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Historical Labor Statistics Project - Read Me
Historical Labor Statistics Project (HLSP)
CONTENTS 1. What Is the Historical Labor Statistics Project? 2. Formats of Data Sets and Codebooks 3. Identifying Data 4. Getting Files from this FTP Site 5. Hints on Editing ASCII Data Sets 6. Suggested Citation 7. Disclaimer 8. Acknowledgments 1. What Is the Historical Labor Statistics Project? The Historical Labor Statistics Project (HLSP) was established in August 1990. This effort is supported by the All-University of California Group in Economic History, the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Business and Economic Research in Berkeley, and the Laboratory for Historical Research in Riverside. The HLSP's first objective is to collect in machine-readable format detailed data on American labor markets selected from over 150 separate investigations undertaken between 1874 and 1920 by the Bureaus of Labor Statistics established by the governments of 29 states. To date we have collected, coded, documented, and distributed 36 data sets. Thirty-five of the data sets are cross-sectional surveys of workers with information on working conditions, living standards, family demography, and household economy. One data set contains two cross-sectional surveys of firms. For a description of the Historical Labor Statistics Project and an overview of the nature of the data contained in these data sets see: Susan B. Carter, Roger L. Ransom, and Richard Sutch, "The Historical Labor Statistics Project at the University of California," Historical Methods 24 [Spring 1991]: 52-65. We also suggest that you examine the original state labor bureau report for the data set in which you are interested. Microform reproductions of these reports are available through the interlibrary loan office of any research library. Each data set presented here is a one-hundred percent reproduction of the original. 2. Formats of Data Sets and Codebooks Data is provided in four formats: SAS Transport, Stata System, Lotus WK1 Worksheet, and ASCII. You can easily distinguish each format by looking at filename's extension as shown below: .dta --- Data sets in Stata format .dos --- Data sets in ASCII format .tpt --- Data sets in SAS transport format .wk1 --- Data sets in Lotus format The data were originally developed in Stata System format. All the other formats were transferred from Stata. Because of possible errors that may have crept in during the transfer process we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the data in non-Stata formats. If users discover problems with non-STATA data sets we suggest they try the Stata format. For the data sets in ASCII format, we have included a header in each file. The header shows the variable names and their corresponding lines. Before using the ASCII-format data sets this header must be removed. The codebooks are provided in two formats: WordPerfect 5.1 and ASCII. Their filename extension are .cdb and .asc respectively. We selected HP Laserjet Series II printer when developing these codebooks. If users retrieve codebooks into Wordperfect 5.1 with another printer driver installed, the table layouts in the codebook may look somewhat different from our original intention. The codebooks in ASCII format were derived from the WordPerfect 5.1 format. If any problem is encountered in the ASCII format, we suggest trying the WordPerfect format. 3. Identifying Data To help you identify the data sets which best meet your research needs we have provided an easy-to-use data search program called the HLSP Data Search System. This system allows you to search the complete corpus of data according to variable, codebook, state, year and subject. Each of these search methods will eventually lead to a series of screens showing all the questions asked in some particular survey. We strongly recommend you download this program first. Its file name is hlspmenu.exe. This program can only run on DOS environment. For the detailed system requirements and instruction, please read the two readme files included in hlspmenu.exe. 4. Getting Files from this FTP Site Once you have selected the data sets you want, you will need to download them and their codebooks from this ftp site. All HLSP data sets and codebooks are kept in the ftp site belonging to the Cliometric Society, housed at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. The address of the ftp site is cs.eh.net. No matter where you get this readme file, you must go to that ftp site in order to obtain the data sets, codebooks, and utility files mentioned here.
*NEW* Download with your web browser!
For users who may not be familiar with ftp
procedure, we provide the following step-by-step guide.
All users should pay particular attention to paragraph
[4]. It is required of all users of HLSP data.
[1] From your mainframe account, type:
$ftp cs.eh.net
assuming '$' is your system prompt.
[2] You will see the prompt Name:
Type:
anonymous
[3] You will see the prompt PASSWORD:. Then type:
your complete e-mail address
You should then see a cluster of greetings, concluding with the
prompt ftp>. You are now inside the ftp site. Once inside, all
the directory names and file names are case-sensitive.
