In his classic, Southern Politics, Key used the term “one-party factionalism” to describe the electoral politics of the South during the 1930s and 1940s: “one-party” because the Republicans offered, at best, only minimal opposition to the Democrats, and “factional” because several groups tended to vie for control of the top state offices via electoral victories in the Democratic primaries. According to Key, severe consequences accompanied one-party factionalism. In most of the southern states, primary voters could not even vote the “ins” out of office, for the competing factions were so fluid that it was never clear who, if anyone, represented the ins. The haves in southern society normally controlled government; although those in power had their differences, particularly in style, most of them agreed that the status quo needed protection. The less privileged lacked organized avenues for expressing their needs.

During the last half of the nineteenth century, major population shifts occurred throughout Western Europe, reflecting heavy international migration as well as internal movement from rural to urban places. The latter process, in particular, has been an integral part of the modernization process and was a response both to rural population pressures and to expanding opportunities in the cities. Yet the pace of urbanization was by no means uniform for different countries, in different regions of the same country, or among various subgroups within a single region or province. As a result, analyses using large geographic units or aggregated statistics may mask variations in the underlying dynamics of internal migration.

Although writers like Stephenson (1979) have questioned the assumption, many historians of immigration continue to argue that geographic mobility and levels of working-class consciousness (as expressed in trade unions, strikes, or workers’ political parties) are negatively related. In so arguing, recent studies follow the work of MacDonald and MacDonald, who claim that where migration from Italy was high, labor militance was low (MacDonald, 1963, 1958; MacDonald and MacDonald, 1964). For example, Barton (1975) and Yans-McLaughlin (1977) argue that familist southern and eastern European peasants living in fluid, complex societies were most likely to emigrate to the United States, in hopes of improving their positions in their home villages. Their familism—strong solidarity within the nuclear family and concomitant competitiveness in relations with those outside the nuclear group—discouraged voluntary associations, including participation in workers’ organization both in Italy and in the United States.

The 1980 census was a recurring “current event,” the twentieth such census since the founding of the nation in 1789. As such, the census retained echoes of its distant past, and formed part of a tradition that provides many of the guideposts or bench marks of change. It is useful, therefore, to look at the census and census taking as historical processes that illustrate the issues that have concerned past generations of Americans as they watched the development of their population, culture, and society.