Population

• Population of the United States in 1850: 23,191,876
  • White population as a percentage of the total: 84.3%
  • Black population as a percentage of the total: 15.7%²
    • Number of free Blacks in America in 1850: 434,495
    • Number of slaves: 3,204,313
  • Male population as a percentage of the total in 1850: 51.02%
    • Male population as a percentage of the white total: 51.28%
    • Male population as a percentage of the Black total: 49.78%
• Year in which races other than Black and white were first listed in the U.S. census: 1860

Birth Rate

• Average number of children born in antebellum America: 6-7
• Average number of children born in America today: about 2
• Decline in American birthrate from 1800 to 1850: 23%³

Immigration

• Number of German Jews who immigrated to America during the 19th century: 250,000 (additionally, several hundred thousand Germans, most of them Protestant, arrived in the 1850s after the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848)⁹
• Number of Chinese in America by 1860: 35,000 (most of them in the West and thousands of them at work building the rapidly spreading railroad network)¹⁰
• Number of Irish immigrants who came to America annually from 1847–1855: Over 100,000
  • Number of Irish immigrants who came in 1851: 221,000 Irish population as a percentage of the total foreign-born population in 1853: 43%

Society

• Rank of Catholicism among denominations in the United States in 1860: 1st
• Railroad
  • Miles of rail laid in the US by 1850: 9,000 (the most in the world)
  • Miles of rail laid between 1850-60: 21,000 (giving the country a larger rail network than the rest of the world combined; train wrecks soon exceeded steamboat explosions as a prime cause of accidental death)⁶
• Cities
  • Increase in proportion of Americans living in cities and towns from 1820-60: 200%⁴
  • Ratio of Americans living in cities in 1860: 1 in 6 (6.2 million out of about 30 million total)
  • Number of passengers on public transit in 1860: 70 million⁷
• Income
  
  • Increase in per capita income of American families from 1820-60: 100%
    • Average annual income for male manufacturing workers in urban New England from 1820-60: $323.25
    • in rural New England: about $303.25
    • in urban Middle Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey): $337.10
    • in rural Middle Atlantic states: $292.58⁸

Culture

• Alcohol
  • Number of distilleries in the United States in 1810: 14,000
  • Annual alcohol production of American distilleries in 1810: 25 million gallons
  • Number of Americans who drank liquor in 1810: 7 million
  • Amount of alcohol industry produced per American in 1810, including men, women, and children: 3 gallons (not counting cider, beer, or wine, so you can imagine how much the adults were drinking)¹
• Media
  • Number of newspapers (nationwide) in 1833: 1,200
  • Number of newspapers (nationwide) in 1860: 3,000⁵