[4] Type the following command to change to the subdirectory where the
HLSP files are kept:
cd pub/datasets/HLSP/
[5] To examine the directory of files type:
dir
You will see the complete set of HLSP files.
[6] Select the file you wish. Then determine
whether it is in binary format or ASCII format.
You need to know this because you must issue the
'binary' command before you can get binary files
and the 'ascii' command before you can get ASCII
files. The system default transfer mode is ascii,
therefore if you get ASCII files right after
logging in, you may omit the 'ascii' command. The
format of the files can be determined by examining
the extension. Files with .TXT, .dos, and .asc
extensions are in ASCII format. All the other
files are in binary format.
[8] Use the following commands to get the files
you have selected:
get README.TXT --- to get this readme
file. Note that the
filename is in upper case
get ks13.wk1 --- to get one file
mget k*.* --- to get all files be-
ginning with the letter
"k"
mget ks13.* --- to get all ks13 files
including data sets and
codebooks in all formats
[9] After you have transferred all the files you
want and you are ready to leave the ftp site,
type:
bye
You should return to your own system prompt.
5. Hints on Editing ASCII Data Sets
Before using the data sets in ASCII format, you may
need to remove the header (See Section 2 for more
information). To do so, you may use any text editor.
The DOS Editor will do. If some word processor, such as
Wordperfect is used, be sure to save the revised file in
ASCII text format.
Some of the data sets may be too large to fit in
your text editor. For this reason we include a shareware
named Tech-Edit 2.61 (te261.exe is a self-extracting zip
file) in the directory. This is an unregistered program.
Users can try this for the limited period of time
specified by the authors of the program. To use it for
longer than the specified period, users should register
Tech-Edit 2.61 with the authors. For more information,
please read enclosed documentation files in te261.exe.
Even with Tech-Edit 2.6, mi11.dos cannot be managed
on 386 or 486 computers with less than 8 MB of memory.
We circumvented this problem by first splitting the file.
After completing work on each of the split files we used
the same utility to re-join them. If you use Tech-Edit
2.6, we suggest splitting mi11.dos into two files; the
first should include lines 1 to 24,998, the second should
include the rest of the lines. This approach ensures
that no single case will be split apart.
6. Suggested Citation
We are providing these data sets free of charge. In
exchange, we ask that you respect the following requests:
[1] In order to evaluate the impact of our project,
we need to know who uses which data sets. To
help us to trace the users, please provide
accurate information when you write to
hlsp@eh.net for the password.
[2] Any use of the data in published reports or
working papers should appropriately
acknowledge the University of California
Historical Labor Statistics Project and cite
the relevant Codebook in its list of
references.
[3] We ask that you promptly inform us of any errors
or ambiguities uncovered in the process of
working with the data. Only if we receive
such feedback can we quickly purge the data
files of errors and update them on timely
basis.
[4] We would appreciate receiving copies of all
research memorandums, term papers, working
papers, and submitted manuscripts that use or
refer to the HLSP data. Not only will this
enable us to track usage and to inform others
of your work, but we can also alert you to any
errors detected or changes in the data. We
can also inform you of the work of others on
related topics.
[5] Please do not pass the data sets on to others
without notifying us. We are, of course, very
happy to supply any new users with the data
directly, and free of charge.
7. Disclaimer
We have made every effort to check the accuracy of
our data entry and documentation, but we cannot ensure
that our product is error-free. HLSP assumes no
responsibility for the accuracy of the data sets and
codebooks. We strongly recommend that users obtain the
original survey report publications and check our coded
data for themselves. These publications may be obtained
through the inter-library loan office of most research
libraries.
8. Acknowledgements
The Historical Labor Statistics Project is sponsored
by the National Science Foundation; the All-University of
California Group in Economic History; and the Institute
of Business and Economic Research and the Laboratory for
Historical Research, both of the University of
California. We would like to thank the Cliometric
Society, housed at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, for
technical assistance and for providing disk space in its
gopher and ftp sites.
Comments and questions may be sent to:
The Historical Labor Statistics Project
Attn: Richard Sutch
Institute of Business and Economic Research
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Susan B. Carter
Roger L. Ransom
Richard Sutch
Hongcheng Zhao