The First Measured Century is a comprehensive overview of twentieth-century America. A unique feature of the book is its
presentation of key trends through more than two hundred charts with explanatory text. A companion reference volume to a PBS documentary of the same name, The First Measured Century examines one hundred years of data on diverse aspects of American life, including
population, work, education, family, living arrangements, religion, active leisure, health, money, politics, government, crime, transportation, business, and communications.
Theodore Caplow is the Commonwealth
Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. Louis Hicks is an associate professor of sociology at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Ben J. Wattenberg is a senior fellow at AEI.
Powered by massive immigration, a midcentury "baby boom," and a dramatic increase in life expectancy, the American population nearly quadrupled from 76 million in 1900 to 275 million in 2000.