial center. Its explosive growth from immigration and economic opportunity created densely packed neighborhoods, tenement housing, and the emerging vertical city of early skyscrapers.

Chicago, with nearly 1.7 million residents, had emerged as the great inland metropolis of the Midwest, serving as the hub for railroads converging from across the continent. The city’s massive stockyards and meatpacking plants made it the center of the nation’s meat industry, while its location on Lake Michigan facilitated both water and rail transport. Philadelphia maintained its position as the third-largest city with nearly 1.3 million people, continuing its role as a major manufacturing center producing everything from textiles to locomotives. Other significant urban centers included St. Louis at 575,000, serving as the gateway to the West along the Mississippi River; Boston with 561,000, maintaining its historic importance in commerce and manufacturing; and Baltimore with 509,000, functioning as a major port and industrial center. Pittsburgh, with 452,000 residents, had become the nation’s steel capital, while San Francisco, at 343,000, stood as the dominant city of the West Coast, its population having grown steadily since the Gold Rush era. These cities collectively represented the new urban America, places of opportunity and hardship, innovation and exploitation, where the nation’s industrial might was being forged and where diverse populations were creating a new American culture.

Economic and Occupational Structure in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census Special Reports on Occupations

The occupational structure of the United States in 1900 reflected a nation still deeply rooted in agriculture despite rapid industrialization. Approximately 37.5 percent of the workforce, totaling about 11 million workers, remained employed in agricultural pursuits, whether as farm owners, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, or agricultural laborers. This substantial agricultural workforce produced the food that fed the growing nation and generated crops for export, though mechanization was beginning to reduce the labor intensity of farming. The dominance of agriculture meant that economic cycles, weather patterns, and commodity prices profoundly influenced national prosperity, and most Americans retained close connections to rural life even if they lived in cities.

Manufacturing and mechanical industries employed approximately 20.6 percent of workers, some 6.1 million people, representing the dynamic growth of American industry. These workers labored in steel mills, textile factories, garment workshops, meatpacking plants, and countless other industrial facilities, often under difficult conditions with long hours, low pay, and significant safety hazards. Domestic and personal service occupied 16.4 percent of the workforce, approximately 4.8 million people, with women dominating this category as servants, cooks, laundresses, and housekeepers in middle-class and wealthy households. Trade and transportation employed 14.3 percent, about 4.2 million workers, as the nation’s commercial infrastructure expanded with railroads, shipping, and urban retail establishments. Professional services, including teachers, doctors, lawyers, and clergy, comprised 4.3 percent, while the emerging clerical sector, growing with the expansion of corporate bureaucracies and office work, employed approximately 3.0 percent of workers, with women increasingly filling these positions as typists, stenographers, and clerical workers, marking an important shift in women’s participation in the paid workforce beyond domestic service and factory labor.

Educational Attainment and Literacy in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1900 Census Reports on Education and Literacy

Education and literacy levels in the United States in 1900 revealed both progress and persistent inequalities. The overall literacy rate among Americans aged 10 and older reached 89.3 percent, demonstrating significant educational advancement since the mid-nineteenth century when illiteracy had been far more widespread. However, this aggregate figure masked substantial disparities between different populations and regions. The white literacy rate stood at 93.8 percent, reflecting decades of investment in common schools throughout the North and growing school systems in the West, though Southern white literacy lagged behind other regions due to economic challenges following the Civil War.

In stark contrast, the nonwhite literacy rate remained at 55.5 percent, a direct consequence of slavery’s legacy, which had prohibited teaching enslaved people to read and write in most Southern states. Despite remarkable progress in the thirty-five years since slavery’s abolition, with millions of African Americans learning to read through freedmen’s schools, church programs, and public education, significant barriers remained including underfunded segregated schools, economic necessity that kept children working rather than attending school, and persistent discrimination. School attendance figures showed that approximately 71.9 percent of children aged 5 to 17, totaling about 15.5 million young people, were enrolled in school, though actual attendance varied greatly by season, region, and economic circumstances. The average student attended school for only 99 days per year, as agricultural cycles, family economic needs, and limited school infrastructure meant that many children combined education with work responsibilities, and rural schools often closed during planting and harvest seasons when children’s labor was essential for family survival.

Life Expectancy and Health Conditions in the US in 1900

Data Source: U.S. Census Bureau Historical Vital Statistics and Public Health Records

The health landscape of the United States in 1900 was dramatically different from today, with life expectancy at birth averaging only 47.3 years. This remarkably low figure, less than half of current life expectancy, reflected the harsh realities of life in an era before modern medicine, antibiotics, widespread vaccination, or comprehensive public health systems. Infectious diseases dominated as causes of death, with pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrheal diseases claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually. White Americans had a life expectancy of 47.6 years, slightly above the national average, while nonwhite Americans faced a devastating life expectancy of only 33.0 years, a shocking disparity reflecting the compounded effects of poverty, discrimination, limited access to medical care, poor living conditions, and inadequate nutrition that characterized life for most African Americans and other marginalized communities.

Infant mortality presented perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of health conditions in 1900, with approximately 165 infants dying per 1,000 live births, meaning roughly one in every six babies born that year would not survive to see their first birthday. These deaths resulted from complications during childbirth, infectious diseases, poor sanitation, contaminated food and water, and the lack of effective medical treatments. Childhood diseases that are now preventable through vaccination, including measles, diphtheria, and whooping cough, routinely killed thousands of children each year. Maternal mortality claimed the lives of approximately 850 mothers per 100,000 births, making childbirth one of the most dangerous experiences in a woman’s life. Medical care remained primitive by modern standards, with many people never seeing a doctor, relying instead on home remedies, midwives, and patent medicines of dubious effectiveness. The germ theory of disease was only beginning to be widely accepted and implemented in public health measures, sanitation systems remained inadequate in most areas, and the practice of medicine was only beginning to be professionalized with standardized training and licensing, meaning that many practitioners had minimal education and medical treatment sometimes did more harm than good.

Looking back from today’s perspective, the 1900 US population data reveals how dramatically America has transformed over the past century. The population of 76,094,000 has grown more than fourfold to exceed 330 million in 2025, with life expectancy nearly doubling, infant mortality plummeting, and educational attainment expanding remarkably. The shift from a predominantly rural, agricultural nation where 60 percent of Americans lived in the countryside to a thoroughly urbanized society where over 80 percent now live in urban and suburban areas represents one of the most fundamental transformations in American history. Similarly, the occupational structure has evolved beyond recognition, with agricultural employment falling from nearly 38 percent to less than 2 percent of the workforce.

The demographic legacy of 1900 continues to influence contemporary America in profound ways. Immigration patterns established during that era, bringing millions from Europe and Asia, created the foundation for America’s multicultural identity, while the racial disparities visible in literacy rates, life expectancy, and economic opportunities in 1900 have persisted in various forms despite significant progress. Understanding the population statistics from 1900 provides essential context for current demographic trends, including discussions about immigration policy, urban development, racial equity, and social progress. As America continues evolving in the twenty-first century, the baseline established at the turn of the twentieth century remains a crucial reference point for measuring how far the nation has come and illuminating challenges that endure, reminding us that demographic change shapes not just numbers but the lived experiences, opportunities, and futures of millions of people.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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